Sometimes the effort is successful for a time; and then a return is
made to the old and true theory. These innovators are serious about
nothing but their own precious self: it is this that they want to put
forward, and the quick way of doing so, as they think, is to start a
paradox. Their sterile heads take naturally to the path of negation;
so they begin to deny truths that have long been admitted--the vital
power, for example, the sympathetic nervous system, _generatio
equivoca_, Bichat's distinction between the working of the passions
and the working of intelligence; or else they want us to return to
crass atomism, and the like. Hence it frequently happens that _the
course of science is retrogressive._
To this class of writers belong those translators who not only
translate their author but also correct and revise him; a proceeding
which always seems to me impertinent. To such writers I say: Write
books yourself which are worth translating, and leave other people's
works as they are!
The reader should study, if he can, the real authors, the men who
have founded and discovered things; or, at any rate, those who are
recognized as the great masters in every branch of knowledge. Let him
buy second-hand books rather than read their contents in new ones.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30