The Aim of Studies

The aim of studies should be to guide the mind to form solid and true judgments.

Sciences entirely consist in the knowledge of the mind.

Arts require some use and habit of the body.

People compare both and see that:

• not all arts can be learned by the same person.
• the best artist is he who exercises only one

This is because the same hands cannot both:

• cultivate fields and
• play the lyre

So people wrongly believed the same about the sciences also.

They distinguished the sciences by the diversity of objects. They thought that each should be sought separately, and all others omitted.

In this, they were deceived.

All sciences are nothing else but human wisdom which always remains one and the same.

There is no need to confine ingenuity by any limits.

This is because our knowledge of one truth, like the use of one art, does not separate us from the discovery of another, but rather aids it.

Most people diligently investigate:

• the customs of men
• the powers of plants
• the motions of the stars
• the transmutations of metals
• the objects of similar disciplines

Yet it is strange that they almost never think about:

• the good mind, or
• this universal Wisdom

This is even if all other things should be estimated not so much for their own sake as because they contribute to this.

Therefore, I propose this first rule of all.

This is because nothing more leads us away from the straight path of seeking truth than if we do not direct our studies to this general end, but to some particular ones.

We can expect legitimate fruits of sciences from these.

But if we think about them while studying, they often cause us to omit many things necessary for the knowledge of other things, either because they seem somewhat useless at first sight, or because they seem somewhat uninteresting.

They are so connected with each other that it is far easier to learn them all together than to separate one from the others.

Therefore, if anyone seriously wishes to investigate the truth of things, he should not choose any particular science: for they are all connected with each other.

But he should only think about increasing the natural light of reason. This will make the will understand each case of life that the will chooses.

He should not solve this or that difficulty of the school.

He will soon marvel that he has made much greater progress than those who study particulars.