THE SECOND BOOK 133 



So that it was no marvel (the manner of antiquity 

 being to consecrate inventors) that the Egyptians had 

 so few human idols in their temples, but almost all 

 brute : 



Omnigenumque Deum monstra, et latrator Anubis, 

 Contra Neptunum, et Venerem, contraque Minervam, &c. 



And if you like better the tradition of the Grecians, 

 and ascribe the first inventions to men, yet you will 

 rather believe that Prometheus first stroke the flints, 

 and marvelled at the spark, than that when he first 

 stroke the flints he expected the spark : and therefore 

 we see the West Indian Prometheus had no intelligence 

 with the European, because of the rareness with them 

 of flint, that gave the first occasion. So as it should 

 seem, that hitherto men are rather beholden to a wild 

 goat for surgery, or to a nightingale for music, or to 

 the ibis for some part of physic, or to the pot-lid that 

 flew open for artillery, or generally to chance or any- 

 thing else than to logic for the invention of arts and 

 sciences. Neither is the form of invention which Virgil 

 describeth much other : 



Ut varias usus meditando extunderet artes 

 Paulatim. 



For if you observe the words well, it is no other method 

 than that which brute beasts are capable of, and do 

 put in ure ; which is a perpetual intending or practis- 

 ing some one thing, urged and imposed by an absolute 

 necessity of conservation of being. For so Cicero saith 

 very truly, ' Usus uni rei deditus et naturam et artem 

 saepe vincit.' And therefore if it be said of men. 



Labor omnia vincit 

 Improbus, et duris urgens in rebus egestas, 



it is likewise said of beasts, ' Quis psittaco docuit suum 

 Xnlpf ? ' Who taught the raven in a drowth to throw 

 pebbles into an hollow tree, where she spied water, that 

 the water might rise so as she might come to it ? Who 

 taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea of air. 



