Page:Essays in Historical Criticism.djvu/242



Aristotle's precise statement "quod mare parvum est inter finem Hispaniae a parte occidentis et inter principium Indiae a parte orientis, " adds, "et Seneca, libro quinto Naturalium dicit quod mare hoc est navigabile in paucissimis diebus, si ventus sit conveniens." Bacon quoting apparently from memory took paucissimorum absolutely, as indicating that Seneca believed the Atlantic to be a comparatively narrow body of water. And such has been, in general, the practice of writers on the discoveries from that day to this. Recent examples of this interpretation are to be found in John Fiske's The Discovery of America (I, 369) and Gaffarel's Histoire de la JDecouverte de VAmerique (I, 157). It is clear, however, to one who reads the context with care, that pau- cissimorum is to be taken relatively and in contrast with thirty years, ^. e., a very few days compared with thirty years. But, as compared with thirty years, thirty, sixty or ninety days might with equal propriety be termed "very few," con- sequently the passage cannot be cited as indicating a belief on Seneca's part that the distance westward from Spain to India was inconsiderable.

More important than this, however, is the question whether Seneca had in mind at all a voyage across the Atlantic. He is not discussing possible routes to India nor any geographi- cal question, but is contrasting the relative dimensions of the earth, the scene of human life, and the universe — the realm of thought. "The stage of human life is but a point; in its widest extent from the furthest West to the far East, from one end of the world to the other, the longest journey ^ man can take is but a space of a very few days with fair winds, while that heavenly region it would take the swiftest star ever in motion thirty years to traverse." Such is the true sense of the passage. From a rhetorical point of view, the

^ Cf. this passage from Pliny's Natural History, which shows that to the Roman of Seneca's time the distance from Spain to India was synonymous with the long- est possible earthly journey : " Pars nostra terrarum, de qua memoro, ambienti (ut dictum est) oceano velut innatans longissime ab ortu ad occasum patet, hoc est, ab India ad Herculis columnas." Hist. Nat., lib. II, cap. eviii.