Three Books on Gold

it has departed; but that this gold may be broadly spread and woven into fabrics is something it has in common with silver. Finally, not to wander too far, I have found nothing that rests upon such a solid foundation that nations could derive from it valid reasons for valuing gold so highly, and for seeking it with such an avid thirst that some, on account of it, bury themselves in excavated mountains; some lower themselves into the deepest pits, which they call shafts; others busy themselves collecting its grains from rivers; others sail to the furthest shores of India, whether through the sun-scorched edge of the Ethiopian coast, or through the West Wind to the antipodes, and not even that to provide themselves with gold—I now use the Greek term obryzum—once refined with a colophon, or as is now the custom in Paris, but rather the crude body and thick matter of gold. Consequently, you will not rashly find that which satisfies a man greedy for knowing the nature of any thing: whence such a desire for possessing it exists, when its use is not of such value as is the price by which the greatest part of mankind now measures all human things, and as if they had not enclosed divine things within the same measure.