INTRODUCTION xli 



friends like Lucilius under contribution, and he insists on 

 the necessity for keeping records of observation, especially 

 when the phenomenon is comparatively rare, as a Comet 

 (274). Besides, he draws not only upon the history of 

 his country, but also upon the learning of other nations 

 Greeks, Babylonians, and Egyptians records which for the 

 most part are no longer extant. The Q.N. thus embodies 

 many out-of-the-way facts which otherwise would be 

 unknown to us. Accuracy is nearly always a relative 

 term : approximate accuracy is the most we can look for 

 in that age. Seneca's contribution of data is curious, 

 interesting, and valuable. 



Again, in arguing from facts, or supposed facts, Seneca 

 is entitled to credit for his method if not always for his 

 results. A great merit is that he endeavours to account 

 for the phenomena observed, he habitually raises the 

 causal issue, and he is not satisfied until he has passed in 

 review all the considerations involved in the observation 

 or problem. He is scrupulous in always giving the other 

 side a hearing, and in discussing views with which he 

 disagrees, even though only to reject them. On the 

 negative side he is generally fairly convincing, and succeeds 

 in showing the fallacies involved in a proposition. But 

 on the constructive side he is many times ingeniously 

 perverse, curiously blind to the inadequacy of the theories 

 which he himself advances, and which he would readily 

 have confuted in an opponent. Sometimes he adopts an 

 error already current, as old as Aristotle or older ; some- 

 times he advances a fresh one of his own. But even his 

 errors are instructive, and represent a phase of progress. 

 The line of progress is zigzag. Only after errors have 

 been exhausted does the truth emerge and advance become 

 possible. 



The amenities of ancient science seem to have been 

 somewhat scanty. A mistake, a false inference, an 

 erroneous view, is met with the lie direct. The moral 

 stigma of falsehood is, at any rate in certain instances, 

 attached to such a deviation from fact. Nor is this all. 

 The whole character must be bad if a man has " lied." 



