"David Hume - Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hume David)

produced its several artists and philosophers, who refused to
yield the preference to those of the neighbouring republics:
Their contention and debates sharpened the wits of men: A
variety of objects was presented to the judgment, while each
challenged the preference to the rest: and the sciences, not
being dwarfed by the restraint of authority, were enabled to
make such considerable shoots, as are, even at this time, the
objects of our admiration. After the Roman christian, or
catholic church had spread itself over the civilized world,
and had engrossed all the learning of the times; being really
one large state within itself, and united under one head; this
variety of sects immediately disappeared, and the Peripatetic
philosophy was alone admitted into all the schools, to the
utter depravation of every kind of learning. But mankind,
having at length thrown off this yoke, affairs are now
returned nearly to the same situation as before, and Europe is
at present a copy at large, of what Greece was formerly a
pattern in miniature. We have seen the advantage of this
situation in several instances. What checked the progress of
the Cartesian philosophy, to which the French nation shewed
such a strong propensity towards the end of the last century,
but the opposition made to it by the other nations of Europe,
who soon discovered the weak sides of that philosophy? The
severest scrutiny, which Newton's theory has undergone,
proceeded not from his own countrymen, but from foreigners;
and if it can overcome the obstacles, which it meets with at
present in all parts of Europe, it will probably go down
triumphant to the latest posterity. The English are become
sensible of the scandalous licentiousness of their stage, from
the example of the French decency and morals. The French are
convinced, that their theatre has become somewhat effeminate,
by too much love and gallantry; and begin to approve of the
more masculine taste of some neighbouring nations.

In China, there seems to be a pretty considerable stock of
politeness and science, which, in the course of so many
centuries, might naturally be expected to ripen into some
thing more perfect and finished, than what has yet arisen from
them. But China is one vast empire, speaking one language,
governed by one law, and sympathizing in the same manners. The
authority of any teacher, such as Confucius, was propagated
easily from one corner of the empire to the other. None had
courage to resist the torrent of popular opinion. And
posterity was not bold enough to dispute what had been
universally received by their ancestors. This seems to be one
natural reason, why the sciences have made so slow a progress
in that mighty empire.[4]

If we consider the face of the globe, Europe, of all the four
parts of the world, is the most broken by seas, rivers, and