ony of Him to whom it appertaineth
to try the hearts and reins. For as the aim and purpose of our inmost
will is inscrutable to men and is seen of God alone, the searcher of
hearts, they deserve to be rebuked for their pernicious temerity, who
so eagerly set a mark of condemnation upon human acts, the ultimate
springs of which they cannot see. For the final end in matters of
conduct holds the same position as first principles in speculative
science or axioms in mathematics, as the chief of philosophers,
Aristotle, points out in the seventh book of the Ethics. And
therefore, just as the truth of our conclusions depends upon the
correctness of our premises, so in matters of action the stamp of moral
rectitude is given by the honesty of aim and purpose, in cases where
the act itself would otherwise be held to be morally indifferent.

Now we have long cherished in our heart of hearts the fixed resolve,
when Providence should grant a favourable opportunity, to found in
perpetual charity a Hall in the reverend university of Oxford, the
chief nursing mother of all liberal arts, and to endow it with the
necessary revenues, for the maintenance of a number of scholars; and
moreover to enrich the Hall with the treasures of our books, that all
and every of them should be in common as regards their use and study,
not only to the scholars of the said Hall, but by their means to all
the students of the before-named university for ever, in the form and
manner which the following chapter shall declare. Wherefore the
sincere love of study and zeal for the strengthening of the orthodox
faith to the edifying of the Church, have begotten in us that
solicitude so marvellous to the lovers of pelf, of collecting books
wherever they were to be purchased, regardless of expense, and of
having those that could not he bought fairly transcribed.

For as the favourite occupations of men are variously distinguished
according to the disposition of the heavenly bodies, which frequently
control our natural composition, so that some men choose to devote
themselves to architecture, others to agriculture, others to hunting,
others to navigation, others to war, others to games, we have under the
aspect of Mercury entertained a blameless pleasure in books, which
under the rule of right reason, over which no stars are dominant, we
have ordered to the glory of the Supreme Being, that where our minds
found tranquillity and peace, thence also might spring a