Arnobius — Against the Nations 2.18
18.1. "They do not know clothing, to join chairs, ships and plows, nor finally the other furniture that household use demands." — Those are not gifts of knowledge but inventions of poorest necessity. Nor did the arts fall from heaven's inner chambers with the souls, but all were sought out and born here on earth and little by little by practice fused together as times advanced.
2. But if souls had the sciences which it is fitting for a divine and immortal kind to have, from the beginning all humans would know all things and there would be no age ignorant of any art or unprepared by experience of things. — Now indeed needy life, lacking many things, seeing that some things come about usefully by chance, while it imitates, tries and tests, while it slips, reshapes and changes, from continual correction has assembled the small tidy little sciences of the arts and by many times has brought them amended to one outcome.
Latin
18.1. ''Vestem illa non norunt, sellas naves atque aratra conpingere nec denique superlectilem ceteram quam familiaris usus exposcit''. - Non sunt ista scientiae munera sed pauperrimae necessitatis inventa. Neque cum animis artes caeli ex penetralibus ceciderunt, sed exquisitae et natae sunt in terris hic omnes et cum processu temporum paulatim meditatione conflatae.
2. Quodsi haberent scientias animae, quas genus et habere divinum atque immortale condignum est, ab initio homines cuncti omnia scirent nec saeculum essct ullum, quod artis esset ignarum alicuius aut rerum experientia non paratum. - Nunc vero inops vita et multarum indigens rerum fortuita conspiciens quaedam commodule provenire, dum imitatur experitur et temptat, dum labitur reformat immutat, ex adsidua reprehensione parvas et concinnavit scientiolas artium et ad unum exitum temporibus plurimis coemendata perduxit.