Tres Orationes

have come, I do not possess anything that I can promise, whether regarding my diction—certainly not such as can make an audience for itself—or regarding the subjects to be explained and polished by diction. Indeed, I vehemently pray them again and again not to bear with an inequitable mind the waste of time which they are perhaps about to make in listening to me. Yet, if anything happens to meet them that delights them, even if it does not teach them, I shall certainly judge that I have made more profit than I could have hoped. For I do not profess to be one who can pay everyone their due in full; in which truth the crime of arrogance will not be feared by me at all. By every judgment of antiquity, and by a certain natural sense, authority and dignity are most grave. For the closer each thing is to its origin and divine progeny, the better and truer it is. Almost all other arts were first excited by the study and industry of man after he had been created by God, and were amplified by the success of time with new additions. Herbs alone, together with their powers, did not wait for the favor of the heavens, but received the beginning of their origin immediately when the Elements were founded, being as much prior to man as they were posterior to heaven and earth, falling into the middle article of creation. Empedocles also affirms that plants existed before the expanse of the sun's circumference, and even before night and day had been distinguished. For which reason the invention of no thing or art is more rightly referred to God the author than—