CHAP. II.] DISCOVERIES HITHERTO ACCIDENTAL, 185 



he first struck the flint he expected sparks, but that he fell 

 upon it by accident, and, as the poets say, stole it from 

 Jupiter. So that as to the invention of arts, we are rather 

 beholden to the wild goat for chirurgery, to the nightingale 

 for music, to the stork for glysters, to the accidental flying 

 off of a pot s cover for artillery, and, in a word, to chance, 01 

 anything else, rather than to logic. Nor does the manner 

 of invention, described by Virgil, differ much from the 

 former ; viz., that practice and intent thought by degrees 

 struck out various arts. 



&quot; Ut varias usus meditando extunderet artes 

 Paulatim.&quot; f 



For this is no other than what brutes are capable of, and 

 frequently practise ; viz., an intent solicitude about some one 

 thing, and a perpetual exercise thereof, which the necessity 

 of their preservation imposes upon them ; for Cicero truly 

 observed, that practice applied wholly to one thing, often 

 conquers both nature and art : &quot; Usus uni rei deditus, et 

 naturam et artem saepe vincit.&quot;? And therefore, if it may 

 be said with regard to men, that continued labour and 

 cogent necessity master everything, 



&quot; Labor omnia vincit 



Improbus, et duris nrgens in rebus egestas ;&quot; h 



so it may be asked with regard to brutes, who taught them 

 instinct, 



&quot; Quis expedivit Psittaco suum Xalpi ?&quot; 1 



Who taught the raven, in a drought, to drop pebbles into a 

 hollow tree, where she chanced to spy water, that the water 

 might rise for her to drink ? Who taught the bee to sail 

 through the vast ocean of air, to distant fields, and find the 

 way back to her hive ? k Who taught the ant to gnaw every 

 grain of corn that she hoards, to prevent its sprouting 1 And 

 it we observe in Virgil the word extundere, which implies 

 difficulty, and the word paulatim, which imports slowness, 

 this brings us back to the case of the Egyptian gods ; since 

 men have hitherto made little use of their rational faculties, 

 and none at all of art, in the investigation of things. 



1 Georg. i. 133. 8 Oratio pro L. Cor. Balbo, xx 



h Virg. Georg. i. 145. Perseus, Prol. 3. 



k Pliny s Natural History. 



