- Harvey Pierce's
Supererogation.
"For my part," I continued, "I consider this mutability of language
a wise precaution of Providence for the benefit of the world at large,
and of authors in particular. To reason from analogy, we daily behold
the varied and beautiful tribes of vegetables springing up,
flourishing, adorning the fields for a short time, and then fading
into dust, to make way for their successors. Were not this the case,
the fecundity of nature would be a grievance instead of a blessing.
The earth would groan with rank and excessive vegetation, and its
surface become a tangled wilderness. In like manner the works of
genius and learning decline, and make way for subsequent productions.
Language gradually varies, and with it fade away the writings of
authors who have flourished their allotted time; otherwise, the
creative powers of genius would overstock the world, and the mind
would be completely bewildered in the endless mazes of literature.
Formerly there were some restraints on this excessive multiplication.
Works had to be transcribed by hand, which was a slow and laborious
operation; they were written either on parchment, which was expensive,
so that one work was often erased to make way for another; or on
papyrus, which was fragile and extremely perishable. Authorship was a
limited and unprofitable craft, pursued chiefly by monks in the
leisure and solitude of their cloisters.
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