The Philosophy and Psychology of Pietro Pomponazzi/Preface

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PREFACE[edit]


THE following essay on the philosophy of Pietro Pomponazzi—or Petrus Pomponatius—was originally written by its author as a thesis for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in the University of Cambridge. He did not publish it, because he intended it to form part of a more general and complete account of the movement of opinion to which Pomponazzi’s writings contributed—an account in which more positive results would have supplemented the negative phase which dominates Pomponazzi’s thought. His too early death prevented the execution of this project; and now, after consultation with those well able to advise, the present volume is published. It need hardly be said that it is a purely historical study of a phase and stage of opinion remote from that of its author.

The first three chapters were regarded by him rather as an introductory restatement of results obtained and accredited by other scholars than as a direct or original research. The remaining chapters embody the fruits of a direct examination of the writings of Pomponazzi.

The editors are responsible for the division into chapters, for the translations in the text, and for such alterations and amendments as fell to be made in preparing and publishing the manuscript.


C. D.
R. P. H.


June 1910.