And the heart of the shepherd _rejoices_; where the verb _gaethaese_ is in the indefinite or aorist tense, and is meant to indicate a condition of feeling not limited to any time whatever--past, present, or future. In Latin, the force and elegance of this usage are equally impressive, if not more so. At this moment, I remember two cases of this in Horace:- - 1. "Rarò antecedentem scelestum _Deseruit_ pede poena claudo;" 2. "saepe Diespiter Neglectus incesto _addidit_ integrum." That is--"oftentimes the supreme ruler, when treated with neglect, confounds or unites (not _has united_, as the tyro might fancy) the impure man with the upright in one common fate." Exceedingly common is this usage in Latin poetry, when the object is to generalize a remark--as not connected with one mode of time more than another. In reality, all three modes of time--past, present, future--are used (though not equally used) in all languages for this purpose of generalization. Thus,-- 1. The _future_; as, Sapiens dominabitur astris; 2. The _present_; as, Fortes fortuna juvat; 3. The _past_; as in the two cases cited from Horace. But this practice holds equally in English: as to the future and the present, nobody will doubt it; and here is a case from the past: "The fool _hath said_ in his heart, There is no God;" not meaning, that in some past time he has said so, but that generally in all times he _does_ say so, and _will_ say so. [17] "_Too obstinate a preconception_."--Until the birth of geology, and fossil paleontology, concurring with vast strides ahead in the science of comparative anatomy, it is a well-established fact, that oftentimes the most scientific museum admitted as genuine fragments of the human osteology what in fact belonged to the gigantic brutes of our earth in her earliest stages of development. This mistake would go some way in accounting for the absurd disposition in all generations to view themselves as abridged editions of their forefathers. Added to which, as a separate cause of error, there can be little doubt, that intermingled with the human race there has at most periods of the world been a separate and Titanic race, such as the Anakim amongst the peoples of Palestine, the Cyclopean race diffused over the Mediterranean in the elder ages of Greece, and certain tribes amongst the Alps, known to Evelyn in his youth (about Cromwell's time) by an unpleasant travelling experience. These gigantic races, however, were no arguments for a degeneration amongst the rest of mankind. They were evidently a variety of man, coexistent with the ordinary races, but liable to be absorbed and gradually lost by intermarriage amongst other tribes of the ordinary standard. Occasional exhumations of such Titan skeletons would strengthen the common prejudice. They would be taken, not for a local variety, but for an antediluvian or prehistoric type, from which the present races of man had arisen by gradual degeneration.