we are now about to speak of metals, of actual wealth, the standard of comparative value, objects for which we diligently search, within the earth, in numerous ways. in one place, for instance, we undermine it for the purpose of obtaining riches, to supply the exigencies of life, searching for either gold or silver, electrum or copper. in another place, to satisfy the requirements of luxury, our researches extend to gems and pigments, with which to adorn our fingers and the walls of our houses: while in a third place, we gratify our rash propensities by a search for iron, which, amid wars and carnage, is deemed more acceptable even than gold. we trace out all the veins of the earth, and yet, living upon it, undermined as it is beneath our feet, are astonished that it should occasionally cleave asunder or tremble: as though, forsooth, these signs could be any other than expressions of the indignation felt by our sacred parent! we penetrate into her entrails, and seek for treasures in the abodes even of the manes as though each spot we tread upon were not sufficiently bounteous and fertile for us!
and yet, amid all this, we are far from making remedies the object of our researches: and how few in thus delving into the earth have in view the promotion of medicinal knowledge! for upon her surface she has presented us with these 253 substances, equally with the cereals, bounteous and ever ready, as she is, in supplying us with all things for our benefit! it is what is concealed from our view, what is sunk far beneath her surface, objects, in fact, of no rapid formation, that urge us to our ruin, that send us to the very depths of hell. as the mind ranges in vague speculation, let us only consider, proceeding through all ages, as these operations are, when will be the end of thus exhausting the earth, and to what point will avarice finally penetrate! how innocent, how happy, how truly delightful would life be, if we were to desire nothing but what is to be found upon the face of the earth; in a word, nothing but what is provided ready to our hands!
gold is dug out of the earth, and, in close proximity to it, chrysocolla, a substance which, that it may appear all the more precious, still retains the name which it has borrowed from gold. it was not enough for us to have discovered one bane for the human race, but we must set a value too upon the very humors of gold.
alas for the prodigal inventions of man! in how many ways have we augmented the value of things! in addition to the standard value of these metals, the art of painting lends its aid, and we have rendered gold and silver still more costly by the art of chasing them. man has learned how to challenge both nature and art to become the incitements to vice! but in lapse of time, the metals passed out of fashion, and men began to make no account of them; gold and silver, in fact, became too common. from this same earth we have extracted vessels and vases of crystal, objects the very fragility of which is considered to enhance their value. in fact, it has come to be looked upon as a proof of opulence, and as quite the glory of luxury, to possess that which may be irremediably destroyed in an instant. nor was even this enough;—we now drink from a mass of gems, and we set our goblets with smaragdi; we take delight in possessing the wealth of 254 india, as the promoter of intoxication, and gold is now nothing more than a mere accessory.
would that gold could have been banished forever from the earth, accursed by universal report, as some of the most celebrated writers have expressed themselves, reviled by the reproaches of the best of men, and looked upon as discovered only for the ruin of mankind. how much more happy the age when things themselves were bartered for one another; as was the case in the times of the trojan war, if we are to believe what homer says. for, in this way, in my opinion, was commerce then carried on for the supply of the necessaries of life. some, he tells us, would make their purchases by bartering ox-hides, and others by bartering iron or the spoil which they had taken from the enemy: and yet he himself, already an admirer of gold, was so far aware of the relative value of things, that glaucus, he informs us, exchanged his arms of gold, valued at one hundred oxen, for those of diomedes, which were worth but nine.
