BOOK II. xLv. 116-118 



sort of womb, or air whipped by the irregular impact 

 of the planets and the non-uniform emission of their 

 rays, or whether they issue forth from these nearer 

 stars which are their own or fall from those stars 

 which are fixed in the heaven — it is manifest that 

 the winds too obey a law of nature that is not un- 

 known, even if not yet fully known. 



More than twenty Greek authors of the past Persistenet 

 have pubHshed observations about these subjects. °Ji^lXi^' 

 This makes me all the more surprised that, although study. 

 when the world was at variance, and spht up into 

 kingdoms, that is, sundered Hmb from Umb, so 

 many people devoted themselves to these abstruse 

 researches, especially when wars surrounded them 

 and hosts were untrustworthy, and also when rumours 

 of pirates, the foes of all mankind, terrified intending 

 travellers — so that now-a-days a person may learn 

 some facts about his own region from the note- 

 books of people who have never been there more 

 tru;y than from the knowledge of the natives — yet 

 iiow in these glad times of peace under an emperor 

 who so delights in productions of literature and science, 

 no addition whatever is being made to knowledge 

 by means of original research, and in fact even the 

 discoveries of our predecessors are not being 

 thoroughly studied. The rewards were not greater 

 when the ample successes were spread out over 

 many students, and in fact the majority of these 

 made the discoveries in question with no other 

 reward at all save the consciousness of benefiting 

 posterity. Age has overtaken the characters of 

 mankind, not their revenues, and now that every 

 sea has been opened up and every coast offers a 

 hospitable landing, an immense inultitude goes 



259 



