To reason from
analogy, we daily behold the varied and beautiful tribes of
vegetables springing up, flourishing, adorning the fields for a
short time, and then fading into dust, to make way for their
successors. Were not this the case, the fecundity of nature would
be a grievance instead of a blessing. The earth would groan with
rank and excessive vegetation, and its surface become a tangled
wilderness. In like manner, the works of genius and learning
decline and make way for subsequent productions. Language
gradually varies, and with it fade away the writings of authors
who have flourished their allotted time; otherwise the creative
powers of genius would overstock the world, and the mind would be
completely bewildered in the endless mazes of literature.
Formerly there were some restraints on this excessive
multiplication. Works had to be transcribed by hand, which was a
slow and laborious operation; they were written either on
parchment, which was expensive, so that one work was often erased
to make way for another; or on papyrus, which was fragile and
extremely perishable. Authorship was a limited and unprofitable
craft, pursued chiefly by monks in the leisure and solitude of
their cloisters.
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