DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY M. THOMAS SAGITTARIUS P. P. pro tempore L. S. libenter salutem; sends greetings

When not a few had sought the marriage of the most beautiful virgin Atalanta in a race clearly in vain, and, defeated by death, had fulfilled their desire, then he who sat by said:

Hippomenes, a spectator of the unjust race,

And is a wife sought for anyone through such dangers?

He had said, and condemns the excessive loves of the youths.

Indeed, thus truly:

There is no desire for the unknown,

and he who does not understand, hates.

But the same Hippomenes himself:

As he saw the face and the body with the veil set aside,

He was stunned, and lifting his hands, he said, Forgive me.

Which I just blamed; NOT YET were the rewards known to me

that you were seeking.

The same, and indeed far more correctly, we could say and usurp regarding PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES AND THEIR REWARDS. For if any linger here a little and wish to lay firmer foundations before they fly and rush off to the higher faculties, good God, how not rarely are they mocked by those Maevii Maevius was a mediocre poet whose name became synonymous with a bad critic and held up to ridicule! But indeed, if they come to the matter at hand, and happen to look at the dignity and divinity of PHILOSOPHY even with sidelong glances, then they are forced to acknowledge their error and publicly confess, to their own detriment, how they were stuck in the mud with bare feet, a fact which experience proves, and

Time, which alone tests the true truth,

as Pindar says. Therefore, so that we do not return from the finish line to the starting blocks, and so that, when we are now plucking the highest fruits from the tree of Augustine or Bernard, Baldus or Bartolus, Galen or Avicenna, we are not forced to lower ourselves with a hiss to the strawberries born on the ground, let us first salute Philosophy in the beginning and borrow a torch from it, which will happen if we proceed in studies in order and do not treat the tail of the horse before the head.