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Regiomontanus · 1544

...for the preservation of which they contribute some study, effort, labor, industry, or expense. As often as we confess that we were founded by God, and contemplate those most beautiful notices about God, about virtues, and about the nature of things impressed upon our minds like certain footprints of divinity: so often must we come to the thought that those excellent movements were implanted in human souls, before all other living beings, so that there might exist in our nature certain instruments for the cognition and teaching of the greatest and most serious matters. And what kind of confusion would there be; indeed, what would human life be in general, if no society and communication of doctrine regarding useful and necessary matters existed? Especially in this weakness of nature, which, unless it is lifted up by more liberal discipline and erudition, lies perpetually oppressed in that barbaric mire in which the eyes of human minds are enveloped and deeply immersed, lacking true light, and covered in immense darkness. And we see that this happens not only to common or unfortunate intellects; but also that even the best and most excellent minds are sometimes impeded and overwhelmed by that tyranny, as it were, of the emotions, in which those κοιναὶ ἔννοιαι common notions about the best and holiest things ought to exist, and be much more illustrious and expressive than in others, if nature still remained intact. Because they are now much more obscure, God nonetheless wills that those remnants be preserved and exercised through the study and treatment of good disciplines and arts. And in order to relieve human infirmity, which, by its own industry, achieves very little and scarcely the lowest things, He excited in some heroic men more excellent movements of spirit, so that, as if by some divine inspiration, they might be incited to the investigation of difficult and great matters.