COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

INFLUENCE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 565
rho, 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 separate
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. "Hie 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 generalising
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 (naturce vis atque majesfas} as a great and comprehensive
whole (I would here refer to the motto on the title of my
of the Third Book he distin-
work), and at the beginning
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 VIIL-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 varmm
which have been made
quam ipsa natura)." Many things
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