?^66 



NATURE 



[May 12, 1910 



of the Stoics, particularly in ethics. It was in ethics 

 that his. deepest interest lay. Even in a physical 

 treatise like the " Quaestiones Naturales," he often 

 breaks off a scientific discussion in order to improve 

 the occasion by an outburst of orthodox morality d la 

 Mr. Barlow, in which he chastens the excesses of the 

 fashionable society of his day with a gusto that 

 vividly recalls the sermons of a modern fashionable 

 preacher, and with all the energy of an itinerant 

 ti'.b-thumper. In fact, so pure is his puritanism, so 

 moral the morality of his denunciations, that one is 

 almost tempted to disbelieve the known facts of his 

 biography. But if his Stoicism is thus perhaps sus- 

 pect, no similar accusation can be brought against 

 his honesty as a man of science. "There is con- 

 siderable internal evidence in the ' Qusestiones 

 Naturales,'" says his translator, "that his pursuit of 

 such studies was in part an outcome of the true 

 scientific spirit, and that he possessed in no ordinary 

 degree the scientific imagination." He was also an 

 eclectic in his views about the material world, be- 

 lieving it to be built up out of the four elements- 

 fire, air, earth, and water— of Empedocles, Plato, and 

 Aristotle. But he rejected the fifth Aristotelian ele- 

 ment, oh'TM, the immaterial quinta essentia so 

 misconcoived by mediaeval philosophers, and he did 

 not hesitate to part company with the Stoics when- 

 ever he felt inclined to disagree with their views. Of 

 training as a man of science Seneca had none, for 

 none was available in his day. 



No doubt the " Quaestiones Naturales," or " Physical 

 Inquiries," were written about and after the year 

 60 A.D., not long before Seneca's, suicide was ordered 

 by Nero; they are in a semi-epistolary style, and 

 dedicated to his friend Lucilius. Their text has 

 suffered much in the process of transmission through 

 the ages; none of the MSS. is earlier than the 

 twelfth century, and much ingenuity has been exer- 

 cised by their editors (most recently bv Prof. Gercke, 

 of Breslau) in rearranging the various portions of 

 the work into the order and form in which Seneca 

 may be supposed to have left them. Originally the 

 work consisted of eight books, two of which, probably 

 ii. and iii., have now become fused into the present 

 book iv. Most of it is taken up with meteorological 

 questions, and consists of discussions as to the nature 

 of meteors, the rainbow, thunder and lightning, winds 

 and the atmosphere, snow, hail, and rain. One book 

 is devoted to the forms of water, another to earth- 

 quakes, a third to comets. Seneca's general method 

 is to state what is known or asserted about the 

 phenomenon he is describing, and to give a critical 

 discussion of the explanations — for it is chiefly in the 

 explanations that he is interested— it has received, 

 and, finally, to state and establish his own view about 

 its causation. 



The science of the ancients rarely advanced beyond 

 ■the rudimentary stages for two main reasons. The 

 first is the difficulty they always had in understanding 

 that accurate observation and reasoned experiment 

 were either necessary or desirable. The second is the 

 facility with which their nimble minds sought refuge 

 from this hard world of facts in speculation. To them 

 NO. 2115, VOL. 83] 



a theory was as good as a fact, and a theory weighted 

 with the authority of some great philosopher was 

 better than many facts. The chief merit of Senec.-i 

 as a man of science lies in his recognition of thu 

 importance of observation, and of the use of common 

 sense in the interpretation of the observed facts of 

 nature. It is true that many of his observations wen 

 faulty, many of his explanations were based on false 

 analogy, many of his arguments are illogical or even 

 ridiculous when viewed in the light of modern know- 

 ledge ; but in these matters he merely suffered from, 

 the disabilities of his age, and his shortcomings are 

 not to be too hardly judged. 



The style of the " Quaestiones Naturales " is that of 

 the polished orator and rhetorician. Seneca addresses- 

 Lucilius directly, and in t\\^ heat of argument he 

 often sets up and argues with scientific men of straw 

 whose duty is to advance views foredoomed to de- 

 molition. The text, as we have seen, is full of 

 uncertainties and corruptions, but it has been very 

 happily treated by its translator. The English ver- 

 sion is most readable, and gives a first-rate reproduc- 

 tion of the varied style, the oratorical questions, the 

 irony, the sarcasm, the occasional poetic afflatus, with 

 which Seneca animated what might have been in 

 other hands a heavy didactic exegesis. Mr. Clarke's 

 skill as a translator is particularly evident in the suc- 

 cess with which he has broken up into reasonable 

 fragments the often long and involved sentences o 

 the Latin original. Again, Seneca's habit was to 

 employ important words — " aer " and "spiritus," for 

 example — in several different senses, and, conversely, 

 to express a single idea, such as that of the atmosphere,, 

 by a variety of different words in different contexts. 

 The translator appears to be singularly successful in. 

 conveying what was Seneca's real meaning in thest 

 numerous and difficult passages. In conclusion, it 

 may be added that Sir Archibald Geikie's valuable 

 notes, which take the form of a running commentar> 

 on the seven books, and are given at the end of tht 

 translation, are of great assistance in the apprecia- 

 tion of Seneca's attainments and limitations. They 

 are written from the point of view of modern 

 science, and do much to show how and why he so 

 often fell into scientific error. The book is well got 

 up and indexed, and may be cordially recommended 

 to all who are interested in Seneca, in the art of trans- 

 lation, or in the history of science. A. J. J.-B. 



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