Chap. 63.] 
KATUEE or THE EAETH, 
93 
his own destruction, or that we may not seek our death in 
the ocean, and become food for our graves, or that our bodies 
may not be gashed by steel. On this account it is that na- 
ture has produced a substance which is very easily taken, and 
by which life is extinguished, the body remaining undefiled 
and retaining all its blood, and only causing a degree of 
thirst. And when it is destroyed by this means, neither 
bird nor beast will touch the body, but he who has perished 
by his own hands is reserved for the earth. 
But it must be acknowledged, that everything which the 
earth has produced, as a remedy for our evils, we have con- 
verted into the poison of our lives. Tor do we not use iron, 
which we cannot do without, for this purpose ? But although 
this cause of mischief has been produced, we ought not to 
complain ; we ought not to be ungrateful to this one part of 
nature \ How mp^ny luxuries and how many insults does 
she not bear for us ! She is cast into the sea, and, in order 
that we may introduce seas into her bosom, she is washed 
away by the waves. She is continually torturedfor her iron, her 
timber, stone, fire, corn, and is even much more subservient 
to our luxuries than to our mere support. What indeed she 
endures on her surface might be tolerated, but we penetrate 
also into her bowels, digging out the veins of gold and silver, 
and the ores of copper and lead ; we also search for gems and 
certain small pebbles, driving our trenches to a great depth. 
We tear out her entrails in order to extract the gems with 
which we may load our fingers. How. many hands are worn 
down that one little joint may be ornamented ! If the in- 
fernal regions really existed, certainly these burrows of ava- 
rice and luxury would have penetrated into them. And truly 
we wonder that this same earth should have produced any- 
thing noxious ! But, I suppose, the savage beasts protect 
her and keep off our sacrilegious hands^. JFor do we not dig 
among serpents and handle poisonous plants along with those 
veins of gold ? But the Groddess shows herself more pro- 
pitious to us, inasmuch as all this wealth ends in crimes, 
1 t< Terra, inquit, sola est, e quatuor naturse partibus sive elementis, ad- 
versus quam ingrati simus." » Alexandre, in Lemaire, i. 368. 
2 "Est ironise fornmla. Quid, ait, feras et serpentes et venena terrt© 
exprobramns, quae ne ad tuendam quidem illam satis valent ? Alexandra, 
in Lemaire, i. 369. 
