3 i4 PHYSICAL SCIENCE 



subject, but with Aetna before him, of which so many 

 Greek and Latin poets had sung, and which had so often 

 been referred to in the writings of the philosophers, he 

 could hardly have meant to offer no commentary on so 

 notable a feature in the geography and history of his own 

 country. We know indeed that he was keenly interested 

 in this mountain, and that he wrote to Lucilius to ascend 

 the volcano and send him particulars about it. In the 

 letter conveying this request he alludes to some of the 

 Roman poets who had sung of its wonders, and urges that 

 a description of Aetna should form part of a poem on 

 which his correspondent appears to have been then en- 

 gaged. 1 Another important subject in physical geography 

 finds no place in Seneca's volume the Sea. Of the outer 

 ocean it was not to be expected that he could have had 

 much to say, but we can hardly suppose that he would have 

 considered his essay complete without some discussion of 

 the various phenomena presented by the Mediterranean Sea. 

 A century before Seneca's prime, the immortal De 

 Rerum Natura of Lucretius had appeared at Rome, wherein 

 the origin and constitution of the world were sung with 

 the intense earnestness, brilliant imagination, and resound- 

 ing cadence of a great poet and with the grasp and 

 penetration of a great philosopher. In this splendid work 

 some of the problems discussed by Seneca were considered, 

 and explanations were given of them with the usual un- 

 doubting confidence of olden time. In literary quality the 

 two writers stand far apart, yet it is not uninteresting to 

 compare their respective views of nature. The vivid and 

 often majestic diction of the one is not more diverse from 

 the somewhat familiar and conversational tone of the other 

 than are their respective creeds. Lucretius was a con- 

 vinced and enthusiastic Epicurean, and in accordance with 

 the teachings of his master denied the existence of any 

 divine co-operation in the plan and government of the 

 Universe, 



nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam 

 naturam rerum, 2 



1 Seneca, Epist. Ixxix. 2 De Rerum Natura, v. 198. 



