Agricola, Georgius, De re metallica, 1912/1950

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              <s>
                <pb pagenum="20"/>
              could make anything that is beautiful and perfect without using metals? </s>
              <s>Ev
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              if tools of iron or brass were not used, we could not make tools of wood a
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              stone without the help of metal. </s>
              <s>From all these examples are evident t
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              benefits and advantages derived from metals. </s>
              <s>We should not have ha
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              these at all unless the science of mining and metallurgy had been discovere
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              and handed down to us. </s>
              <s>Who then does not understand how highly usef
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              they are, nay rather, how necessary to the human race? </s>
              <s>In a word, ma
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              could not do without the mining industry, nor did Divine Providence wi
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              that he should.</s>
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              <s>Further, it has been asked whether to work in metals is honourab
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              employment for respectable people or whether it is not degrading an
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              dishonourable. </s>
              <s>We ourselves count it amongst the honourable arts. </s>
              <s>Fo
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              that art, the pursuit of which is unquestionably not impious, nor offensive
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              nor mean, we may esteem honourable. </s>
              <s>That this is the nature of th
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              mining profession, inasmuch as it promotes wealth by good and hones
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              methods, we shall show presently. </s>
              <s>With justice, therefore, we may clas
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              it amongst honourable employments. </s>
              <s>In the first place, the occupatio
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              of the miner, which I must be allowed to compare with other methods o
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              acquiring great wealth, is just as noble as that of agriculture; for, as th
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              farmer, sowing his seed in his fields injures no one, however profitable they
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              may prove to him, so the miner digging for his metals, albeit he draws forth
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              great heaps of gold or silver, hurts thereby no mortal man. </s>
              <s>Certainly these
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              two modes of increasing wealth are in the highest degree both noble and
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              honourable. </s>
              <s>The booty of the soldier, however, is frequently impious,
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              because in the fury of the fighting he seizes all goods, sacred as well as
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              profane. </s>
              <s>The most just king may have to declare war on cruel tyrants,
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              but in the course of it wicked men cannot lose their wealth and possessions
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              without dragging into the same calamity innocent and poor people, old
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              men, matrons, maidens, and orphans. </s>
              <s>But the miner is able to accumu­
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              late great riches in a short time, without using any violence, fraud, o
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              malice. </s>
              <s>That old saying is, therefore, not always true that “Every rich
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              man is either wicked himself, or is the heir to wickedness.”</s>
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              <s>Some, however, who contend against us, censure and attack miners by
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              saying that they and their children must needs fall into penury after a short
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              time, because they have heaped up riches by improper means. </s>
              <s>According
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              to them nothing is truer than the saying of the poet Naevius:</s>
            </p>
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              <s>“Ill gotten gains in ill fashion slip away.”</s>
            </p>
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              <s>The following are some of the wicked and sinful methods by which
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              they say men obtain riches from mining. </s>
              <s>When a prospect of obtaining
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              metals shows itself in a mine, either the ruler or magistrate drives out the
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              rightful owners of the mines from possession, or a shrewd and cunning
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              neighbour perhaps brings a law-suit against the old possessors in order to
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              rob them of some part of their property. </s>
              <s>Or the mine superintendent imposes
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              on the owners such a heavy contribution on shares, that if they cannot pay,
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              or will not, they lose their rights of possession; while the superintendent,
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              contrary to all that is right, seizes upon all that they have lost. </s>
              <s>Or, </s>
            </p>
          </chap>
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