PREFACE

...ty original: tas; completing the word humanitas (humanity) from the previous page, from which if those who wish to be seen to honor it did not depart, it would go quite excellently with the human race. But as soon as the human intellect humanum ingenium: the innate capacity for reasoning and invention leaps over these established limits and indulges in contemplations that are more subtle and profound than is fitting, one can truly expect nothing else from that source than errors, heresies, contentions, and a vast cohort of evils.

And this is my chief aim, this shall be the fruit of all my labors: that mortals, warned at last by so many examples, may learn not to attribute too much to the powers of their own intellect, nor to fly out further than the reasoning of human weakness original: humanae... imbecillitatis; a common 18th-century theme emphasizing the limits of human reason compared to divine truth which surrounds us permits. For it will be clearly evident from this entire history of philosophy original: philosophiae historia that I am preparing, that both sects and errors—and whatever a man of sound heart detests among the tribe of philosophers—and even the very heresies within the church original: ecclesia themselves, have arisen from no other cause than that mortals dared to overstep these boundaries established by nature.

For the rest, as I have consecrated myself entirely to the republic of letters rei litterariae: the international community of scholars and the shared body of human knowledge, I pray and ask God that these efforts of mine, such as they are, may