Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c10.4

c10.4

To establish an intercourse with the learned of different nations, and to unite their collective force in surmounting the difficulties of art, and extending the boundaries of knowledge, were the primary motives of the first institutors of the royal societies of London and Paris; they knew that science would become the easier as its generality increased, and were conscious of the vast advantages that would arise from the auxiliary support of antiquity in the investigation of truth: Convinced of the veracity of this principle, the antiquarians of Europe were at immense expences in collecting medals, and taking the draughts and dimensions of the Greek, Roman, Palmyrean and Egyptian antiquities; and though much greater advantages may be expected from those collections hereafter, when more generally known, yet even the improvements derived from them already in the single article of architecture have more than compensated the expence, and may fully be considered as a national advantage, whether we respect their utility, duration, conveniency or elegance.