THE SECOND BOOK 291 



art, and rather to beasts, birds, fishes, serpents, than 

 to men. 



Dictamnum genetrix Cretaea carpit ab 

 Puberibus caulem foliis et flore comantem 

 Purpureo: non ilia feris incognita capris 

 Gramma, cum tergo volucres haesere sagittae. 



So that it was no marvel (the manner of antiquity being 

 to consecrate inventors) that the Aegyptians 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 be- 

 lieve that Prometheus first struck the flints, and marvelled 

 at the spark, than that when he first struck 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 practising 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 there- 

 fore if it be said of men, 



Labor omnia vincit 

 Improbus, et duris urgens in rebus egestas, 



