§ 1. It is not my intention to commend these faculties to states; those who became illustrious in each have accomplished that. Rather, it is to give counsel to the state which it may employ in admitting and teaching them. For concerning the necessity and use of dialectic—
—since it is the principal instrument of reason, it is necessary to say nothing; nor is anything in it censured except sophistically. Those who removed it from philosophy judged that its necessity was almost greater than that of philosophy. Laertius, in the Life of Epicurus, says that philosophy was divided by him into canonical, physical, and ethical philosophy. The canonical is that which furnishes the means, approaches, and entrances to the work; and it was transmitted by him in one book which is called by him the Canon. The Stoics divided the canon into logic and rhetoric. Thus, although the Epicureans wished to separate dialectic, they nevertheless admitted it by another manner and way. “The Epicureans,” says Seneca in Epistle 89, “thought there were two parts of philosophy, the natural and the moral; they removed the rational. Then, when they were compelled by the matters themselves to distinguish ambiguous things and to convict false things lying hidden beneath the appearance of truth, they themselves also introduced under another name the rational part, a place which they call ‘Concerning Judgment and Rule.’”
But I have resolved to write the laws which the state should impose upon one who will teach dialectic; for I do not doubt that very much error is committed everywhere in teaching it.
§ 2. The first law for teaching dialectic: in Europe, let it admit no one to learn dialectic unless he is moderately practiced in eloquence. This rule is so necessary, at least in those provinces which are devoted to more cultivated letters, that it cannot be neglected without the greatest disgrace. For since one must discourse in Latin, if pupils have not previously apprehended the precepts and exercises of eloquence, they must necessarily be rendered altogether speechless. Dialectic disputes concisely and obscurely and employs words of its own alien to common use. Thus it comes about that they neither retain their former ability nor understand the acuteness of the dialecticians, and, through fear of committing a solecism, do not dare to utter the things which they understand.
§ 3. The second law is that the precepts of dialectic should be received from Aristotle alone, and indeed also the most recondite knowledge of physical things. Such is the custom of our Society, and almost eight hundred years now agree. But because many have gravely attacked us for this reason, and Francis Patricius of Venice attempted to overthrow Aristotle’s philosophy, I shall defend us not only by the judgment of all the Peripatetics but also by the opinion of others. Justus Lipsius, a most learned man who always referred the use of learning to public utility, discusses this matter thus in Book 1, chapter 4, of his Guide:
“But matters have now come to such a point that, the others yielding, two schools contend almost alone for sovereignty: those of the Peripatetics and the Stoics. For common agreement has slain the Epicureans; the Academics, by professing that they themselves know nothing, ceased to have pupils. Concerning the Peripatetics, if you hear the judgments of the present day, you have a settled matter: they alone reign in the schools, having been admitted among Greeks and Latins for more than eight hundred years. Who shall drive them out? Perhaps I neither wish nor ought to do so. Yet I do not know whether wisdom with me desires to make this kingdom divided and to give it colleagues.
“Who would deny that Aristotle, that king of the Peripatetics, was great among men? Great men themselves assign him a place thus. Cicero among the first: ‘A man not only abundant in speaking but also singular in philosophy.’ Elsewhere: ‘Of the highest ability, knowledge, and abundance.’ And again: ‘Than whom nothing is more polished, nothing more acute.’ He is called by the same man ‘a golden river of eloquence,’ and by Plutarch ‘a most eloquent man and skilled in bending minds wherever he wished.’ Finally Cicero with full hand: ‘Who of all was more learned, who more acute, who keener than Aristotle either in discovering or judging matters?’ Nor do others turn away from these praises. Pliny indeed calls him ‘a man supreme in every branch of learning’; elsewhere, ‘of immense subtlety.’ What of Arnobius? ‘A man powerful in ability and preeminent in learning.’
“But Averroes, as though raving, rushes into his praises. ‘Aristotle,’ he says, ‘invented three sciences: logic, natural science, and divine science; and no error has been found up to this time, which is one thousand five hundred years. That one man should be such is miraculous rather than human.’ The same elsewhere: ‘Aristotle is the rule and model which nature discovered to demonstrate the ultimate human perfection.’ Finally, with similar praise: ‘Aristotle’s doctrine is the highest truth, since his intellect was the limit of the human intellect. Therefore it is well said that he was created and given to us by divine providence so that we might know whatever can be known.’
