V I T A.

...with hands bound, when Ramus was held thus afflicted, so that it was permitted for the Aristotelians to tear him apart with impunity, while for Ramus, on the contrary, it was not permitted even to mutter. A marvelous triumph is celebrated over so noble a victory: that sad and horrible sentence of the triumvirs is promulgated by printed pamphlets in both Latin and French, not only through all places of the world where it could be exported; games are celebrated with great apparatus, where, with the Aristotelians watching and applauding, Ramus is afflicted with every kind of mockery and abuse. Why should I mention the rest, which are more unworthy than these? Although they are very true and are held in recent memory, they are nevertheless so alien to honest studies that I fear that even to those who were present and saw them, a thing so incredible might seem not to have happened, but to have been fabricated.

So great was the toil to found the Ramean race: nay
So great was the toil to found the race of Logicians.

This is the short and summary history of the Aristotelian judgment, described by Talaeus and related to the Academy. We have heard, therefore, how that evil genius of the Academy was opposed to Ramus, and what sophistical disturbances it gave. Let us now hear what good genius God gave him in all things, and one contrary to that evil genius, to sustain, relieve, and liberate Ramus from all those miseries. For in these most bitter times, and in various vexations poured upon him from all sides, Charles of Lorraine was his only relief. He taught King Henry that at all times in philosophy it had been free for everyone to speak for and against whom he wished, and that philosophy could not be completed otherwise. That Plato approved some things and disapproved others in Zeno, Parmenides, Democritus, and his predecessors; that Aristotle followed the same liberty in Plato, Theophrastus in Aristotle, and others in others thereafter, as long as the true studies of Philosophy flourished. Therefore, with Charles of Lorraine reporting and acting as advocate, Ramus was restored to liberty by King Henry, loosened in hands and tongue, and used the four years afterward for peaceful studies. In the year 1546, in the thirty-first year of his age, he delivered an oration on combining the studies of Philosophy and Eloquence; he divided the parts of the profession with his brother Talaeus (as he always calls him), so that while he himself professed eloquence in the afternoon hours,

Good Genius granted by God, Charles of Lorraine

Ramus' Oration on combining Philosophy and Eloquence