Against Celsus 4.76

Next, Celsus, wishing to show that providence made the things that grow on earth no more for us than for the wildest animals, says: "We, toiling and labouring hard, are fed with difficulty and pain; but for them 'all things grow unsown and unploughed.'" He does not see that God, wishing human understanding to be exercised everywhere, so that it would not remain idle and without invention of the arts, made man needy, so that by his very neediness he would be compelled to discover arts, some for food and others for shelter. For it was better for those who would not seek divine things and pursue philosophy to be in want, so as to use their understanding to discover arts, than, having everything in abundance, to neglect understanding altogether. At any rate, want of the necessities of life established agriculture, vine-dressing, the arts of gardening, carpentry and smithing, which make tools for the arts that serve the production of food; and want of shelter introduced weaving, after carding and spinning, and building; and so understanding has risen even to architecture. And lack of necessities has caused the products of other places to be carried by seamanship and navigation to those who do not have them; so that for these reasons too one might admire providence, which, to our benefit, made the rational being needier than the irrational animals. For the irrational animals have their food ready to hand, since they do not have the capacity for arts; and they have natural covering too, for they are covered with hair, or feathers, or scales, or shells. Let this be said in our defence against the passage in Celsus that says: "We, toiling and labouring hard, are fed with difficulty; but for them 'all things grow unsown and unploughed.'"