for our happiness, people may be disgusted with the 
     sciences, and that a fatal despair may cause them to fall 
     back into barbarism. To which result that horrible mass of 
     books which keeps on growing might contribute very 
     much. For in the end the disorder will become nearly 
     insurmountable; the indefinite multitude of authors will 
     shortly expose them all to the danger of general oblivion; 
     the hope of glory animating many people at work in 
     studies will suddenly cease; it will be perhaps as 
     disgraceful to be an author as it was formerly honorable. 
     At best, one may amuse himself with little books of the 
     hour which will run their course in a few years and will 
     serve to divert a reader from boredom for a few moments, 
     but which will have been written without any design to 
     promote our knowledge or to deserve the appreciation of 
     posterity. I shall be told that since so many people write it