Conflict of science and religion.
In Pliny we also detect signs of the conflict between science and religion. In a single chapter on God he says pretty much all that the church fathers later repeated at much greater length against paganism and polytheism. But his discussion would hardly satisfy a Christian. He asserts that “it is God for man to aid his fellow man,[127] and this is the path to eternal glory,” but he turns this noble sentiment to justify deification of the emperors who have done so much for mankind. He questions whether God is concerned with human affairs; slyly suggests that if so, God must be too busy to punish all crimes promptly; and points out that there are some things which God cannot do. He cannot commit suicide as men can, nor alter past events, nor make twice ten anything else than twenty. Pliny then concludes: “By which is revealed in no uncertain wise the power of Nature, and that is what we call God.” In many other passages he exclaims at Nature’s benignity or providence. He believed that the soul had no separate existence from the body,[128] and that after death there was no more sense left in body or soul than was there before birth. The hope of personal immortality he scorned as “puerile ravings” produced by the fear of death, and he believed still less in the possibility of any resurrection of the body. In short, natural law, mechanical force, and facts capable of scientific investigation would seem to be all that he will admit and to suffice to satisfy his strong intellect. Yet we shall later find him having the greatest difficulty in distinguishing between science and magic, and giving credence to many details in science which seem to us quite as superstitious as the pagan beliefs concerning the gods which he rejected. But if any reader is inclined to belittle Pliny for this, let him first stop and think how Pliny would ridicule some modern scientists for their religious beliefs, or for their spiritualism or psychic research.
Pliny not a trained naturalist.
It is desirable, however, to form some estimate of Pliny’s fitness for his task in order to judge how accurate a picture of ancient science his work is. He does not seem to have had much detailed training or experience in the natural sciences himself. He writes not as a naturalist who has observed widely and profoundly the phenomena and operations of nature, but as an omnivorous reader and voluminous note-taker who owes his knowledge largely to books or hearsay, although occasionally he says “I know” instead of “they say,” or gives the results of his own observation and experience. In the main he is not a scientist himself but only a historian of science or nature; after all, his title, Natural History, is a very fitting one. The question, of course, arises whether he has sufficient scientific training to evaluate properly the work of the past. Has he read the best authors, has he noted their best passages, has he understood their meaning? Does he repeat inferior theories and omit the correcter views of certain Alexandrian scientists? These questions are hard to answer. On his behalf it may be said that he deals little with abstruse scientific theory and mainly with simple substances and geographical places, matters in which it seems difficult for him to go far astray. Scientific specialists were not numerous in those days, anyway, and science had not yet so far advanced and ramified that one man might not hope to cover the entire field and do it substantial justice. Pliny the Younger was perhaps a partial judge, but he described the Natural History as “a work remarkable for its comprehensiveness and erudition, and not less varied than Nature herself.”[129]
His use of authorities.
One thing in Pliny’s favor as a compiler, besides his personal industry, unflagging interest, and apparently abundant supply of clerical assistance, is his full and honest statement of his authorities, although he adds that he has caught many authors transcribing others verbatim without acknowledgment. He has, however, great admiration for many of his authorities, exclaiming more than once at the care and diligence of the men of the past who have left nothing untried or unexperienced, from trackless mountain tops to the roots of herbs.[130] Sometimes, nevertheless, he disputes their assertions. For instance, Hippocrates said that the appearance of jaundice on the seventh day in fever is a fatal sign, “but we know some who have lived even after this.”[131] Pliny also scolds Sophocles for his falsehoods concerning amber.[132] It may seem surprising that he should expect strict scientific truth from a dramatic poet, but Pliny, like many medieval writers, seems to regard poets as good scientific authorities. In another passage he accepts Sophocles’ statement that a certain plant is poisonous, rather than the contrary view of other writers, saying “the authority of so prominent a man moves me against their opinions.”[133] He also cites Menander concerning fish and, like almost all the ancients, regards Homer as an authority on all matters.[134] Pliny sometimes cites the works of King Juba of Numidia, than whom there hardly seems to have been a greater liar in antiquity.[135] He stated among other things in a work which he wrote for Gaius Caesar, the son of Augustus, that a whale six hundred feet long and three hundred and sixty feet broad had entered a river in Arabia.[136] But where should Pliny turn for sober truth? The Stoic Chrysippus prated of amulets;[137] treatises ascribed to the great philosophers Democritus and Pythagoras[138] were full of magic; and in the works of Cicero he read of a man who could see for a distance of one hundred and thirty-five miles, and in Varro that this man, standing on a Sicilian promontory, could count the number of ships sailing out of the harbor of Carthage.[139]
His lack of arrangement and classification.
The Natural History has been criticized as poorly arranged and lacking in scientific classification, but this is a criticism which can be made of many works of the classical period. Their presentation is apt to be rambling and discursive rather than logical and systematic. Even Aristotle’s History of Animals is described by Lewes[140] as unclassified in its arrangement and careless in its selection of material. I have often thought that the scholastic centuries did mankind at least one service, that of teaching lecturers and writers how to arrange their material. Pliny seems rather in advance of his times in supplying full tables of contents for the busy emperor’s convenience. Valerius Soranus seems to have been the only previous Roman writer to do this. One indication of haste in composition and failure to sift and compare his material is the fact that Pliny sometimes makes or includes contradictory statements, probably taken from different authorities. On the other hand, he not infrequently alludes to previous passages in his own work, thus showing that he has his material fairly well in hand.
His scepticism and credulity.
Pliny once said that there was no book so bad but what some good might be got from it,[141] and to the modern reader he seems almost incredibly credulous and indiscriminate in his selection of material, and to lack any standard of judgment between the true and the false. Yet he often assumes an air of scepticism and censures others sharply for their credulity or exaggeration. “’Tis strange,” he remarks à propos of some tales of men transformed into wolves for nine or ten years, “how far Greek credulity has gone. No lie is so impudent that it lacks a voucher.”[142] Once he expresses his determination to include only those points on which his authorities are in agreement.[143]