Institutio Oratoria

Why, then, is it a crime for us to discover something new? Were primitive men led to make so many discoveries simply by the natural force of their imagination, and shall we not then be spurred on to search for novelty by the very knowledge that those who sought of old were rewarded by success?

And seeing that they, who had none to teach them anything, have handed down such store of knowledge to posterity, shall we refuse to employ the experience which we possess of some things, to discover yet other things, and possess nought that is not owed to the beneficent activity of others? Shall we follow the example of those painters whose sole aim is to be able to copy pictures by using the ruler and the measuring rod? [*]( The reference is to copying by dividing the surface of the picture to be copied, and of the material on which the copy is to be made, into a number of equal squares. )

It is a positive disgrace to be content to owe all our achievement to imitation. For what, I ask again, would have been the result if no one had done more than his predecessors? Livius Andronicus [*]( Livius Andronicus, a slave from Tareotum, was the founder of Latin poetry. He translated the Odyssey, and produced the first Latin comedy and tragedy composed in Greek metres (240 B.C.) ) would mark our supreme achievement in poetry and the annals of the Pontifices [*]( The Annales Maximi kept by the Pontifex Maximus, containing the list of the consul and giving a curt summary of the events of each consulate. ) would be our ne plus ultra in history. We