422 WISDOM OF THE ANGTENTS. 



and human art among mankind, proceeds from a most noble and 

 laudable temper of the mind, and tends to a very good purpose ; 

 whereas the contrary temper is odious to the gods, and unbeneficial in 

 itself. For they who break into extravagant praises of human nature, 

 and the arts in vogue, and who lay themselves out in admiring the 

 things they already possess, and will needs have the sciences culti 

 vated among them, to be thought absolutely perfect and complete, in 

 the first place, show little regard to the divine nature, whilst they extol 

 their own inventions almost as high as his perfection. In the next 

 place, men of this temper are unserviceable and prejudicial in life, 

 whilst they imagine themselves already got to the top of tilings, and 

 there rest, without farther inquiry. On the contrary, tliey who arraign 

 and accuse both nature and art, and are always full of complaints 

 against them, not only preserve a more just and modest sense of mind, 

 but are also perpetually stirred up to fresh industry and new dis 

 coveries. Is not, then, the ignorance and fatality of mankind to be 

 extremely pitied, whilst they remain slaves to the arrogance of a few 

 of their own fellows, and arc dotingly fond of that scrap of Grecian 

 knowledge, the Peripatetic philosophy; and this to such a degree, as 

 not only to think all accusation or arraignment thereof useless, but 

 even hold it suspect and dangerous ? Certainly the procedure of 

 Empedocles, though furious but especially that of Democritus (who 

 with great modesty complained that all things were abstruse ; that we 

 know nothing; that truth lies hid in deep pits ; that falsehood is 

 strangely joined and twisted along with truth, &c.) is to be preferred 

 before the confident, assuming, and dogmatical school of Aristotle. 

 Mankind are, therefore, to be admonished, that the arraignment of 

 nature and of art is pleasing to the gods ; and that a sharp and vehe 

 ment accusation of Prometheus, though a creator, a founder, and a 

 master, obtained new blessings and presents from the divine bounty, 

 and proved more sound and serviceable than a diffusive harangue cv 

 praise and gratulation. And let men be assured, that the fond opinion 

 that they have already acquired enough, is a principal reason why 

 they have acquired so little. 



That the perpetual flower of youth should be the present which 

 mankind received as a reward for their accusation, carries this moral : 

 that the ancients seem not to have despaired of discovering methods, 

 and remedies, for retarding old age, and prolonging the period of 

 human life, but rather reckoned it among those things which, through 

 sloth and want of diligent inquiry, perish and come to nothing, after 

 having been once undertaken, than among such as are absolutely im 

 possible, or placed beyond the reach of the human power. For they 

 signify and intimate from the true use of fire, and the just and strenu 

 ous accusation and conviction of the errors of art, that the divine 

 bounty is not wanting to men in such kind of presents, but that men 

 indeed are wanting to themselves, and lay such an inestimable gift upon 

 the back of a slow-paced ass ; that is, upon the back of the heavy, 

 dull, lingering thing, experience ; from whose sluggish and tortoise- 

 pace proceeds that ancient complaint of the shortness of life, and the 



