ROME: VITRUVIUS 41 



orbits. In the main, however, this work is an attempt 

 to find a basis for ethics in natural phenomena. Sen- 

 eca was a Stoic, as Lucretius was an Epicurean, 

 moralist. 



When we glance back at the culture, or cultures, 

 of the great peoples of antiquity, Egyptian, Baby- 

 lonian, Greek, and Roman, that which had its center 

 on the_banks of the Tiber_ojfers the closest analogy 

 to our own. Among English-speaking peoples as 

 among the Romans there is noticeable a certain con- 

 tempt for scientific studies strangely mingled with 

 an inclination to exploit all theory in the interest of 

 immediate application. An English author, writing 

 in 1834, remarks that the Romans, eminent in war, 

 in polite literature, and civil policy, showed at all 

 times a remarkable indisposition to the pursuit of 

 mathematical and physical science. Geometry and 

 astronomy, so highly esteemed by the Greeks, were 

 not merely disregarded by the Italians, but even con- 

 sidered beneath the attention of a man of good birth 

 and liberal education ; they were imagined to partake 

 of a mechanical, and therefore servile, character. " The 

 results were seen to be made use of by the mechani- 

 cal artist, and the abstract principles were therefore 

 supposed to be, as it were, contaminated by his touch. 

 This unfortunate peculiarity in the taste of his coun- 

 trymen is remarked by Cicero. And it may not be 

 irrelevant to inquire, whether similar prejudices do 

 not prevail to some extent even among ourselves." 

 To Americans also must be attributed an impatience 

 of theory as theory, and a predominant interest in the 

 applications of science. 



