'I have been reading Valla's book on the True Good, and have
become quite an Epicurean, estimating all things in terms of
pleasure. Also it has persuaded me that each virtue has its
contrary vice, rather than two vices as its extremes. I should
like to know whether the authorities at Heidelberg have
abandoned their Marsilius[6] on the question of universals, or
whether they still stick to him.'

[6] Of Inghen, first Rector of Heidelberg University (1386),
the author of the _Parua Logicalia_.


5. AGRICOLA TO HEGIUS; from Worms, Tuesday , in reply.

After thanks and personalities he writes:

'Certainly you shall have the Lucian, and I will dedicate it to
you: but not just yet, as I am too busy to revise it. My public
lectures take up a good deal of my time. I have a fairly large
audience; but their zeal is greater than their ability. The
majority of them are M.A.'s or students in the Arts course;[7]
who are obliged to spend all their time on their disputations,
so they have only a meagre part of the day left for these
studies. In consequence, as they can do so little, I am not
very active.

'In addition to this I am trying to keep up my Latin and Greek
(though they are fast slipping from me) and am beginning
Hebrew, which I find very difficult: indeed to my surprise it
costs me more effort than Greek did. However, I shall go on