VI The “Quaestiones Naturales” in the Middle Ages
The Q.N. is a landmark in the progress of Physical Science. From Aristotle and Theophrastus there is a great gap until we reach Seneca: the gap is still greater between Seneca and the Renascence, from which the era of true science is to be dated. The Q.N. is the last word spoken on the subject by the classical world, and practically the only work of its kind that survives to us in Latin. Various commentators on Aristotle and Seneca have, probably unconsciously, appeared as champions of either author’s claim to be considered as the authority in Science during the Middle Ages. All the materials for forming an unbiassed judgment are to be found in Dr. Sandys’ History of Classical Scholarship (vol. i.).
Seneca possessed one or two initial advantages. In the first place, Latin, in which he wrote, was understood and spoken throughout the world, whereas for many centuries Greek was over large tracts of it, particularly in the West, an unknown tongue. Again, Seneca was for long supposed to be a Christian, claimed by the early fathers as “one of us,” and ranked by Jerome among the Ecclesiastical Writers. There was not therefore the same prejudice against his works as is known to have existed in the early Christian centuries against pagan authors, especially against the poets.
As a matter of fact, the knowledge of Aristotle’s works, at any rate in the West, seems to have been derived in the first instance from Arabic translations made in the ninth century and brought to Spain about the twelfth century, while from 1204 onwards he was known in Latin translations made direct from the Greek MSS., which were now accessible. “In Roger Bacon’s day, not-withstanding his eagerness for promoting the study of Aristotle in the original Greek, it was the Latin Aristotle alone that was studied in the schools” (Sandys, op. cit. 575). That was about the year 1267. Seneca seems to have been well known, chiefly as a moralist, through the Middle Ages. He “was famous as the author of the Naturales Quaestiones” (ib. 62724) also. Saint-Hilaire’s claim, therefore (Arist. Meteor. Pref. ii. iii.), “that Aristotle laid down the law on Meteorology, as in everything else, from the age of Alexander right up to the Renascence,” must be accepted with some qualification. There seems room for Ruhkopf’s explanation (Q.N. Pref.) that Seneca’s work was, and continued to be, the sole fountain whence Natural Philosophy derived its source and drew its supplies during many centuries, “until Aristotle’s books were transmitted for public use into Western Europe.”
By the thirteenth century Aristotle had come fully into vogue, and the references to his teaching in Dante (1265–1321), said to number upwards of 300, show what a hold he had obtained upon the greatest man of the age. The “moral Seneca” is also known to Dante, and placed by him in the same region of the unseen world (H. iv.), but the references to his teaching are insignificant by comparison (less than ten). Dr. Sandys states (op. cit. 591 n.) that the references to Aristotle are mainly to the Ethics, Physics, Metaphysics, and De Anima.
But we are now on the eve of the Renascence, whose “morning-star... arose in the person of Petrarch” (op. cit. 650), early in the fourteenth century (1304–1374). Greek scholarship was reviving in the West, and Petrarch studied the language in his later days. But his inspiration was derived in the first instance from Latin, “the philosophical works of Cicero and the moral letters of Seneca” (op. cit. ii. 4). The latter he cites as many as sixty times (ib. 7), and he was also familiar with the Senecan tragedies (ib. 6).
From this and from the general course of history we seem justified in believing that during the Middle Ages, in default of any general knowledge of Aristotle, Seneca was the chief authority on Physical Science. The views transmitted by him, for they were comparatively seldom altogether his own, having obtained currency, found their way into literature, and probably went far to colour the conceptions entertained on the subject in all the earlier literature of Modern Europe. Later, when Aristotle’s works became more widely known, his authority became supreme alike in philosophy and in science. Nor does the temporary ascendancy of Seneca, though historically very important, carry with it any presumption of rivalry, not to say superiority, to Aristotle. Seneca may best be regarded as pupil and interpreter of Aristotle, in so far as the two come into competition. His date, the language employed as his medium, his position, his reputation as a Christian, and his activity in other fields, all conspired to give him a position in the Middle Ages which is not necessarily the measure of his intrinsic merit as compared with Aristotle.