Snakes, eagles, and so-called sorcery

Next, as though he were straining to drag the human race still lower and make it like the irrational animals, and wished to leave out nothing recorded of the irrational animals that points to something greater in them, he says that the arts of sorcery are found in some of the irrational animals too, so that men should not pride themselves on this either, as something peculiar to them, nor wish to hold superiority over the irrational animals. He says this: “If men take any pride in sorcery as well, then in this too snakes and eagles are wiser. At any rate they know many antidotes and remedies against harm, and even the powers of certain stones for the safety of their young. If men happen upon these, they think they possess something marvellous.”

First, I do not know how he came to give the name sorcery to the animals’ experience, or some natural grasp, of natural antidotes, for the name sorcery is commonly given to something else; unless, perhaps, as an Epicurean he wishes covertly to discredit all use of such things, as if it belonged to what sorcerers profess. But let it be granted him that men pride themselves greatly on knowing these things, whether they are sorcerers or not. How does it follow that in this respect snakes are wiser than men, because they use fennel to sharpen their sight and quicken their movement? They grasp this single natural thing not by reasoning but from their constitution. Men, however, do not come to such a thing from bare nature, as snakes do, but partly from experience, partly from reason, and sometimes from reflection and by systematic knowledge. So too, even if eagles find the stone called the eagle-stone and carry it to the nest for the safety of the young in it, how does it follow that eagles are wise, and wiser than men, when men found by experience the natural aid given to eagles and, through reasoning, used it with understanding?