THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS. 53 



can hardly be termed a punishment, whereas other 

 conditions and states of life can scarce live out of 

 their own country. The admiration of artificers is 

 propagated and increased in foreign and strange 

 nations, seeing it is a natural and inhred disposition 

 of men to value their own countrymen, in respect of 

 mechanical works, less than strangers. 



Concerning the use of mechanical arts, that 

 which follows is plain. The life of man is much be 

 holden to them, seeing many things, conducing to 

 the ornament of religion, to the grace of civil disci 

 pline, and to the beautifying of all human kind, are 

 extracted out of their treasuries : and yet notwith 

 standing, from the same magazine or store-house are 

 produced instruments both of lust and death ; for to 

 omit the wiles of bands, we well know how far ex 

 quisite poisons, warlike engines, and such like mis 

 chiefs, the effects of mechanical inventions, do 

 exceed the Minotaur himself in malignity and 

 suvage cruelty. 



Moreover that of the labyrinth is an excellent 

 allegory, whereby is shadowed the nature of mecha 

 nical sciences, for all such handicraft works as are 

 more ingenious and accurate, may be compared to a 

 labyrinth, in respect of subtilty and divers intricate 

 passages, and in other plain resemblances, which by 

 the eye of judgement can hardly be guided and 

 discerned, but only by the line of experience. 



Neither is it impertinently added, that he which 

 invented the intricate nooks of the labyrinth, did also 

 shew the commodity of the clue: for mechanical arts 



