Previously Unpublished Works, Fascicle 1

"Brevity is always obscure, even if it presents an image of knowledge; or not This phrase was added by a later hand. it nevertheless takes away the vigor of understanding." original: "Brevitas semper obscura est..." This is a variation of a famous line by the Roman poet Horace: "I strive to be brief; I become obscure." Therefore, just as I avoid the overflow of slippery speech, I also propose to avoid the constraints of cut-off discourse.

And because the path for us naturally proceeds from more general things to more specific ones, I will attempt at the beginning to review the signs of our ignorance along with their causes. I will do this regarding wisdom in general, while leaning more toward human wisdom as it stands in relation to divine wisdom.

Therefore, the first thing to be considered regarding the paths of wisdom is the multiple sign of our errors. This is so that if we do not turn away from them, we do not believe ourselves to be in the light of truth when we were, in fact, in the thickest darkness of ignorance.

One manifest sign is what Aristotle The Greek philosopher whose works formed the core of the medieval university curriculum. recounts in the first book of the Metaphysics according to the first and second translation: namely, the contradiction of those practicing philosophy. This is especially proven in modern times Bacon refers to the thirteenth century., since in even the cheapest bit of false reasoning sophism: a clever but false argument intended to deceive or in a most vain question, hardly one person agrees with another.

39 b 1. Another sign is no less evident. Although there are many cognitive states habitus cognitivi: mental dispositions or qualities that allow a person to know things such as doubt, opinion, faith, wonder, experience, shrewdness, intellect, science, and wisdom—and others like them—we are occupied almost entirely by doubts and opinions. These are the weakest states. They apply equally to false things as to true ones. We reach intellect, science, or wisdom in very few things, or none at all. Everyone knows this in themselves and others, unless there are some who, raised up highly above themselves and others, practice philosophy among the unlearned. These people are not to be believed at all.

The third sign is that although the ancient philosophers and teachers prepared the paths of wisdom for us as much as was possible for them in their own times, and we have in our languages great and many and almost innumerable parts of the sciences...