普林尼是罗马帝国时期著名的学者。他创作的37卷《探究自然》是了解普林尼自然观的重要钥匙。前人对普林尼的自然观皆有关注，但多集中在文本分析层面。本文除了对普林尼《探究自然》进行全书翻译、整体研究外，还跳出普林尼自身的文本，置普林尼的自然观于西方古典学术思想的发展之中，用考镜源流的方法探析普林尼自然观的哲学来源、内容特征及其对科学发展的贡献，反思普林尼在科学史以及罗马文化史上的地位。

    本文共分四章。第一章论述普林尼自然观的学术渊源。“自然”最初表示万物形成的过程与结果。“探究自然”是古希腊哲学发展历程的第一个阶段。古希腊哲学家从宇宙论和本体论两个层面关注自然，思考万物的本原、宇宙的结构、事物运动的动力等问题，并超越神创论的思维局限，将“自然”视作万物自我形成的内在因素，从而推动哲学思想的产生与发展。古希腊与罗马的学者还在生产实践的过程中观察并记录自然现象与自然事物。哲学思考与经验积累共同构成普林尼自然观的学术基础。

    第二章探究普林尼对自然的看法。普林尼继承希腊哲学家“探究自然”的学术传统，沿用亚里士多德-斯多葛学派的主要哲学观点，又将“探究自然”的重心从本体论和宇宙论转移到与自然相关的各学科的思考之上，从而在原本属于形而上学范畴内的自然观之外，发展了研究具体事物的、以实践和经验为核心的新自然观。同时，普林尼认为人是自然的目的，将人类置于自然的中心地位，改变了斯多葛学派消极依附自然的思想，肯定人对自然万物的利用，从而确定了研究自然要服务于人类需求的基调。

    第三章探讨普林尼自然观的特征。“探究”是普林尼的方法论，核心在于整理与记录前人探索自然的成果。普林尼不深入思考事实蕴含的普遍价值，而是追求内容上的全面与完整，并将记录的结果与罗马传统的知识论结合。这种全面记录的方式开启了西方学界“博物学”与“百科全书”两大学术传统，对现代科学以及百科全书派都有深刻的影响。

    第四章研究普林尼如何看待“探究自然”的价值。普林尼改变了重思辨、轻实践的希腊思想传统，认为自然知识可以为生活提供指导，也能增进罗马人的认同感。普林尼的自然观既体现了罗马骑士阶层对话语权的追求，也体现了罗马人对控制物质世界与知识世界的渴望，并且为罗马扩张的历史提供了新的理据。

    总之，普林尼的自然观既有继承前辈学者思想的一面，也有顺应时代之需提高升华的一面。他的自然观在西方古代世界具有集大成的性质，对近代以后产生的自然观，启蒙时期布封的《自然史》、狄德罗的百科全书派，以及后来的自然科学发展都有深刻的影响。

    Pliny was a famous scholar of the Roman Empire. His Natural History in 37 volumes is an important key to understanding Pliny’s idea of nature. Scholars have paid attention to Pliny’s view of nature previously, but they mostly focus on text analysis. In addition to translating and studying Pliny’s Natural History as a whole, this article is not only limited to Pliny’s own text, places Pliny’s idea of nature in the development of Western classical academic thought, uses the method of studying the source to explore the philosophical origin, content characteristics and contribution of Pliny’s idea of nature to the development of science, and reflects on Pliny’s position in the history of science and Roman culture.

    This article is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 discusses the academic origins of Pliny’s idea of nature. “Nature” originally refers to the process and results of the formation of all things. “Enquiry of nature (natural history)” is the first stage of the development of ancient Greek philosophy. Ancient Greek philosophers paid attention to nature from the two aspects of cosmology and ontology, thinking about the origin of all things, the structure of the universe, the driving force of the movement of things and other issues. They also transcended the limitations of creationism and regarded “nature” as the internal factor of the self-formation of all things, thus promoting the emergence and development of philosophy. Scholars in ancient Greece and Rome also observed and recorded natural phenomena and natural things in the process of production practice. Both philosophical thinking and experience accumulation constitute the academic basis of Pliny’s idea of nature.

    Chapter 2 explores Pliny’s view on nature. Pliny inherited the academic tradition of “enquiry of nature” of Greek philosophers, followed the main philosophical viewpoints of Aristotelian-Stoicism, and shifted the focus of “enquiry of Nature” from ontology and cosmology to the studying of various disciplines related to nature. In addition to the idea of nature that originally belonged to the metaphysical category, he developed a new idea of nature that studies specific things and is centered on practice and experience. Moreover, Pliny believed that man is the purpose of nature, placing mankind at the center of nature, changing the Stoic thought of passive dependence, affirming man’s use of all things in nature, and thus determining the tone that studying of nature should serve human needs.

    Chapter 3 explores the characteristics of Pliny’s idea of nature. “Enquiry” is Pliny’s methodology, and its core lies in organizing and recording the results of previous scholars’s exploration of nature. Pliny did not think deeply about the universal value contained in the facts, but pursued the comprehensiveness and completeness of the content, and combined the results of the records with the traditional Roman epistemology. This comprehensive recording method opened up the two major traditions of “natural history” and “encyclopedia” in the Western academic world, and had a profound impact on modern science and the encyclopedia school.

    Chapter 4 studies how Pliny viewed the value of “enquiry of nature”. Pliny changed the Greek thought tradition that emphasized speculation and neglected practice, and believed that natural knowledge could provide guidance for daily life and enhance the Romans’ sense of identity. Pliny’s idea of nature not only reflects the Roman knights’ pursuit of discourse power, but also reflects the Romans’ desire to control the material and the kowledge of the world, and provides a new rationale for the history of Roman expansion.

    In short, Pliny’s idea of nature not only inherited the thoughts of his predecessors, but also improved and sublimated them in accordance with the needs of the times. His idea of nature was a culmination of the ancient Western world, and had a profound influence on the idea of nature, Buffon’s Natural History and Diderot’s Encyclopaedism during the Enlightenment period, and later the development of natural science.