Home › Philosophy › Philosophy: Fuller

Philosophy: Fuller

The story of "Golden Poverty," by Fuller, shows to what length the lust for wealth will reach:- "Pythis, a king, having discovered rich mines in his kingdom, employed all his people in digging of them, whence tilling was wholly neglected, insomuch as a great famine ensued. His queen, sensible of the calamities of the country, invited the king, her husband, to dinner, as he came home hungry from overseeing his workmen in the mines. She so contrived it that the bread and meat were most artificially made of gold; and the king was much delighted with the conceit thereof, till at last he called for real meat to satisfy his hunger. 'Nay,' said the queen, 'if you employ all your subjects in your mines you must expect to feed upon gold; for nothing else can your kingdom afford.'" An old writer has observed that the treasures which the surface of the earth prodigally bestows upon us, are infinitely more valuable than all the metals and precious stones it contains in its bowels. Society might subsist without gold, silver, or jewels, but not without corn, vegetables, and pasture. Fuller, in his quaint and interesting essays, says of a controversialist divine, as he ought to be:-- "He is not curious in searching matters of no moment. Captain Martin Frobisher fetched from the farthest northern countries a ship's lading of mineral stones (as he thought), which afterwards were cast out to mend the highways. Thus are they served, and miss their hopes, who, long seeking to extract hidden mysteries out of nice questions, leave them off as useless at last."