Les historiens n'ignorent pas la lenteur de l'évolution des esprits dans le monde pré-industriel, mais ne la mesurent pas toujours exactement. Un brillant article de Jean Céard a montré récemment toute la richesse d'un débat sur les géants qui mobilisa les théologiens, les savants et les gens de lettres et qui, bien loin de s'achever au début du XVIIe siècle, comme le suggérait l'auteur, se poursuivit jusqu'à la création de la paléontologie, dans les premières années du XIXe siècle.

Belief in giants originally inhabiting the entire earth (in pursuance ofthe old idea of nature's degeneration), or a part ofit, is far from dying out, as is throught to be the case at the beginning of the 17th century. Grounded on the Bible and a great number of classic authors, from Homer to Saint Augustin, and supported by the constant discovery of gigantic bones in the earth, the belief is maintained among many individuals right up to the end of the 18th century. Even though the true animai origin of thèse remains appeared obvious as from Antiquity, no scientific proof of the fact was to be had in the modem sensé before Cuvier. For centuries, believers and sceptics debated without coming to any décision, giants being credited by many clergymen, trying to defend the documentary truth of the Scriptures ail the more as Church authority was on the wane since the end ofthe 17th century.