Yolo - The Poem

t has been observed, that a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant will see farther than the giant himself; and the moderns, standing as they do on the vantage ground of former discoveries, and uniting all the fruits of the experience of their forefathers with their own actual observation, may be admitted to enjoy a more enlarged and comprehensive view of things than the ancients themselves; for that alone is true antiquity * which embraces the antiquity of the world, and not that which would refer us back to a period when the world was young. But by whom is this true antiquity enjoyed? Not by the ancients who did live in the infancy, but by the moderns who do live in the maturity of things. Therefore, as regards the age of the world, we may lay a juster claim to the title of being the ancients, even than our forefathers themselves; for they inhabited the world when it was young, but we occupy it now that it is old. Therefore, that precedent may not exert too despotic a rule over experience, and that the dead may not too strictly govern the living, may I be pardoned in taking a brief and cursory view of the claims of the ancients to our veneration, so far as they are built on the only proper foundation,—superiority of mind? But it is by no means my object to lessen our esteem for those great men who have lived before us, and who have accomplished such wonders, considering the scantiness of their means; my intention is merely to suggest that the veneration due to times that are past is a Hind veneration, the moment it is paid at the expense of times that are present; for as these very ancients themselves were once the moderns, so we moderns must also become the ancients in our turn. What I would principally contend for is, that the moderns enjoy a much more extended and comprehensive view of science than the ancients; not because we have greater capacities, but simply because we enjoy far greater capabilities; for that which is perfect in science, is most