kind of doctrine has only a shifting foundation, resting as it does on the authority and will of individual teachers. For this reason it does not make philosophy firm and strong and solid, like the old philosophy, but, on the contrary, makes it weak and shallow.
When We say this, however, We do not condemn those learned and able men who bring their industry and their knowledge, and the riches of new discoveries, to the aid of philosophy; for We clearly see that such a course tends to the increase of learning. But with great care we must guard against spending the whole of our attention, or even the chief part of it, on such studies as these, and on such instruction.
Let the same judgment be formed about Sacred Theology. This may well be aided and illustrated by many helps of erudition; but it is altogether necessary that it should be treated in the weighty manner of the Scholastics, in order that it may continue to be the 'unassailable bulwark of the faith,' by the forces of reason and revelation thus united in it.
Students of philosophy, therefore, not a few, giving their minds lately to the task of setting philosophy on a surer footing, have done their utmost, and are doing their utmost, to restore to its place the glorious teaching of Thomas Aquinas, and to win for it again its former renown.
That many of your order. Venerable Brothers, are with like will following promptly and cheerfully in the same path, We know to the great gladness of Our heart. While We praise these much, We exhort them to go on in the way that they have begun. To the rest of you, one by one, We give this word of counsel: there is nothing which We have longer wished for and desired than that you should give largely and abundantly to youths engaged in study the pure streams of wisdom which flow from the Angelic Doctor as from a perennial and copious spring.
Our reasons for wishing this so earnestly as We do are many.
First, in our times, the Christian Faith is commonly
