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一个完美的人应该随时保有一种冷静、祥和的心境，从不让激情或一时的欲望扰乱他的宁静。我不认为求知是这项定则的一个例外。假如你所从事的研究会削弱你的情感，摧毁你对那些单纯的感受的喜好，那么，这项研究必定是不合法的；也就是说，不符人情的。假如这项定则始终为人遵循；假如无人允许任何理想的追逐干扰亲情的宁和，那么希腊不会遭奴役，凯撒会让他的国家免于灾祸，美洲的发现会更和缓渐进，墨西哥和祕鲁帝国不致被摧毁。

英文：
A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity. I do not think the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possible mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not be fitting the human mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not to be enslaved, Caesar would have spared his country, America would have been discovered more gradually, and the empires of Maxico and Peru had not been destroyed. pp5