You only obtain anything by developing the spirit of discipline among men."[5] But there are ages of criticism when discipline is impossible, and the evils of isolation are less than the evils of rash and premature organisation.

Fontenelle was the first and in some respects the greatest type of this important class.

He was sceptical, learned, ingenious, eloquent.

He stretched hands (1657-1757) from the famous quarrel between Ancients and Moderns down to the Encyclopaedia, and from Bossuet and Corneille down to Jean Jacques and Diderot.

When he was born, the man of letters did not exist.