De ortu theoricae, practicae, mechanicae.
The Goal of All Human Pursuits
Wisdom directs every human pursuit toward restoring our nature's wholeness or tempering the hardships of this life.
So the goal and purpose of every human action or pursuit that wisdom governs must be aimed at this: either our nature's wholeness is to be restored, or the shortcomings to which our present life is subject are to be tempered.
Restoring Nature, Excluding Vice
Human nature is good but corrupted, so practice must restore what is natural while excluding and tempering vice wherever it cannot be fully uprooted.
I'll say more clearly what I mean. In a human being there are two things: good and bad, nature and vice. The good is to be restored through practice, because it is nature, because it has been corrupted, because it is diminished. The bad is to be excluded, because it is vice, because it is corruption, because it is not nature. And if it cannot be rooted out completely, at least, once a remedy is applied, it must be tempered. This, then, is what must be done above all: that nature may be restored and vice shut out.
Knowledge and Virtue Make Us Like the Divine
The wholeness of human nature is completed through knowledge and virtue alone, which yield a likeness to heavenly beings.
Now the wholeness of human nature is brought to completion by two things, knowledge and virtue, which alone give us a likeness to the heavenly and divine beings.
The Double Substance of the Human Person
Because a human being is composed of a superior immortal soul and a perishable body, one part shares in immortality while the other is subject to decay, mortality, and mutability.
For since a human being isn't of a single nature but is fashioned from a double substance, in respect to the part of himself that is superior — and, to say plainly what must be said, the part that is his very self — he is immortal. But in respect to the other part, which is subject to decay — a part known only to those who can't grasp faith through the senses alone — he is liable to mortality and mutability, where he must die as often as he loses what he is. And this is the last category of things: that which has both a beginning and an end.
Read the original Latin
Omnium autem humanarum actionum seu studiorum, quae sapientia moderatur, finis et intentio ad hoc spectare debet, ut vel naturae nostrae reparetur integritas vel defectuum, quibus praesens subiacet vita, temperetur necessitas. dicam apertius quod dixi. duo sunt in homine, bonum et malum, natura et vitium. bonum quia natura est, quia corruptum est, quia minus est, exercitio reparandum est. malum quia vitium est, quia corruptio est, quia natura non est, excludendum est. quod si funditus exterminari non potest, saltem adhibito remedio temperandum est. hoc est omnino quod agendum est, ut natura reparetur et exeludatur vitium. integritas vero naturae humanae duobus perficitur, scientia et virtute, quae nobis cum supernis et divinis substantiis similitudo sola est.
nam homo, cum simplex natura non sit, sed gemina compactus substantia, secundum unam partem suam quae potior est, et, ut apertius id quod oportet dicam, quae ipse est, immortalis est. secundum alteram vero partem quae caduca est, quae sola his, qui nisi sensibus fidem praestare nesciunt, cognita est, mortalitati et mutabilitati obnoxius est, ubi toties mori necesse est, quoties amittere id quod est. et haec est ultima pars rerum, quae principium et finem habet.
Didascalicon de Studio Legendi (On the Study of Reading) companion
Hugh said begin with small daily portions. Start tomorrow.
Chosen Portion serves one short, ordered devotional reading each day — the medieval lectio pattern, free on iOS.
Hugh taught that formation comes from ordered, incremental daily reading, and Chosen Portion is that ordered daily portion delivered to your phone.
- A curated daily portion in 2-3 minutes, no decision fatigue about what to read
- Progress through complete historic works in order, the way Hugh prescribed
- Free app plus a weekly email unpacking one reading in depth