New Philosophy of Our Sublunary World

We are incited to live; but to violate life is impious, and to attack it by word or deed is the mark of a dissolute and backwards man. Truly, no one can tear apart the ancient dogmas of religion given by God—holy and perpetual—without committing a crime. In other matters, divine power has allowed humans to exercise themselves and their strengths, and to be tested by various difficulties.

The Father himself did not wish the way of cultivation to be
easy, sharpening mortal hearts with cares.
original: "Haud facilem voluit pater ipse colendi / Esse viam, curis acuens mortalia corda." A quote from Virgil’s Georgics (Book 1, lines 121-123), suggesting that God/nature makes life difficult to force humans to innovate.

Anyone who desires to gaze upon the face of an earlier age as if in a mirror—to see its way of life, arts, and customs—should sail to the West Indies original: "Indos occidentales"; here referring to the indigenous peoples of the Americas as understood in the late Renaissance., specifically to those who live in the innermost inland parts and have learned neither the yoke of others nor the refined arts. Such were the Britons—though they were somewhat skilled in the art of war—during the war with Julius Caesar "the Briton" original: "Iulio Cæsare Britannico"; likely referring to Caesar's campaigns in Britain.; so too were the Germans, Gauls, Spaniards, and Italians before Rome flourished. Even Greece, which once called all others "Barbarians," recognized its own original barbarism; thus times change, and we change with them. original: "tempora mutantur & nos mutamur in illis." For in the principal cities of old, although they were quite large and vast with many houses, few of the more refined or mechanical arts practical skills or engineering were invented; truly, none were perfected or complete. They recognized almost no system of agriculture original: "rem rusticam", except for what the forests provided of their own accord and what the livestock gave in the pastures. Nor did the fame of Heroes or Gods grow, nor their number increase, nor honors and worship be decreed for them, any more than what the discoveries and early principles of certain hidden individuals—born of such simplicity and need—unlocked for the common benefit of mankind.

The fame of Apollo is revered and renowned because he was the first to reveal the art of Medicine, which was previously unknown; as was the fame of Asclepius and Hippocrates. Cadmus invented the smelting of metals original: "metallorum conflaturam"; the origin of metallurgy; Ceres taught the cultivation of the earth and grain; Minerva gave the olive; Mercury, the lyre.