The second fruit is, that in studying
these principles we will become accustomed by degrees to judge
better of all the things we come in contact with, and thus be made
wiser, in which respect the effect will be quite the opposite of the
common philosophy, for we may easily remark in those we call pedants
that it renders them less capable of rightly exercising their reason
than they would have been if they had never known it. The third is,
that the truths which they contain, being highly clear and certain,
will take away all ground of dispute, and thus dispose men's minds
to gentleness and concord; whereas the contrary is the effect of the
controversies of the schools, which, as they insensibly render those
who are exercised in them more wrangling and opinionative, are
perhaps the prime cause of the heresies and dissensions that now
harass the world. The last and chief fruit of these Principles is,
that one will be able, by cultivating them, to discover many truths
I myself have not unfolded, and thus passing by degrees from one to
another, to acquire in course of time a perfect knowledge of the
whole of philosophy, and to rise to the highest degree of wisdom.
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