praise, and admiration even from the enemies of the Catholic name. It is well known that there have not been wanting heresiarchs who openly said that, if the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas could only be got rid of, they could 'easily give battle to other Catholic Doctors, and overcome them, and so scatter the Church.' A vain hope indeed, but no vain testimony!
For these reasons, Venerable Brothers, so often as We look at the goodness, the force, and the exceedingly great usefulness of that philosophical doctrine in which our fathers took such delight. We judge that it has been rashly done when this doctrine has not always, and everywhere, been held in its own rightful honour. Especially do We judge this to be the case, since it is plain that long use and the judgment of the greatest men, and, what is more than all, the consent of the Church, have favoured the Scholastic method. Here and there a certain new kind of philosophy has taken the place of the old doctrine; and because of this, men have not gathered those desirable and wholesome fruits which the Church and civil society itself could have wished. The aggressive innovators of the sixteenth century have not hesitated to philosophize without any regard whatever to the Faith, asking, and conceding in return, the right to invent anything that they can think of, and anything that they please. From this it quickly followed, of course, that systems of philosophy were multiplied beyond all reason, and that there sprang up conflicting opinions and diverse opinions even about some of the chief things which are within human knowledge. From a multitude of opinions men very often pass to uncertainty and doubt; while there is no one who does not see how easily their minds glide from doubt into error.
But, since man is drawn by imitation, we have seen these novelties lay hold of the minds of some Catholic philosophers, who, undervaluing the inheritance of ancient wisdom, have chosen rather to invent new things than to extend and perfect the old by new truths, and that certainly with unwise counsel, and not without loss to science; for such a manifold
