There is only one argumentfor the legitimacy and honourable character ofthe obscure labours of erudition, but it is a de-cisive argument: it rests on their indispensability.No erudition, no history. " Non sunt contemnendaquasi parva" says St. Jerome, ''sine quihus magnaconstare non possunt"

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the German Jesuit Jeremias Drexel noted that in the celebrated Justus Lipsius, one can find ‘tam copiosa, and illustris eruditio’ (a so abundant and glorious erudition) because the Flemish philosopher not only read many books; he also selected and ex-cerpted the best from them.5