INFLUENCE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 565 



but who, undoubtedly, too often confided the loose web of an 

 endless compilation to his ill-informed dependents, whilst he 

 was himself engaged in superintending the management of 

 public affairs, when holding the place of Governor of Spain, 

 or of a superintendent of the fleet in Lower Italy. This taste 

 for compilation, for the laborious collection of the sepa- 

 rate observations and facts yielded by science as it then 

 existed, is by no means deserving of censure, but the want of 

 success that has attended Pliny's undertaking is to be ascribed 

 to his incapacity of mastering the materials accumulated, of 

 bringing the descriptions of nature under the control of higher 

 and more general views, or of keeping in sight the point of 

 view presented by a comparative study of nature. TTie germs 

 of such nobler, not merely orographic but truly geognostic 

 views, were to be met with in Eratosthenes and Strabo, but 

 Pliny never made use of the works of the latter, and only on 

 one occasion of those of the former; nor did Aristotle's his- 

 tory of animals teach him their division into large classes 

 based upon internal organisation, or lead him to adopt the- 

 method of induction, which is the only safe means of generalis- 

 ing results. 



Beginning with pantheistic considerations, Pliny descends 

 from the celestial regions to terrestrial objects. He recognises 

 the necessity of representing the forces and the glory of 

 nature (naturae vis atque majestas) as a great and comprehen- 

 sive whole (I would here refer to the motto on the title of my 

 work), and at the beginning of the Third Book he distin- 

 guishes between general and special geography; but this 

 distinction is again soon neglected when he becomes absorbed 

 in the dry nomenclature of countries, mountains, and rivers. 

 The greater portions of Books VIII.-XXVIL, XXXIII. 

 and XXXIV., XXXVI. and XXXVII., consist of categorical 

 enumerations of the three kingdoms of nature. Pliny the 

 Younger, in one of his letters, justly characterises the work of" 

 his uncle as " learned and full of matter, no less various than 

 nature herself (opus diffusum, eruditum, nee minus varium 

 quam ipsa natura)" Many things which have been made 

 subjects of reproach against Pliny as needless and irrelevant 

 admixtures, rather appear to me deserving of praise. It has 

 always afforded me especial gratification to observe that he 

 refers so frequently, and with such evident partiality to the 



