Our ancestors were well satisfied and content if they
could safely guard themselves from the violent incursions
of wild beasts, and this was the end and object of all their
contests with these creatures. But their posterity have
laid down their weapons of defence, and have invented a
quite contrary use of them, making them serviceable to
some of the chief ends of human life. For their flesh
serves for food, and their hair for clothing; medicines and
antidotes are devised out of their entrails; and their skins
are converted into armor. So that we may upon good
grounds fear that, if these supplies should fail, their manner of life would appear savage, destitute of convenient
food and raiment, barbarous and naked.
Although we receive these benefits and comforts from
the very beasts, yet some men suppose themselves happy
and secure enough, provided they escape all harm from
enemies, not regarding Xenophon's judgment, whom they
ought to credit in this matter, that every man endowed
with common sense and understanding may, if he please,
make his opposites very useful and profitable to him.
Because then we cannot live in this world out of the
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neighborhood of such as will continually labor to do us
injury or oppose us, let us search out some way whereby
this advantage and profit from enemies may be acquired.
The best experienced gardener cannot so change the
nature of every tree, that it shall yield pleasant and well-tasted fruit; neither can the craftiest huntsman tame every
beast. One therefore makes the best use he can of his
trees, the other of his beast; although the first perhaps are
barren and dry, the latter wild and ungovernable. So seawater is unwholesome and not to be drunk; yet it affords
nourishment to all sorts of fish, and serves as it were for a
chariot to convey those who visit foreign countries. The
Satyr would have kissed and embraced the fire the first
time he saw it; but Prometheus bids him take heed, else he
might have cause to lament the loss of his beard,
1 if he
came too near that which burns all it touches. Yet this
very fire is a most beneficial thing to mankind; it bestows
upon us the blessings both of light and heat, and serves
those who know how to use it for the most excellent instrument of mechanic arts. Directed by these examples, we
may be able to take right measures of our enemies, considering that by one handle or other we may lay hold
of them for the use and benefit of our lives; though
otherwise they may appear very untractable and hurtful
to us.
There are many things which, when we have obtained
them by much labor and sweat, become nauseous, ungrateful, and directly contrary to our inclinations; but
there are some (you know) who can turn the very indispositions of their bodies into an occasion of rest and freedom
from business. And hard pains that have fallen upon
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many men have rendered them only the more robust
through vigorous exercise. There are others who, as
Diogenes and Crates did, have made banishment from their
native country and loss of all their goods a means to pass
out of a troublesome world into the quiet and serene state
of philosophy and mental contemplation. So the Stoic
Zeno welcomed the good fortune, when he heard the ship
was broken wherein his adventures were, because she had
reduced him to a torn coat, to the safety and innocence
of a mean and low condition. For as some creatures of
strong constitutions eat serpents and digest them well,—
nay, there are some whose stomachs can by a strange
powerful heat concoct shells or stones,—while on the
contrary, there are the weak and diseased, who loathe
even bread and wine, the most agreeable and best supports
of human life; so the foolish and inconsiderate spoil the
very friendships they are engaged in, but the wise and
prudent make good use of the hatred and enmity of men.