“These are great and admirable things, I confess, and nearly make the man equal to the heavenly beings. What, then, do others say? Other things. Tertullian censures his minuteness of speech, and Irenaeus with the same expression censures his ‘minuteness of speech and subtleties concerning questions’; Jerome, his artifices. What do they mean? That he was excessively and slenderly subtle, and often an inquirer with obscurity. Therefore Sidonius: ‘Plato explains; Aristotle entangles.’ But Gregory Nazianzen casts up both this and graver things:
Βάλλε μοι, φημί, Ἀριστοτέλους τὴν μικρολόγον πρόνοιαν, ἢ τὸ ἔντεχνον, ἢ τοὺς θνητοὺς περὶ ψυχῆς λόγους, ἢ τὸ ἀνθρωπικὸν τῶν δογμάτων.
“‘Cast away from me Aristotle’s minuteness of speech, his sagacity and artifice; cast away those mortal discourses concerning the soul and, universally, those human dogmas.’ He condemns one who does not rise and remains fixed upon humble and earthly things.
“Atticus says this also in Eusebius:
Ἀριστοτέλους λεπτὴ ἦν καὶ ταπεινὴ δριμύτης, ἥτις διαδῦναι μὲν τῶν ἐπὶ γῆς πραγμάτων ἢ τὴν ἐν τούτοις ἀλήθειαν ἰδεῖν ἐδύνατο, τῆς δ᾽ ὄντως ἀληθείας ἐποπτεῦσαι τὸ πανδήλιον οὐχ οἷά τε ἦν αὐτῷ.
“‘Aristotle’s subtlety was slender and humble; it could indeed penetrate earthly matters and perceive what was true in them, but he was not able to behold the clear and serene light of that solid truth.’ Lactantius likewise says: ‘Aristotle disagrees with himself concerning God, and says and thinks contradictory things.’ Again: ‘Aristotle neither worshiped nor cared for God.’ Philo the Jew:
Ἀριστοτέλης μήποτ᾽ εὐσεβῶς, ἢ ὁσίως ἐπιστάμενος.
“‘Aristotle was never learned piously or holily.’ Therefore you see, my hearer, that he is raised up and you see that he is cast down, suspended as though upon this swing of judgments.
“Indeed, learn this also: that Plato was preferred to him by the almost unanimous agreement of the ancients. Cicero himself, his herald by profession—indeed, as though hired for it—takes away the palm and transfers it to Plato’s right hand: ‘Aristotle, excepting Plato, is the prince of philosophers.’ Does he not openly make him second? Again: ‘Aristotle, far surpassing all men—always excepting Plato—in ability and diligence.’ And very many of our own nobles also cast their vote to this side. Arnobius: ‘That divine Plato, thinking many things worthy of God and not common to the multitude.’ Again: ‘That great Plato, wisely pious and holy.’ Tertullian agrees and acknowledges that in Egypt Plato chiefly drew these dogmas from that Trismegistus and his writings. But others send him to the Prophets and sacred books, and Numenius says openly:
Τί γάρ ἐστι Πλάτων ἢ Μωυσῆς ἀττικίζων;
“‘What is Plato but Moses speaking Attic?’ Augustine, however, that summit of our writers, far and widely prefers Plato to the other philosophers of the nations. Indeed, he almost places him in heaven, insofar as he piously can. ‘Labeo,’ he says, ‘thought that this Plato should be numbered among the demigods; he places the demigods above the heroes and locates both among the divine powers. Nevertheless, I do not doubt that the man whom he calls a demigod should be preferred not only to the heroes but even to the gods themselves.’ Elsewhere, in the same sense, he says that a temple should more justly be erected to him than to those gods of the nations. And he himself sets forth the reason why: ‘The philosophers of the Platonic family can most easily of all, with few things changed, become Christians.’
“And certainly it is much in a philosopher—indeed, it is the principal thing—to rise to God and divine things, upon which all other wisdom is joined and depends. Therefore you see that in these matters Aristotle is far surpassed and left behind by Plato—and also by the Stoics; no prudent man would deny it.
