ABSTRACT
Though why is it necessary to reckon the value of divine things in cash like victuals? Or what use, I ask, is knowledge of the things of Nature to a hungry belly, what use is the whole of the rest of astronomy? Yet men of sense do not listen to the barbarism which clamors for these studies to be abandoned on that account. We accept painters, who delight our eyes, musicians, who delight our ears, though they bring no profit to our business. And the pleasure which is drawn from the work of each of these is considered not only civilized, but even honorable. Then how uncivilized, how foolish, to grudge the mind its own honorable pleasure, and not the eyes and ears. It is a denial of the nature of things to deny these recreations. For would that excellent Creator, who has introduced beauty and power to delight, have left only the mind of Man, the lord of all Nature, made in his own image, without any delight? Rather as we do not ask what hope of gain makes a little bird warble, since we know that it takes delight in singing because it is for that very singing that the bird was made, so there is no need to ask why the human mind undertakes such toil in seeking out these secrets of the heavens. For the reason why the mind was joined to the senses by our Maker is not only so that Man should maintain himself, which many species of living things can do far more cleverly with the aid of even an irrational mind, but also so that from those things which we perceive with our eyes to exist we should strive towards the causes of their being and becoming, although we should get nothing else useful from them. And just as other animals, and the human body, are sustained by food and drink, so the mind of Man, which is something distinct from Man, is nourished, is increased, and in a sense grows up on this diet of knowledge, and is more like the dead than the living if it is touched by no desire for these things. Therefore as by the providence of Nature nourishment is never lacking for living things, so we can say with justice that the reason why there is such great variety in things, and treasuries so well concealed in the fabric of the heavens, is so that fresh nourishment should never be lacking for the human mind, and it should never disdain it as stale, nor be inactive, but should have in this universe an inexhaustible workshop in which to busy itself.
