say to you, Charles, and to
you, Frederick, Kings, and to you, ye other Princes and Tyrants, see
who sits by the side of you in council, and count how many times a day
this aim of human life is indicated to you by your councillors. Better
would it be for you, like swallows, to fly low down than, like kites,
to make lofty circles over carrion.

CHAPTER VII.

Since it is seen how much the Imperial Authority and the Philosophic
are to be revered, which must support the opinions propounded, it is
now for us to return into the straight path to the intended goal. I
say, then, that this last opinion of the Common People has continued
so long that without other cause, without inquiry into any reason,
every man is termed Noble who may be the son or nephew of any brave
man, although he himself is nothing. And this is what the Song says:

And so long among us
This falsehood has had sway,
That men call him a Nobleman,
Though worthless, who can say,

I nephew am, or son,
Of one worth such a sum.

Wherefore it is to be observed that it is most dangerous negligence to
allow this evil opinion to take root; for even as weeds multiply in
the uncultivated field, and surmount and cover the ear of the corn, so
that, looking at it from a distance, the wheat appears not, and
finally the corn is lost; so the evil opinion in the mind, neither
chastised nor corrected, increases and multiplies, so that the ear of
Reason, that is, the true opinion, is concealed and buried as it were,
and so it is lost. O, how great is my undertaking in this Song, for I
wish now to weed the field so full of wild and woody plants as is this
field of the common opinion so long bereft of tillage! Certainly I do
not intend to cleanse all, but only those parts where the ears of
Reason are not entirely overcome; that is, I intend to lift up again
those in whom some little light of Reason still lives through the
goodness of their nature; the others need only as much care as the
brute beasts: wherefore it seems to me that it would not be a less
miracle to lead back to Reason him in whom it is entirely extinct than
to bring back to Life him who has been four days in the grave.

Then the evil quality of this popular opinion is narrated suddenly, as
if it were a horrible thing; it strikes at that, springing forth from
the order of the confutation, saying, "But he who sees the Truth will
know How vile he has become," in order to m