whole knowledge of the ancients, relative to
Natural History, collected during a period of about seven hundred years,
from the time of Thales the Milesian, it has a just claim to the
attention of every speculative enquirer. It is not surprising, that the
progress of the human mind, which, in moral science, after the first dawn
of enquiry, was rapid both amongst the Greeks and Romans, should be slow
in the improvement of such branches of knowledge as depended entirely on
observation and facts, which were peculiarly difficult of attainment.
Natural knowledge can only be brought to perfection by the prosecution of
enquiries in different climates, and by a communication of discoveries
amongst those by whom it is cultivated. But neither could enquiries be
prosecuted, nor discoveries communicated, with success, while the greater
part of the world was involved in barbarism, while navigation was slow
and limited, and the art of printing unknown. The consideration of these
circumstances will afford sufficient apology for the imperfect state in
which natural science existed amongst the ancients. But we proceed to
give an abstract of their extent, as they appear in the compilation of
Pliny.

This work is divided into thirty-seven books; the first of which contains
the Preface, addressed to the emperor Vespasian, probably the father, to
whom the author pays high compliments. The second book treats of the
world, the elements, and the stars. In respect to the world, or rather
the universe, the author's opinion is the same with that of several
ancient philosophers, that it is a Deity, uncreated, infinite, and
eternal. Their notions, however, as might be expected, on a subject so
incomprehensible, are vague, confused, and imperfect. In a subsequent
chapter of the same book, where the nature of the Deity is more
particularly considered, the author's conceptions of infinite power are
so inadequate, that, by way of consolation for the limited powers of man,
he observes that there are many things even beyond the power of the
Supreme Being; such, for instance, as the annihilation of his own
existence; to which the author adds, the power (477) of rendering mortals
eternal, and of raising the dead. It deserves to be remarked, that,
though a future state of rewards and punishments was maintained by the
most eminent among the ancient philosophers, the resurrection of the body
was a doctrine with which they were wholly unacquainted.

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