An ancient account of progress beside an ancient indictment of sacrifice
There is no tradition of progress; but the whole human race has a tradition of the Fall.
Taken literally, the denial of a tradition of progress overlooks Lucretius. At the end of Book V of On the Nature of Things, he explains the development of navigation, agriculture, laws, clothing and art through accumulated practice and experience (5.1448–1457). This is technical and cultural development, not a guarantee that later people are happier or morally better. Nevertheless, it is an ancient account of human advancement that does not begin with a lost perfection. The poem belongs to the first century BCE; the inspected English witness is Cyril Bailey's translation, first published in 1910, in the scanned reprint reproduced by the Online Library of Liberty. Book V, printed p. 234.
The comparison is unusually close because Lucretius also retells Iphigenia's sacrifice, naming her Iphianassa, as an indictment of religion (1.80–101). Horror at that story therefore does not uniquely support Chesterton's reconstruction: an ancient materialist uses the same horror against religious authority. This is a counterexample and a rival reading, not evidence that Chesterton was consciously answering Lucretius. Book I, printed pp. 29–30.
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