“Moreover my opinion is confirmed by that story which is told of Epimetheus, who knew so ill how to distribute the gifts of nature among men that he left them much poorer in everything than all other creatures: wherefore Prometheus stole from Minerva and from Vulcan that artful cunning whereby men find the means of living;[437] but still they did not have the civic cunning to gather together in cities and live orderly lives, for this was guarded in Jove’s castle by very watchful warders, who so frightened Prometheus that he dared not approach them; wherefore Jove had compassion for the misery of men, who were torn by wild beasts because they could not stand together for lack of civic faculty, and sent Mercury to earth to bring them justice and shame, to the end that these two things might adorn their cities and unite the citizens. And he saw fit that they should not be given to men like the other arts, wherein one expert suffices for many ignorant (as in the case of medicine), but that they should be impressed upon each man; and he ordained a law that all who were without justice and shame should be exterminated and put to death like public pests. So you see, my lord Ottaviano, that these virtues are vouchsafed by God to men, and are not acquired, but natural.” 12.—Then my lord Ottaviano said, smiling: “Do you then insist, my lord Gaspar, that men are so unhappy and perverse, that they have by industry discovered an art to tame the natures of wild beasts, bears, wolves, lions, and by it are able to teach a pretty bird to fly whither they like, and to return willingly from its woods and natural freedom to cages and captivity,—and yet that they cannot or will not by the same industry find arts to help themselves and improve their minds with diligence and study? To my thinking this would be as if physicians were to study with all diligence to acquire the mere art of healing sore nails and scurf in children, and were to leave off curing fevers, pleurisy and other serious maladies; and how out of all reason this would be, everyone can consider.