INTRODUCTION xliii 



In Physics even more than in Ethics he was an Eclectic ; 

 he criticises freely, and occasionally rejects entirely, the 

 opinions of his own school, the Stoics, at one point going 

 so far as to call them silly (181, cf. 295). He claims 

 authority, too, for his own research, and asserts the right to 

 hypothesise for himself: he is hopeful, if not certain, of 

 discovery (304). He frequently quotes rival opinions 

 without indicating his own. He is familiar with conflict- 

 ing theories which he does not attempt, or fails in his 

 attempt, to harmonise. And in the end one is tempted 

 to ask whether he himself had reached any consistent 

 comprehensive cosmical scheme. There is much that is 

 quaint and interesting and ingenious, but it seems doubt- 

 ful whether an attempt to construct from the Q.N. a 

 complete cosmology would in the end repay the labour. 

 The scheme might prove self-contradictory ; it would in 

 any case be full of error, and there would in no case be 

 the assurance that it was all Seneca's own. This seems 

 sufficient reason for declining the task. If one care to 

 pursue it further, helpful information may be obtained 

 from Bernhardt's brochure (Die Anschauung, etc.} already 

 referred to, while a discussion of the whole subject will 

 be found in Crousle's Thesis, written in Latin, De L, 

 Annaei Senecae Nat. Quaest., which for fulness and fair- 

 ness leaves nothing to be desired. 1 In the Commentary 

 and Notes at the end of the volume Seneca's scientific 

 opinions and methods are discussed by Sir Archibald 

 Geikie. 



V. SOME OF SENECA'S PREDECESSORS AND 

 CONTEMPORARIES 



The history of ancient Science is a very tangled and 

 abstruse subject, a portion of the history of ancient 



1 Ideler's Mcteorologia veterum Graecorum et Romanorum, which forms the 

 Prolegomena to his edition of Aristotle's Meteorology, but is printed as a 

 separate volume, also contains much curious information on this recondite 

 subject. 



