Il natural desiderio di sapere - Pontifical Academy of Sciences

ON THE NATURAL DESIRE FOR KNOWLEDGE 111good start offered by our elders, and later on the help of others who maintainus without any distraction, disturbance, needs or torment of anykind; or better, since all the work is done by the mind, the body should beprovided for by others so that the good student should almost forget tohave one nor even be aware of it except for the sensations that are of useto the intellect. Let’s listen to Horace who asks:sit bona librorum et provisae frugis in annumcopia: neu fluitem dubiae spe pendulus horae. 31We see excluded here the infirm and the poor, those involved in indispensableoccupations, the solitary, and in sum all those not well providedwith elders, companions, nutriment, or wealth, and who are indeed innumerable,and first of all those who have the shortest lives. 32Nor should anyone believe that all of the elders and fathers anduncles, who, being old and prudent, are responsible for giving youngscholars a good start, actually think of applying them to virtue, becausemany are not able, many do not care about it, and many even totallyimpede, and it is not unusual to find in many the intention that, if theyare ignorant, they do not want their successors to know more than they,and if they are learned they don’t want to be equaled; whereas, on thecontrary, they should, if they have virtue, knowing its great value, desireit all the more in their children and procure themselves imitators; and ifthey don’t have it, detesting their own lack thereof, insist all the morethat it not be so in their successors: nevertheless, in sum, tending towardthe worst, either they don’t want to provide them with the necessarythings or, too indulgent of youthful inclinations, they don’t want to usethat sweet and useful violence that pulls them away from vice and bendsthem to virtue. I can say from my own harmful experience 33 of havinghappened among those who not only did not want to provide for orencourage their young, but who even made every effort to dissuade them31 ‘That I may have in abundance books and grain for the whole year; And notremain suspended in waiting for an uncertain hour’: Epistles, I, XVIII, vv. 109-110.32 In relation to this passage see the famous thesis of Aristotle, Metaphysics, I, 2,982b 21 ff.33 This entire passage refers, in effect, to the considerable youthful difficultiesencountered by the prince, due particularly to his father, in pursuing his own ideal ofknowledge.