Obscurity and clearness are relative terms: to some
readers scarce any book is easy, to others not many
are difficult: and surely they, whom neither any
exuberant praise bestowed by others, nor any eminent
conquests over stubborn problems, have entitled to
exalt themselves above the common orders of mankind,
might condescend to imitate the candour of
Socrates; and where they find incontestable proofs
of superior genius, be content to think that there is
justness in the connexion which they cannot trace,
and cogency in the reasoning which they cannot
comprehend.
This diffidence is never more reasonable than in
the perusal of the authors of antiquity; of those
whose works have been the delight of ages, and
transmitted as the great inheritance of mankind
from one generation to another: surely, no man can,
without the utmost arrogance, imagine that he
brings any superiority of understanding to the perusal
of these books which have been preserved in the
devastations of cities, and snatched up from the
wreck of nations; which those who fled before
barbarians have been careful to carry off in a hurry of
migration, and of which barbarians have repented
the destruction.
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