Seneca repudiates this view: omnia enim ista sagacitas hominum, non sapientia inuenit.
Seneca touches on the possibility of the discovery of new lands beyond the ocean in a passage in his Medea (374 sqq.) which has been often quoted: uenient annis secula seris, quibus oceanus uincula rerum laxet et ingens pateat tellus Tiphysque novos detegat orbes,...
nec sit terris ultima Thule.] 4.
There was however a school of philosophical speculation, which might have led to the foundation of a theory of Progress, if the historical outlook of the Greeks had been larger and if their temper had been different.

The Atomic theory of Democritus seems to us now, in many ways, the most wonderful achievement of Greek thought, but it had a small range of influence in Greece, and would have had less if it had not convinced the brilliant mind of Epicurus.

The Epicureans developed it, and it may be that the views which they put forward as to the history of the human race are mainly their own superstructure.

These philosophers rejected entirely the doctrine of a Golden Age and a subsequent degeneration, which was manifestly incompatible with their theory that the world was mechanically formed from atoms without the intervention of a Deity.

For them, the earliest condition of men resembled that of the beasts, and from this primitive and miserable condition they laboriously reached the existing state of civilisation, not by external guidance or as a consequence of some initial design, but simply by the exercise of human intelligence throughout a long period.