“What, nevertheless, is the case? He transmitted dialectic firmly and systematically; likewise physics, concerning which there is this testimony of Tullius: ‘Nature was so investigated by the Peripatetics that no part in heaven, sea, or earth was passed over.’ And Laertius:
Ἐν τοῖς φυσικοῖς αἰτιολογικώτατος πάντων ἐγένετο, ὥστε καὶ περὶ τῶν ἐλαχίστων ἀποδιδόναι τὰς αἰτίας.
“‘In natural matters he rendered reasons more than all men, even down to the smallest matters.’ I therefore confess that, so far as these two parts are concerned, he was usefully received into the schools; for whom rather should they receive? The other ancients who transmitted these things perished through age. Youth also needs a fixed Doctor and dogmas to which it may become accustomed. ‘Just as leaves,’ says Seneca, ‘cannot flourish by themselves but require a branch to which they may adhere and from which they draw sap, so precepts, if they stand alone, wither; they desire to be implanted in a sect.’
“Youth, I say, needs this. But as regards mature men, what envy or sloth is it not to send them farther? In theology, in ethics, and in physics itself, how many excellent and rare things did the Pythagoreans or Stoics say, and certain other men also! Shall I not approach and appropriate these things and regard them as an inheritance left by my ancestors? I shall act boldly and, as though I sat in the Senate, shall not only hear but examine, and, when asked, shall myself give my opinion. For always to follow that opinion of one man—as our Annaeus acutely says—is not the part of a senate but of a faction. I indeed rise and venerate the discoveries and discoverers of wisdom, but as a man venerates men, and men who are not our lords but our leaders. Who was ever so fortunately—indeed, so divinely—wise that he poured forth everything from a truth-speaking mouth? There was no such man, and there will not be. It belongs to that eternal benignity to scatter the gifts of abilities through ages and among men, and not to have conferred all things together and at once upon that one age or this one man. The best of poets says:
Ἀλλ᾽ οὔπως ἅμα πάντα θεοὶ δόσαν ἀνθρώποισιν.
“‘But the gods do not give all their gifts together and at once.’
“The testimony of great men had to be employed, so that our cause, approved by such great authorities, might be protected by the dignity of its patrons. Concerning logic and physics no one will deny it, unless someone should show a better author, a more accurate one, and one more skilled in argumentation. Plato’s dialectic is almost nonexistent; his physics is scanty and full of errors. His moral disputations are more numerous, but none transmit the whole of ethics compendiously. In the age of the Fathers he was considered great because he taught many things in moral matters, approached Christians in divine matters, and supplied many arguments to bishops against idolaters.”
§ 4. The third law: in logic and physics, let Aristotle be expounded in such a way that whatever learned and useful matter can be collected from the ancients and moderns is accurately transmitted at the same time. For that others saw nothing besides Aristotle and that so many thousands of interpreters added nothing to Aristotle is not merely incredible; innumerable books also demonstrate it.
§ 5. The fourth: in dialectic, let the matter be expounded briefly; let useless intricacies and subtleties be removed. Let no new questions be added; let many of the old ones be cut away.
§ 6. The fifth law: in every kind of mathematical science, this must be accomplished—that the most perfect authors and professors should be possessed. For the very system of all machines, crafts, and time useful in the state flows from them. First, let there be one who contemplates the motions of the heavens and the stars and expounds all its parts. That matter contributes much to civil life and even to heavenly life: to consider the works of God, to know their magnitude and symmetry, and to divide the tracts of lands. Many ridiculous superstitions and fables have arisen from ignorance of these matters, even among barbarous nations; indeed, magical incantations rest upon nothing other than ignorance of such things. Therefore let geometers, geographers, arithmeticians, gnomonists, experts in optics, and even makers of instruments be joined to astrologers; for there is none of these arts which does not at some time possess the greatest necessity and use.
§ 7. Finally, let the highest care be assigned to metaphysics, which is nearest to theology—indeed, a certain natural theology—a principal part of which is even now taught in theology. Concerning this matter, Francis Suárez of our Society disputes very extensively and accurately at the beginning of his Metaphysics.
A prince ought to know letters, practical philosophy, the foundations of jurisprudence and theology, and politics, the art of arts. It is especially fitting for a prince to be wise, to judge, and to live well.