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BOOK I.

could make anything that is beautiful and perfect without using metals ? Evenif tools of iron or brass were not used, we could not make tools of wood andstone without the help of metal. From all these examples are evident thebenefits and advantages derived from metals. We should not have hadthese at all unless the science of mining and metallurgy had been discoveredand handed down to us. Who then does not understand how highly usefulthey are, nay rather, how necessary to the human race ? In a word, mancould not do without the mining industry, nor did Divine Providence willthat he should.

Further, it has been asked whether to work in metals is honourableemployment for respectable people or whether it is not degrading anddishonourable. We ourselves count it amongst the honourable arts. Forthat art, the pursuit of which is unquestionably not impious, nor offensive,nor mean, we may esteem honourable. That this is the nature of themining profession, inasmuch as it promotes wealth by good and honestmethods, we shall show presently. With justice, therefore, we may classit amongst honourable employments. In the first place, the occupationof the miner, which I must be allowed to compare with other methods ofacquiring great wealth, is just as noble as that of agriculture; for, as thefarmer, sowing his seed in his fields injures no one, however profitable theymay prove to him, so the miner digging for his metals, albeit he draws forthgreat heaps of gold or silver, hurts thereby no mortal man. Certainly thesetwo modes of increasing wealth are in the highest degree both noble andhonourable. The booty of the soldier, however, is frequently impious,because in the fury of the fighting he seizes all goods, sacred as well asprofane. The most just king may have to declare war on cruel tyrants,but in the course of it wicked men cannot lose their wealth and possessionswithout dragging into the same calamity innocent and poor people, oldmen, matrons, maidens, and orphans. But the miner is able to accumu-late great riches in a short time, without using any violence, fraud, ormalice. That old saying is, therefore, not always true that “ Every richman is either wicked himself, or is the heir to wickedness.”

Some, however, who contend against us, censure and attack miners bysaying that they and their children must needs fall into penury after a shorttime, because they have heaped up riches by improper means. Accordingto them nothing is truer than the saying of the poet Naevius :

“ Ill gotten gains in ill fashion slip away.”

The following are some of the wicked and sinful methods by whichthey say men obtain riches from mining. When a prospect of obtainingmetals shows itself in a mine, either the ruler or magistrate drives out therightful owners of the mines from possession, or a shrewd and cunningneighbour perhaps brings a law-suit against the old possessors in order torob them of some part of their property. Or the mine superintendent imposeson the owners such a heavy contribution on shares, that if they cannot pay,or will not, they lose their rights of possession ; while the superintendent,contrary to all that is right, seizes upon all that they have lost. Or,