“Although pleasurable in many ways, the pursuit of letters is especially fruitful because it excludes all annoyances stemming from differences of times and place, it draws friends into each other’s presence, and it abolishes the situation in which things worth knowing are not experienced. Arts would have perished, laws would have disappeared, faith and all religious duties whatsoever would have shattered, and even the correct use of eloquence would have declined, save that divine compassion granted to mortals the use of letters as a remedy for human infirmity. The examples of our ancestors, which are incitements and inducements to virtue, never would have encouraged and been heeded by everyone, unless, through devotion, care and diligence, writers triumphed over idleness and transmitted these things to posterity.” John of Salisbury, Prologue to Policraticus, ed. and trans. Cary J. Nederman. Cambridge, 1990, p. 3.
In the opening paragraph of his work on political philosophy and history John of Salisbury lauds the study of letters (i.e. reading and writing) as the foundation of the liberal arts, learning, and religion. Through literature, as if through a divine gift, our ancestors pass on their collective wisdom to us from the past. We rest the study of history upon this literary foundation and thereby we may remedy our human weaknesses.
