Tres Orationes

continues from previous page and because the impulses of human minds are quite dissimilar, and not all are equally animated toward philosophizing, it happens that one gives himself to one kind of study and another to another. Each one gives himself chiefly to that toward which his own Minerva Roman goddess of wisdom; here, a metaphor for natural aptitude. leads him, toward which his genius and the inclination of his will lean more, and in which, finally, he trusts that he can exert his efforts most effectively. He will indeed satisfy his duty if he seriously cultivates that kind which he loves most, while not leaving the rest unheard of or unknown, but learning them in passing, as it were, for the sake of getting a taste of them, since, as it is said, ἐν ἅπασι, τὸ τέλειον ἀδύνατον in all things, perfection is impossible. A song of one tenor everywhere brings satiety; conversely, variety delights, here and everywhere, just as in audiences and spectacles.

Regarding these, therefore, so that I may preface, the kinds of learning have moved me: one applies cultivation to the soul, another provides care for the body. The third negotiates about those things which fortune provides to men, into which the whole of philosophy is aptly distributed as if into its head and sum.

But since the latter two, from which the laws of Logic, Morals, and Economics have been derived, have already been spoken of by others from this place, and perhaps will be spoken of more hereafter, it has pleased me most to turn myself to the middle part, which is occupied with the state and condition of the body. Of that discipline, I have thought that the part which treats the natures of plants and their powers ought to be chosen—partly by observation and experience alone, which ought to be well-established and confirmed by long-term use and the exercise of the art, and partly by reason as well as by testing. This is not only because there is a certain free delight of the soul in that kind of learning, or because it promises and provides a wonderful fruit of utility to learners, or because it is of the highest necessity for the protection of the life of mortals living in these lands, or finally because it precedes others in antiquity (the power of which has certainly always been greatest among all). It is because it seems to square aptly with my own institute, to which the province of delivering anatomical discipline and simple medicine to students has been given by those in this school who hold the judgment and power to establish public doctrine according to the capacity of each of the students. It is worth the effort to educate our scholars in this part of doctrine, which, besides caring for each one's own health and laying the foundations and, as it were, the first training in the medical art, also shows the expressed traces of God, who loves mankind and omits nothing of those things which can either serve the use of common life or be adapted in any way. For them, therefore, the space of this hour in which they are to give me their attention will not be wasted when it comes to the conclusion. As for the rest, who for the sake of my honor—