Tres Orationes

—in the scope of the voice, though more restricted, it pleased God to comprehend τὰ ἐκτὸς external things, both singular and universal. According to these, it will now be easy for anyone to establish the degrees by which the methods of philosophizing are distinguished, provided they have measured them a little more exactly by the rule of Christ and nature. But although the third—and thus the last—parts are left to external things, man, who consists of soul and body, can no more lack their protection than he can lack the air by which he is sustained in his breathing. It is as if goods by themselves can hardly sustain themselves individually; indeed, one seems to be fit for the other, and to have its own reasons suspended from it. The same logic applies to the studies of philosophy; they are circumscribed by their own limits, yet they are so adjacent, so mutually joined and connected, that all things are shared by all, and they cannot be separated from one another. Rather, they are held together by a certain single bond of association, and whatever is deprived of the help of another is immediately crippled and defective. For any one of them, while it remains occupied and insists only upon itself, almost loses its own integrity. Therefore, those seem to me to act more correctly who do not separate related studies, but are equally open to all—a feat I do not know if any of all mortals can perform, unless he comes into life prepared in that way and furnished by nature, and possesses instruments properly accommodated for attaining that end. And since this falls to very few—