Chapter IX.
Evil is generated with useful things not without reason; when what is harmful to one is beneficial to another; and God has bestowed reason upon humans to avoid harmful things, as instinct has been given to animals. What a beautiful order is preserved in the fruitfulness of the earth.
But perhaps some might say: What about the fact that even harmful and deadly things are produced alongside beneficial ones? With hemlock, for example, which is found among life-sustaining foods and can be harmful to health if not identified in advance. Among other sources of sustenance, hellebore is also found. Aconite too often deceives and misleads those who gather it. But this is like criticizing the earth because not all people are good. But consider this: not all angels in heaven are good either. The sun itself, due to excessive heat, parches the ears of grain, but it burns the early beginnings of those that are growing. The moon also shows the way to travelers, and it reveals the ambushes of robbers. Therefore, is it worthy for us to neglect the gratitude towards the creator in favor of those things which are useful, just because of certain harmful aspects of food in relation to the foresight of the creator, as if indeed everything should have been brought forth for the sake of gluttony, or as if there are only a few things that divine indulgence has provided for our stomachs? We have defined meals, which are known to everyone, that generate both pleasure and the health of the body.
39. But each of the things that are generated from the earth has a special reason, which fills the whole fullness of creation with a male portion. Therefore, some are born for food, others for other uses. Nothing is empty, nothing is barren on the earth. What you think is useless to you, is useful to others; indeed, it is often useful to you in a different way. What does not help you as food, suggests medicine: and often the same things that are harmful to you provide harmless nourishment to birds or wild animals. Finally, starlings feed on henbane, and it is not harmful to them, because through the quality of their body they avoid the poison of deadly juice. For the cold power of this juice, which is conducted through delicate pores to the seat of their heart, they prevent premature digestion before it attacks their vital organs. However, experts say that hellebore is their food and nourishment, because through a certain natural temperament of their body, they avoid the harmful force of the food. For indeed, often by the rationality of medicine, it is adapted to the well-being of the human body, which seems to be contrary: the more it benefits by the nature's property for food, which is turned into health by the healing hand! Through mandrake also sleep is frequently summoned, where the sick are afflicted by the discomfort of wakefulness. For what should I say about opium, which has become known to us almost daily by its nearly constant use, since the most severe pains of internal organs are often lulled by it? Nor does it pass unnoticed that connubial love often quenches the burning passions of lust, and the long-standing afflictions of the sick body are relieved by hellebore.
40. Therefore, not only is there no blame on the creator in these things, but there is even an increase in gratitude. For what you thought to be a danger, works for your salvation. For even what is a danger is avoided through providence, and what is for salvation is not lost through diligence. Have not sheep and goats learned to avoid things that are harmful to them, and by the smell alone, through a certain mystery of nature, even though they lack reason, they recognize the method of avoiding danger and preserving their safety, and they distinguish what is harmful from what is helpful. So much so that often, when they have sensed the weapons armed with poison, they seek known herbs and are said to apply them as a remedy for their wounds? Therefore, food is their medicine, so that you see the arrows rebounding from a wound and poison fleeing, not creeping. Finally, food is poison to deer. The snake flees from the deer, kills the lion: it binds the dragon-elephant, whose downfall is the death of the victor. And therefore, with the utmost force, the battle is fought on both sides; the former to bind the foot, in which the bound one cannot harm itself; the latter so that it is not caught by the hindmost foot or a narrow path, where it cannot turn, and crush the dragon with a heavy step, or not have the help of the following elephant.
Therefore, if irrational animals are aware of the herbs that can either heal them or provide assistance, then man does not know to whom rational sense is inherent or is so estranged from the truth that he least understands what is suitable for each individual's use. Either he is ungrateful to nature's blessings or, because the consumption of bull's blood is lethal to humans, he thinks that laborious animals should not have been born or that they should have been generated without blood. Their virtues support farmers in various tasks: useful for the cultivation of fields, suitable for the use of wagons, delightful for sustenance. To these farmers, to whom God has bestowed his blessings if they understand them, he says: Let the earth bring forth grass yielding seed according to its kind. For it includes not only the natural nourishment found in plants and roots, and in the fruits of trees and other produce, but also that which is obtained through industry and acquired through the work of farmers.
42. How proper it is that he commanded the seeds not to be immediately sown into the earth and bear fruit, but to first sprout, then cover the fields with grass, and afterwards grow into plants according to their own nature, so that the fields would never be empty of grace, which first adorned them with pleasing beauty and then provided them with the usefulness of fruits!