The Complete Essays

by Michel de Montaigne

Just as we vainly conclude today that the world is declining into decrepitude using arguments drawn from our own decline and decadence – Jamque adeo affecta est ætas, affectaque tellus [Our age lacks vigour now: even the soil is less abundant]29 – so that same poet concluded that the world was yet newly born and young, from the vigour of the minds of his day, fertile in new inventions and the creation of various arts: Verum, ut opinor, habet novitatem summa, recensque Natura est mundi, neque pridem exordia cæpit: Quare etiam quœdam nunc artes expoliuntur, Nunc etiam augescunt, nunc addita navigiis sunt Multa. [In my opinion our universe is new; the origin of the world is recent: it is but newly born. That is why some arts are still developing nowadays and growing still; the art of navigation is even now progressing.]