X SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS. 



VIII. Retrospect. — Multiplicity and intimate connection of the scieii 

 tific efforts of recent times. The history of the physical sciences be. 

 comes gradually associated with the history of the Cosmos 



Page 352-350 



SPECIAL SUMMARY. 



A.. Means of Incitement to the Study of Nature p. 19-2 1 



I. Poetic Delineation of Nature. — The principal results of observation 

 refen'ing to a purely objective mode of treating a scientific description 

 of nature have already been ti-eated of in the picture of nature ; we 

 noW; therefore, proceed to consider the reflection of the image con- 

 veyed by the external senses to the feelings and a poetically-framed 

 imagination. The mode of feeling appertaining to the Greeks and Ro- 

 mans. On the z-eproach advanced against these nations having enter- 

 tained a less vivid sentiment for nature. The expression of such a sen- 

 timent is more rare among them, solely in consequence of natural 

 descriptions being used as mere accessories in the great forms of lyric 

 and epic poetry, and all things being brought in the ancient Hellenic 

 forms of art within the sphere of humanity, and being made subservi- 

 ent to it. Pagans to Spring, Homer, Hesiod. Tragic authors: frag- 

 ments of a lost work of Aristotle. Bucolic poetry, Nonnus, Anthology — 

 p. 27. Romans; Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Lucilius the younger. 

 A subsequent period, in which the poetic element appears only as an 

 incidental adornment of thought; the Mosella, a poem of Ausonius. 

 Roman prose writers; Cicero in his letters, Tacitus, Pliny. Descrip- 

 tion of Roman villas — p. 38. Changes in the mode of feeling and in 

 ""heir representation produced by the diffusion of Christianity and by 

 an anchorite life. Minucius Felix in Octavius. Passages taken from 

 the writings of the Fathers of the Church : Basil the Great in the wil- 

 derness on the Armenian river Iris, Gregory Nyssa, Chrysostora. Mel- 

 ancholy and sentimental tone of feeling — p. 38-43. Influence of the 

 difl'erence of races manifested in the different tone of feeling pervading 

 the natural descriptions of the nations of Hellenic, Italian, North Ger 

 manic, Semitic, Persian, and Indian descent. The florid poetic litera- 

 ture of the three last-named races shows that the animated feeling for 

 nature evinced by the North Germanic races is not alone to be ascx'ibed 

 to a long deprivation of all enjoyment of natui'e through a protracted 

 winter. The opinions of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm on the chivalric 

 poetiy of the Minnesingers and of the German animal epos ; Celto-Irish 

 descriptions of natm'e — p. 48. East and west Arian nations (Indiana 

 and Persians). The Ramayana and Mahabharata; Sakuntala and Ka- 

 lidasa's Messenger of Clouds. Pei'sian literature in the Iranian High- 

 lands does not ascend beyond the period of the Sassanidte — p. 54. (A 

 fragment of Tlieodor Goldstlicker.) Finnish epic and songs, collected 

 by Elias Lonnrot from the lips of the Karelians — p. 56. Aramseic na- 

 tions : natural poetry of the Hebrews, in which we trace the reflection 

 of Monotheism — p. 57-60. Ancient Arabic poetry. Descriptions in 

 Antar of the Bedouin life in the desert. Descriptions of nature in Am- 

 ru'l Kais — p. 61. After the downfall of the Aramceic, Greek, and Ro- 

 man power, there appears Dante Alighieri, whose poetic creations 

 breathe from time to time the deepest sentiment of admiration for the 

 terrestrial life of nature. Petrarch, Boiardo, and Vittoiia Colonna. 

 The ^-Etna Dialogus and the picturesque delineation of the luxuriant 

 vegetation of the New World in the HistoricE Venetce of Bembo. Chris, 

 topher Columbus — p. 66. Cainoens's Lusiad — p. 68. Spanish poe- 



