78 



admit of the interpretation of antient results by modern laws 

 and theories. Once in firm possession of such laws, we enclose 

 the old phenomena, so to speak, in a field to which are only 

 such and such possible avenues, and thus can sometimes 

 declare the very mode by which the alchymist was led to his 

 golden error, and the Chalda^an shepherds to brighter truths. 

 Without this principle of interpretation, many almost modern 

 writers, nay authors of this very century, can sometimes not be 

 understood. The laws of modern Geology and Zoology — for 

 such there are, and well-founded too — are as much required to 

 put a true construction on some of the writings of Lister and 

 Linnaeus, as the methods of Ray, Linnaeus, and Cuvier are 

 required for the just estimation of Aristotle. We shall probably 

 find the darkest pages of antiquity to be precisely those which 

 refer to subjects where our own knowledge is least clear, least 

 collected into laws of phenomena, and most removed from laws 

 of causation. Ought we not, before declaiming on the ignorance 

 of the Antients, to be careful to make allowance for the differ- 

 ences of form in which knowledge presents itself at different 

 periods, as well as for the incompleteness of their records, and 

 the imperfection of our interpretations ? 



Pliny's Natural History appears to me to be precisely in the 

 position of difliculty which has been already alluded to. Its 

 vastness, variety, and seeming disorder, may well deter the 

 most comprehensive master of modern science from duly 

 weighing its mass, or even measuring its surface ', and the 

 evident incompleteness and almost haphazard character of its 

 chapters are apt to disgust the student of special branches of 

 science and art. Yet, probably, if for each important branch of 

 human knowledge handled by Pliny, a special editor were set 

 to work — well versed in the philosophy of his subject — Pliny 

 would take a higher degree on examination, and the history of 

 human knowledge be amended. 



From the 37 books of diffuse and erudite learning, the gen- 

 uine work of Pliny the Elder, let us fix on the part which treats 

 of the nature of metals, and passing over his lamentations on 

 the useless excess of gold and silver — which may be recom- 



