D E D I C A T O R Y.

...be judged as less significant; rather, once the physical body has dissolved, let us aspire toward lasting comforts through the Eternal Mind original: "Æterna Mente." This refers to the divine aspect of the intellect that the author believes survives physical death.. God has laid these things open in the very nature of our Mind. Would that Christians had paid attention to them! For they have now bid farewell to the dictates of both Nature and Scripture—an observation you yourself are accustomed to make and grieve over—being instead consumed by a single concern for the "thick mass" of material things that is bound to collapse The author uses the phrase "crassæ molis" (thick mass) to describe the heavy, temporary nature of the material world compared to the lightness of the spirit..

Perhaps they would have drawn more solid lessons for their own instruction from these natural truths than from those things which most Guides of Souls original: "Animarum Ductores." A critical reference to the clergy or religious leaders of the time. poorly tear from the Divine Codex of Scripture, interpret even worse, and most wretchedly adapt and force upon the people. The intellect and conscience of these men are not illuminated even by natural light original: "lumine... naturali." In 17th-century philosophy, this refers to basic human reason and moral intuition that God provides to all people. or righteousness. For although these men—along with others who pursue studies in the customary manner—are said to have acquired in the schools a knowledge of divine and human things insofar as it can be obtained through the light of nature (which is how they define their Philosophy), they actually gather nothing there but the sterile trifles of sophisticated hair-splitting.

As a result, they are rendered more capable of corrupting everything else—or of fostering what is already corrupted for the future—than they would have been otherwise. There are few who emerge from such schooling with their reason intact, even if they had brought a great deal of it with them. Those who do escape and manage to obtain more certain principles of Nature and reason usually end up striking other rocks; specifically, they descend into trivialities original: "minuta objecta." that would have been better left alone, and there they spend the whole of their lives...