[2103]. As for ourselves (for neither are we free from this fault) the same guilt, the same crime, may be objected against us: for it is through our fault, negligence, and avarice, that so many and such shameful corruptions occur in the church (both the temple and the Deity are offered for sale), that such sordidness is introduced, such impiety committed, such wickedness, such a mad gulf of wretchedness and irregularity—these I say arise from all our faults, but more particularly from ours of the University. We are the nursery in which those ills are bred with which the state is afflicted; we voluntarily introduce them, and are deserving of every opprobrium and suffering, since we do not afterwards encounter them according to our strength. For what better can we expect when so many poor, beggarly fellows, men of every order, are readily and without election, admitted to degrees? Who, if they can only commit to memory a few definitions and divisions, and pass the customary period in the study of logics, no matter with what effect, whatever sort they prove to be, idiots, triflers, idlers, gamblers, sots, sensualists,
——mere ciphers in the book of life
Like those who boldly woo'd Ulysses' wife;
Born to consume the fruits of earth: in truth,
As vain and idle as Pheacia's youth;
[2104]. Proem lib. 2. Nulla ars constitui poset.
[2105]. Lib. 1. c. 19. de morborum causis. Quas declinare licet aut nulla necessitate utimur.
[2106]. Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem Testa diu. Hor.
[2107]. Sicut valet ad fingendas corporis atque animi similitudines vis et natura seminis, sic quoque lactis proprietas. Neque id in hominibus solum, sed in pecudibus animadversum. Nam si ovium lacte hoedi, aut caprarum agni alerentur, constat fieri in his lanam duriorem, in illis capillum gigni severiorem.
[2108]. Adulta in ferarum persequatione ad miraculum usque sagax.