EPISTLE XC.
marks whereby truth is known, inquiring next how that which is equivocal can be distinguished from the truth, whether in life or in language; for in both are elements of the false mingled with the true.
30. It is my opinion that the wise man has not withdrawn himself, as Posidonius thinks, from those arts which we were discussing, but that he never took them up at all.[1] For he would have judged that nothing was worth discovering that he would not afterwards judge to be worth using always. He would not take up things which would have to be laid aside.
31. “But Anacharsis,” says Posidonius, “invented the potter’s wheel, whose whirling gives shape to vessels.”[2] Then because the potter’s wheel is mentioned in Homer, people prefer to believe that Homer’s verses are false rather than the story of Posidonius! But I maintain that Anacharsis was not the creator of this wheel; and even if he was, although he was a wise man when he invented it, yet he did not invent it qua “wise man”—just as there are a great many things which wise men do as men, not as wise men. Suppose, for example, that a wise man is exceedingly fleet of foot; he will outstrip all the runners in the race by virtue of being fleet, not by virtue of his wisdom. I should like to show Posidonius some glass-blower who by his breath moulds the glass into manifold shapes which could scarcely be fashioned by the most skilful hand. Nay, these discoveries have been made since we men have ceased to discover wisdom.
- ↑ Seneca, himself one of the keenest scientific observers in history (witness Nat. Quaest., Epp. lvii., lxxix., etc.), is pushing his argument very far in this letter. His message is clear enough; but the modern combination of natural science, psychology, and philosophy shows that Posidonius had some justification for his theories. Cf. also Lucretius, v. 1105–7 ff.
- ↑ This Scythian prince and friend of Solon, who visited Athens in the sixth century B.C., is also said to have invented the bellows and the anchor. Cf., however, Iliad xviii. 600 f. ὡς ὅτε τις τροχὸν ἄρμενον ἐν παλάμηισιν ἑζόμενος κεραμεὺς πειρήσεται, and Leaf’s comment: “The potter’s wheel was known in pre-Mycenean times, and was a very ancient invention to the oldest Epic poets.” Seneca is right.
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