Pliny makes almost as good a representative of mediæval science as of that of the Roman world, and thus well illustrates the influence which the one had upon the other. Indeed not only is the Natural History just the sort of work that delighted the Middle Ages, but Pliny seems to have exerted a considerable direct influence on writers down through the sixteenth century. Isidore of Seville practically copied his unfavorable comments on the magi and his discussion of the powers of stones.[1] Bede seems to have owed a good deal to him. Alcuin openly praised that "most devoted investigator of nature."[2] Roger Bacon quoted him; the Natural History was a mine whence Agrippa dug much of the material for his Occult Philosophy and to which Porta seems equally indebted in his Natural Magic.
II. Pliny's discussion of magic.—Before illustrating Pliny's combination of magical lore with true and sane statements about nature, we should consider his discussion of what he was pleased to call magic; for just as he prided himself upon his freedom from excessive credulity in the abstract, so in regard to magic in particular he seems to have flattered himself that his position was quite different from what it actually was.
- ↑ Etymologies, bk. xvi, Migne, vol. lxxxii.
- ↑ Alcuini Epistolae, 103, vol. vi, pp. 431-432, of Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum, ed. Philip Jaffé, Berlin, 1873. "Vel quid acutius quam quod naturalium rerum divitissimus [or devotissimus] inventor, Plinius Secundus, de caelestium siderum ratione exposuit, investigari valet?" In Migne's Patrologia Latina, vol. c, col. 278, the letter is given as number 85. For other references to Pliny by earlier writers, see Bibliothèque Latine-Française, C. L. F. Panckoucke, vol. cvi which forms the opening volume of Pliny's work in that set.
tion from England to America in the Seventeenth Century" (N. Y., 1901), p. 16. This interesting and valuable book contains much material illustrative of the science and superstitions of the times.
