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(2.6).
Having stripped God of the anthropomorphic trappings which myths attributed to the Olympian gods, Pliny is forced by this logic of his to bring God closer again to humans since this logical necessity has limited his powers (in fact in one respect God is less free than man since he could not kill himself even if he wanted to). God cannot resurrect the dead, nor make someone who has been alive never have lived; he has no power over the past, over the irreversibility of time (2.27). Like Kant’s God, he cannot enter into conflict with the autonomy of reason (he cannot prevent ten plus ten making twenty), but to delimit him in this way would distance us from Pliny’s pantheistic identification of him as immanent in nature (‘per quae declaratur haut dubie naturae potentia idque esse quod deum vocamus’ (these facts unquestionably prove the power of nature, which is what we call God), 2.27).
The lyricism, or rather the mixture of philosophy and lyricism which dominates the early chapters of Book 2 reflects a vision of universal harmony which is soon shattered: a substantial part of the book is devoted to heavenly portents. Pliny’s scientific method hovers between a desire to find an order in nature and the recording of what is extraordinary andunique, and it is the latter tendency which always prevails in the end. Nature is eternal, sacred and harmonious, but it leaves a wide margin for the occurrence of miraculous, inexplicable phenomena. What general conclusion should we draw from all this? That in fact nature’s order is a monstrous order, composed entirely of exceptions to rules? Or that her rules are so complex as to He beyond our understanding? In either case, there must be an explanation for every occurrence, even though it may be unknown to us at present: ‘All these are things of uncertain explanation and hidden in the majesty of nature’ (2.101), or a little later on, ‘Adeo causa non deest’ (There must be some cause for this) (2.115): it is not that there is no cause, some explanation can always be found. Pliny’s rationalism upholds the logic of cause and effect, but at the same time it minimalises it: even when you find an explanation for the facts, the facts do not thereby cease to be miraculous.
This last maxim acts as the conclusion to a chapter on the mysterious origin of the winds: perhaps folds in mountains, concave valleys in which gusts of wind rebound like echoes, a grotto in Dalmatia in which throwing even the lightest object is enough to unleash a storm at sea, a rock in Cyrenaica which you just have to touch with your hand to stir up a sandstorm. Pliny gives us plenty of these catalogues of strange, unconnected facts: catalogues of the effects of thunderbolts on man, causing cold wounds (the only plant not attacked by thunderbolts is the laurel, the only bird the eagle, 2.146), lists of strange things that rain from the sky (milk, blood, meat, iron or iron spunges, wool, bricks, 2.147).
Yet Pliny dismisses a large number of fanciful ideas, such as comets presaging the future: for instance, he rejects the belief that the appearance of a comet between the pudenda of a constellation — what did the ancients NOT see in the sky! — foretells a period of loose morals (‘obscenis autem moribus in verendis partibus signorum’, 2.93). Yet every strange event is for him a problem of nature, in that it represents a variation from the norm. Pliny rejects superstitions, yet he is not always able to recognise them himself, and this is particularly so in Book 7, where he discusses human nature: he quotes the most abstruse beliefs even regarding facts which are extremely easy to check. The chapter on menstruation is typical (7.63-66), but it has to be noted that Pliny’s account is of a piece with the most ancient religious taboos regarding menstrual blood. There is a whole network of analogies and traditional values that does not clash with Pliny’s rationality, almost as if the latter was
Having stripped God of the anthropomorphic trappings which myths attributed to the Olympian gods, Pliny is forced by this logic of his to bring God closer again to humans since this logical necessity has limited his powers (in fact in one respect God is less free than man since he could not kill himself even if he wanted to). God cannot resurrect the dead, nor make someone who has been alive never have lived; he has no power over the past, over the irreversibility of time (2.27). Like Kant’s God, he cannot enter into conflict with the autonomy of reason (he cannot prevent ten plus ten making twenty), but to delimit him in this way would distance us from Pliny’s pantheistic identification of him as immanent in nature (‘per quae declaratur haut dubie naturae potentia idque esse quod deum vocamus’ (these facts unquestionably prove the power of nature, which is what we call God), 2.27).
The lyricism, or rather the mixture of philosophy and lyricism which dominates the early chapters of Book 2 reflects a vision of universal harmony which is soon shattered: a substantial part of the book is devoted to heavenly portents. Pliny’s scientific method hovers between a desire to find an order in nature and the recording of what is extraordinary andunique, and it is the latter tendency which always prevails in the end. Nature is eternal, sacred and harmonious, but it leaves a wide margin for the occurrence of miraculous, inexplicable phenomena. What general conclusion should we draw from all this? That in fact nature’s order is a monstrous order, composed entirely of exceptions to rules? Or that her rules are so complex as to He beyond our understanding? In either case, there must be an explanation for every occurrence, even though it may be unknown to us at present: ‘All these are things of uncertain explanation and hidden in the majesty of nature’ (2.101), or a little later on, ‘Adeo causa non deest’ (There must be some cause for this) (2.115): it is not that there is no cause, some explanation can always be found. Pliny’s rationalism upholds the logic of cause and effect, but at the same time it minimalises it: even when you find an explanation for the facts, the facts do not thereby cease to be miraculous.
This last maxim acts as the conclusion to a chapter on the mysterious origin of the winds: perhaps folds in mountains, concave valleys in which gusts of wind rebound like echoes, a grotto in Dalmatia in which throwing even the lightest object is enough to unleash a storm at sea, a rock in Cyrenaica which you just have to touch with your hand to stir up a sandstorm. Pliny gives us plenty of these catalogues of strange, unconnected facts: catalogues of the effects of thunderbolts on man, causing cold wounds (the only plant not attacked by thunderbolts is the laurel, the only bird the eagle, 2.146), lists of strange things that rain from the sky (milk, blood, meat, iron or iron spunges, wool, bricks, 2.147).
Yet Pliny dismisses a large number of fanciful ideas, such as comets presaging the future: for instance, he rejects the belief that the appearance of a comet between the pudenda of a constellation — what did the ancients NOT see in the sky! — foretells a period of loose morals (‘obscenis autem moribus in verendis partibus signorum’, 2.93). Yet every strange event is for him a problem of nature, in that it represents a variation from the norm. Pliny rejects superstitions, yet he is not always able to recognise them himself, and this is particularly so in Book 7, where he discusses human nature: he quotes the most abstruse beliefs even regarding facts which are extremely easy to check. The chapter on menstruation is typical (7.63-66), but it has to be noted that Pliny’s account is of a piece with the most ancient religious taboos regarding menstrual blood. There is a whole network of analogies and traditional values that does not clash with Pliny’s rationality, almost as if the latter was
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