564 COSMOS. 



whole of antiquity nothing similar had been attempted, and, 

 although the work grew, from the nature of the undertaking, 

 into a species of encyclopaedia of nature and art (the author 

 himself, in his dedication to Titus, not scrupling to apply to 

 his work the then more noble Greek expression eyKUKAon-atSaa, 

 or conception and popular sphere of universal knowledge), yet 

 it must be admitted that, notwithstanding the deficiency of an 

 internal connection amongst the different parts of which the 

 whole is composed, it presents the plan of a physical descrip- 

 tion of the universe. 



The Historia Naturalis of Pliny, entitled in the tabular 

 view which forms what is known as the first book, Historia 

 Idundi, and in a letter of his nephew to his friend Macer still 

 more aptly, Naturce Historia, embraces both the heavens and 

 the earth, the position and course of the heavenly bodies, the 

 meteorological processes of the atmosphere, the form of the 

 earth's surface, and all terrestrial objects, from the vegetable 

 mantle with which the land is covered, and the mollusca of the 

 ocean, up to mankind. Man is considered, according to the 

 variety of his mental dispositions and his exaltation of these 

 spiritual gifts, in the development of the noblest creations of art. 

 I have here enumerated the elements of a general knowledge of 

 nature which lie scattered irregularly throughout different 

 parts of the work. "The path on which I am about to 

 enter," says Pliny, with a noble self-confidence, " is untrodden 

 (non trita auctoribus via], no one amongst my own country- 

 men, or amongst the Greeks, has as yet attempted to treat of 

 the whole of nature under its character of universality (nemo 

 apud Grcecos qui unus omnia tractaverit). If my undertaking 

 should not succeed, it is, at any rate, both beautiful and noble 

 (pulchnim atque magnificum) to have made the attempt." 



A grand and single image floated before the mind of the 

 intellectual author, but suffering his attention to be distracted 

 by specialities, and wanting the living contemplation of nature, 

 he was unable to hold fast this image. The execution was 

 incomplete, not merely from a superficiality of views, and a 

 want of knowledge of the objects to be treated of (here we, of 

 course, can only judge of the portions that have come down to 

 us), but also from an erroneous mode of arrangement. We 

 discover in the author the busy and occupied man of rank, 

 who prided himself on his wakefulness and nocturnal labours, 



