The abbé Dubos, who, with less genius than his
successor Montesquieu, has asserted and magnified the
influence of climate, objects to himself the degeneracy of
the Romans and Batavians. To the first of these examples he
replies,
1. That the change is less real than apparent, and that the modern Romans prudently conceal in themselves the
virtues of their ancestors.
2. That the air, the soil, and
the climate of Rome have suffered a great and visible
alteration ( Reflexions sur la Poesie et sur la Peinture,
part ii. sect. 16).