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,
That the change is less real than apparent, and that the modern Romans prudently conceal in themselves the virtues of their ancestors.
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).