There was indeed nothing new in the principle; it had been recognised by Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, and other Greeks, and in a later age by Roger Bacon.
But Bodin first developed and applied it methodically.

This part of his work was ignored, and in the eighteenth century Montesquieu's speculations on the physical factors in history were applauded as a new discovery.] I have said that Bodin rejected the theory of the degeneration of man, along with the tradition of a previous age of virtue and felicity.
[Footnote: See especially Methodus, cap.v.pp.124, 130, 136.] The reason which he alleged against it is important.

The powers of nature have always been uniform.

It is illegitimate to suppose that she could at one time produce the men and conditions postulated by the theory of the golden age, and not produce them at another.

In other words, Bodin asserts the principle of the permanent and undiminishing capacities of nature, and, as we shall see in the sequel, this principle was significant.