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I have seen a book, entitled 'Quidlibet ex Quolibet', or the art of making anything out of anything; which is not so difficult as it would seem, if once one quits certain plain truths, obvious in gross to every understanding, in order to run after the ingenious refinements of warm imaginations and speculative reasonings.
Entering Bruges at a time when his leaving had gained European notoriety, he was met by the challenge of a noisy fellow who proclaimed himself ready to dispute with the whole world or any other man "in omni scibili et de quolibet ente."
I have seen a book, entitled 'Quidlibet ex Quolibet', or the art of making anything out of anything; which is not so difficult as it would seem, if once one quits certain plain truths, obvious in gross to every understanding, in order to run after the ingenious refinements of warm imaginations and speculative reasonings.
The great critic exposed unmercifully and unanswerably Collins's slips in scholarship, ridiculed his style, made merry over the rising and growing sect which professed its competency to think de quolibet ente, protested indignantly against putting the Talapoins of Siam on a level with the whole clergy of England, 'the light and glory of Christianity, and denied the right of the title of Freethinkers to men who brought scandal on so good a word.
In order to train candidates in this art, university and college teachers gave frequent exhibitions of disputations, which from being on any subject, de quolibet, were styled 'quodlibeticae questiones', or 'disputationes'. A high dignitary presided, with the title of 'dominus quodlibetarius', and propounded questions, usually one supported by arguments and two plain; and then the disputer, who presumably came prepared, delivered his reply, clear cut into fine distinctions and bristling with citations from recognized authorities.
Haec sedet in lacu maris, quemadmodum, et Venetiae: et habentur in ea plures quam mille ducenti pontes, et in quolibet turres mirae magnitudinis, ac fortitudinis, munitae peruigili custodia, et pro vrbe tuenda contra Imperatorem Grand Can.
This saying is therefore as true as it is ancient: bonum ex causa integra, malum ex quolibet defectu; as also that which states: malum causam habet non efficientem, sed deficientem. And I hope that the meaning of these axioms will be better apprehended after what I have just said.
Bishop Lowth says of it ironically, 'The Divine Legation, it seems, contains in it all knowledge, divine and human, ancient and modern; it treats as of its proper subject, de omni scibili et de quolibet ente; it is a perfect encyclopædia; it includes in itself all history, chronology, criticism, divinity, law, politics, &c. &c. A Letter to the Right Rev. Samuel Chandler, an eminent Dissenter.
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