Blue Book pg 607 #9

What is wrong about answer [A]? I thought the reference to the eighteenth century also implied that moral critique was a long-standing tradition. Is my understanding of “tradition” incorrect, maybe?

Two things:

1. We don’t generally consider the 18th century to be “early civilization.” That’d be more like Ancient Greece.
2. While you might argue that such moral critiques are a tradition, choice A does not key into the important word vain in the passage. “The vain warnings” suggests that those warnings weren’t so valid then (they were about novels—who’s afraid of novels?), and they’re still not valid now.