It is true that men themselves made this world of nations... but this world without doubt has issued from a mind often diverse, at times quite contrary, and always superior to the particular ends that men had proposed to themselves.
Giambattista VicoMetaphysics abstracts the mind from the senses, and the poetic faculty must submerge the whole mind in the senses. Metaphysics soars up to universals, and the poetic faculty must plunge deep into particulars.
Giambattista VicoThe nature of peoples is first crude, then severe, then benign, then delicate, finally dissolute.
Giambattista Vico