138 AGRICULTURE. 



we are not prepared absolutely to contest its doctrine, 

 Cicero and Seneca certainly rise to our minds as stumbling- 

 blocks in the way of our according to it an unqualified 

 assent : 



" If one may be allowed the reflection, agriculture ought 

 to have been carried to greater perfection by the Romans 

 than by any other nation. The habits of the farmer's life 

 do at least as far as all experience hitherto has gone to 

 a certain extent indispose the mind for an abstract idea. 

 This was a marked want in the mental constitution of a 

 Roman. When Pilate asked What is truth ? he put a 

 question which might be cut upon brass or adamant, to 

 stand for ever as the characteristic question of a Roman. 

 The first blunder of every English schoolboy, in his early 

 attempts to translate English into Latin, is his natural 

 and simple attempt to give a direct rendering of abstract 

 terms from his own language into the other. Even the 

 word action, the most energetic, perhaps, of abstract terms 

 one could select at hazard, he would unconsciously endea- 

 vour to express in Latin by a word which, to every Roman 

 ear, would mean a sea-fight or a suit at law. An abstract 

 idea was nonsense to a Roman ; a true story, a true book, 

 or a true man would at once have found a place and a re- 

 cognized meaning in his understanding. But when the 

 Roman asked, What is truth ? the question was not parti- 

 cular, but generic : it applied to the whole catalogue of 

 abstract ideas; to that entire department of the human 

 mind which is able to reflect upon itself, and express 

 thought separate from objects." 



We must confess that this goes beyond us. Two and 

 two are four. No idea can be more " abstract," no thought 

 can be more " separate from objects." Does Mr. Hoskyus 

 really mean that this idea was " nonsense to a Roman "? 



The only portion of ancient agriculture with respect to 

 which Mr. Hoskyns gives us any material information that 

 is not contained in Dickson's work, is that of Egypt. 

 Even that section, however, comprises nothing more than 



