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| Inventors of Useful Arts Unworthy of Deification. They Would Be the First to Acknowledge a Creator. The Arts Changeable from Time to Time, and Some Become Obsolete.
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Chapter XVI.—Inventors of Useful Arts Unworthy of
Deification. They Would Be the First to Acknowledge a Creator. The Arts
Changeable from Time to Time, and Some Become Obsolete.
Well, but1073
certain men have
discovered fruits and sundry necessaries of life, (and hence are worthy
of deification).1074
| 1074 We insert this clause
at Oehler’s suggestion. | Now let me ask,
when you call these persons “discoverers,” do you not
confess that what they discovered was already in existence? Why then do
you not prefer to honour the Author, from whom the gifts really come,
instead of converting the Author into mere discoverers?
Previously he who made the discover, the inventor himself no doubt
expressed his gratitude to the Author; no doubt, too, he felt that He
was God, to whom really belonged the religious service,1075
as the Creator (of the gift), by whom also
both he who discovered and that which was discovered were alike
created. The green fig of Africa nobody at Rome had heard of when
Cato introduced it to the Senate, in order that he might show how near
was that province of the enemy1076
| 1076 The incident,
which was closely connected with the third Punic war, is described
pleasantly by Pliny, Hist. Nat. xv. 20. | whose subjugation
he was constantly urging. The cherry was first made common in
Italy by Cn. Pompey, who imported it from Pontus. I might possibly have
thought the earliest introducers of apples amongst the Romans deserving
of the public honour1077
of deification.
This, however, would be as foolish a ground for making gods as even the
invention of the useful arts. And yet if the skilful men1078
of our own time be compared with these, how
much more suitable would deification be to the later generation than to
the former! For, tell me, have not all the extant inventions superseded
antiquity,1079
| 1079
“Antiquitas” is here opposed to “novitas,” and
therefore means “the arts of old times.” | whilst daily
experience goes on adding to the new stock? Those, therefore, whom you
regard as divine because of their arts, you are really injuring by your
very arts, and challenging (their divinity) by means of rival
attainments, which cannot be surpassed.1080
| 1080 In æmulis.
“In,” in our author, often marks the instrument. | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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