Seneca repudiates this view: omnia enim ista sagacitas hominum, non
sapientia inuenit.

Seneca touches on the possibility of the discovery of new lands
beyond the ocean in a passage in his Medea (374 sqq.) which has been
often quoted:


uenient annis
secula seris, quibus oceanus
uincula rerum laxet et ingens
pateat tellus Tiphysque novos
detegat orbes, ...
nec sit terris ultima Thule.]

4.

There was however a school of philosophical speculation, which might
have led to the foundation of a theory of Progress, if the
historical outlook of the Greeks had been larger and if their temper
had been different. The Atomic theory of Democritus seems to us now,
in many ways, the most wonderful achievement of Greek thought, but
it had a small range of influence in Greece, and would have had less
if it had not convinced the brilliant mind of Epicurus. The
Epicureans developed it, and it may be that the views which they put
forward as to the history of the human race are mainly their own
superstructure. These philosophers rejected entirely the doctrine of
a Golden Age and a subsequent degeneration, which was manifestly
incompatible with their theory that the world was mechanically
formed from atoms without the intervention of a Deity. For them, the