[…] the comparative degree, in such kind of speaking, being usually taken for a diminuent term.

Actually, no. The scientists and scholars Heartland is assembling are not members of the gloom-and-doom chorus.

Nanny Broome was looking up at the outer wall. Just under the ceiling there were three lunette windows, heavily barred and blacked out in the normal way by centuries of grime. Their bases were on a level with the pavement outside, a narrow way which was several feet lower than the road behind the house.

Also the 'Athenian society' requires that this actual world exemplifies a certain systematic scheme, amid which 'Athenianism' is realizable.