For whatever receives its
stability from use alone must necessarily be brought to nought by
disuse.
From which it is seen clearly enough, that as laws are neither
arts nor sciences, so books of law cannot properly be called
books of art or science. Nor is this faculty which we may call
by a special term geologia, or the earthly science, to be
properly numbered among the sciences. Now the books of the
liberal arts are so useful to the divine writings, that without
their aid the intellect would vainly aspire to understand them.
CHAPTER XII
WHY WE HAVE CAUSED BOOKS OF GRAMMAR TO BE SO DILIGENTLY PREPARED
While we were constantly delighting ourselves with the reading of
books, which it was our custom to read or have read to us every
day, we noticed plainly how much the defective knowledge even of
a single word hinders the understanding, as the meaning of no
sentence can be apprehended, if any part of it be not understood.
Wherefore we ordered the meanings of foreign words to be noted
with particular care, and studied the orthography, prosody,
etymology, and syntax in ancient grammarians with unrelaxing
carefulness, and took pains to elucidate terms that had grown too
obscure by age with suitable explanations, in order to make a
smooth path for our students.
This is the whole reason why we took care to replace the
antiquated volumes of the grammarians by improved codices, that
we might make royal roads, by which our scholars in time to come
might attain without stumbling to any science.
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