Il natural desiderio di sapere - Pontifical Academy of Sciences

ON THE NATURAL DESIRE FOR KNOWLEDGE 101of the sciences as a most laborious enterprise, and admires the virtuousone, exaggerating thatMulta tulit fecitque puer, sudavit et alsitAbstinuit Venere et vino 6rather than have the ardor to imitate him. The sweetness and utilityof knowledge come to be regarded as though from afar and as though separatedfrom us by the harshness of the long labor interposed. The pleasureand comfort of quiet idleness is ever present and what’s more, to enjoyit, there is no need for any work whatsoever; on the contrary, it is in thevery act of not working that it comes to be had. The enticements to thelatter are continuous, the spurs and provocations to the former comerarely, and in sum, the one depending on the mind, the other on our bodies,it is no wonder that by that which for the most part has bigger andbetter fixed roots, the other, both gentler and nobler, comes easily to besupplanted and suffocated. The body that should obey, oh how muchdominion it usurps, while with continuous siege it advances, slowly butsurely appropriating for itself the reasons of the drowsy mind! Thus allwork is shunned, and the good inclination postponed to the pleasure oflaziness; joined by the arts of luxury and the companions of these vainamusements, enough not only to impede the inclination for the disciplinesgiven to us by nature, but also to deviate and divert from it, in themiddle of the course, even the most fervent.Nor, however, do we flee from work at such a quick pace as that withwhich we pursue gain, nor is it easily recognized as true gain that whichis made of knowledge, 7 copious that which is made with science, becausethe eye looks immediately to money and material things, whence comecomfort and pleasure, whence esteem and power: and these appear to beacquisitions that are real and massive, the others metaphorical and thin,and it is the common opinion, rather well founded in daily experience,that the sciences yield very little, and especially those that bring us thegreatest cognition. Furthermore, many fear greater expenditures of timeand money in apprehending them than they hope for as proceeds after6 ‘He undertook many exercises when young, sweated and froze, abstained fromVenus and wine’, Horace, Ars Poet., vv. 413-414.7 Read: we pursue profit with greater commitment than we flee from work, but profitfrom knowledge is not easily recognized.