Furthermore, the servile, abject, needy circumstances wherein the Devil keeps the Slaves, that are under his more sensible Vassalage, do suggest unto us, how _woful_ the Devil would render all our Lives. We that live in a Province, which affords unto us all that may be necessary or comfortable for us, found the Province fill'd with vast Herds of Salvages, that never saw so much as a _Knife_, or a _Nail_, or a _Board_, or a Grain of _Salt_, in all their Days. No better would the Devil have the World provided for. Nor should we, or any else, have one convenient thing about us, but be as indigent as _usually_ our most _Ragged Witches_ are; if _the Devil's Malice_ were not overruled by a _compassionate God_, who _preserves Man and Beast_. Hence 'tis, that _the Devil_, even like a _Dragon_, keeping a Guard upon such _Fruits_ as would _refresh_ a languishing World, has hindred Mankind for many Ages, from hitting upon those _useful Inventions_, which yet _were so obvious_ and _facil_, that it is every bodies wonder, they were no sooner hit upon. The _bemisted World_, must jog on for thousands of Years, without the knowledg of _the Loadstone_, till a _Neapolitan_ stumbled upon it, about _three hundred years_ ago. Nor must the World be _blest_ with such a _matchless Engine_ of _Learning_ and _Vertue_, as that of _Printing_, till about _the middle of the Fifteenth Century_. Nor could _One Old Man, all over the Face of the whole Earth_, have the _benefit_ of such a _Little_, tho' most _needful_ thing, as a pair of _Spectacles_, till a _Dutch-Man_, a _little while_ ago accommodated us.[86]