ignorance of causes so clear to them.

"How many new animals have we first come to know in the present age?
In time to come men will know much that is unknown to us. Many
discoveries are reserved for future ages, when our memory will have
faded from men's minds. We imagine ourselves initiated in the
secrets of nature; we are standing on the threshold of her temple."

[Footnote: The quotations from Seneca will be found in Naturales
Quaestiones, vii. 25 and 31. See also Epist. 64. Seneca implies
continuity in scientific research. Aristotle had stated this
expressly, pointing out that we are indebted not only to the author
of the philosophical theory which we accept as true, but also to the
predecessors whose views it has superseded (Metaphysics, i. ii.
chap. 1). But he seems to consider his own system as final.]

But these predictions are far from showing that Seneca had the least
inkling of a doctrine of the Progress of humanity. Such a doctrine
is sharply excluded by the principles of his philosophy and his
profoundly pessimistic view of human affairs. Immediately after the
passage which I have quoted he goes on to enlarge on the progress of
vice. "Are you surprised to be told that human knowledge has not yet
completed its whole task? Why, human wickedness has not yet fully
developed."

Yet, at least, it may be said, Seneca believed in a progress of
knowledge and recognised its value. Yes, but the value which he
attributed to it did not lie in any advantages which it would bring
to the general community of mankind. He did not expect from it any
improvement of the world. The value of natural science, from his