3 i6 PHYSICAL SCIENCE 



ness, we are encouraged to advance, not by any hope of 

 gain, but by the wonder with which the inquiry fills the 

 soul. To obtain a knowledge of Nature is the highest 

 reward to which the mind of man can aspire (230, 304). 

 Seneca s practical conclusion was thus much the same as 

 that of Lucretius. He does not, however, attempt in this 

 volume to enforce it with the solemn earnestness shown 

 by the poet, though he loses no opportunity of inveighing 

 against the follies and vices of his time. In discussing 

 natural phenomena his first desire is to explain them, and 

 in so doing to animadvert on the explanations of previous 

 writers, with perhaps a not unnatural wish to show his 

 own ability as a critic and expositor. 



It was in due accordance with the principles of his 

 school, as well as with his own natural temperament, that 

 Seneca should continually be led to draw ethical lessons 

 from the physical phenomena which he discussed. The 

 interpolation of some of these reflections may occasionally 

 seem to a modern reader rather irrelevant and far-fetched, 

 but there can be no question as to the spirit of reverence 

 with which he approached his subject. Like other philo 

 sophers who had preceded him, he maintained this spirit, 

 while at the same time he had discarded the crowded and 

 confused polytheism of the prevalent mythology. But he 

 here keeps this antagonism in due restraint, only occasion 

 ally expressing his dissent from the popular creed. He 

 would not admit that even the old philosophers could 

 have been so foolish as to credit the gods with some of 

 the acts which had been popularly attributed to them. 

 He refused to believe that the guardian and ruler of the 

 Universe hurled thunderbolts with his own hand. Still 

 less could he suppose that the gods had lighter bolts with 

 which they amused themselves in play. His expression 

 (fulminibus lusoriis, 91) recalls the bitter irony of Lucretius 

 and the sarcasm of his question whether, when the gods 

 aim at lonely places or at the sea, they are only at 

 practice to strengthen their arms. 1 But Seneca held with 

 Lucretius that in the contemplation of nature we obtain 



1 an turn bracchia consuescvmt firmantque lacertos? vi. 397. 



