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HISTORICAL VIEW OP THE

referred to depends on an extremely simple considerationof the course of the reflected rays.

However little the Romans were qualified to makeany additions to the truths of physical philosophy, theyreadily adopted its practical applications; and the growthof luxury put in requisition many of those resources ofscience, to study the principles of which was far beyondtheir stage of intellectual refinement. Athenseus men-tions, that the cooling power of evaporation was knownand extensively employed in the economy of the table.But in many cases their mechanical contrivances evincea remarkable ignorance of some physical principleswhich would appear of a very obvious nature. Thus,their aqueducts, built with vast labour and expense,afford a proof that they were unacquainted with the lawthat water will rise, through any communication by pipes,to its original level.

A diligent collector might, doubtless, find much in-formation scattered in the writings of these ages, whichwould afford a number of curious illustrations of thestate of scientific knowledge: but, without further de-tails, what we have here stated will probably suffice toconvey a general idea of the subject.

Upon the whole, we may remark, in conclusion, thatif the philosophical writers of Rome advanced little inthe actual career of discovery, yet some of the mostprofoundly learned among them have been foremost inperceiving the emptiness of the artificial systems oftheir day, and have expressed the most truly philoso-phical views as to the present deficiencies and futureprospects of science as it then stood. Thus, Seneca,when alluding to the subject of comets, and remarkingour ignorance of their nature and motions, adds, —“ Veniet tempus, quo ista quae nunc latent in lucemdies extrahat, et longioris sevi diligentia: ad inquisi-tionum tantorum aetas una non sufficit. Veniet tem-pus, quo posteri nostri tarn aperta nos nescisse mirentur.”— Nat. Qucest. vii. 25. (The time will come when a

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