Greetings from Philip Melanchthon to Christianus Pontanus of Wittenberg

Among other crimes, Socrates was reproached with mocking the inquiry into nature and rejecting physics, since he had transferred the studies of men to discussions of morals. Xenophon most weightily refutes this false accusation, and gives evidence that Socrates did not lure men away from physics, but rather he added to it that more learned teaching of morals, which was neglected by the others, since that part, too, being most useful for life, had need of method and art [Memorabilia 1.1.11–13]. Common precepts on morals are known generally, and some are born with us, but, nevertheless, there is doubtless the need for art and some more learned teaching for the purpose of deliberating on many duties, of grasping the true distinction between just and unjust actions and of understanding their origins. The nature of man needs to be examined; thought needs to be given to what is the order of the parts and what duty is ascribed to each by nature; furthermore the proper causes of actions are to be investigated. Socrates himself, discussing providence in Xenophon, assembles and points out the traces of divinity in nature in order to show not only that there is a god, but also that the god cares for human affairs [Memorabilia 1.4]. The origins of these disputations lie in physics.