third
treatise, even as there are men most vile and bestial so are men most
Noble and Divine. And this Aristotle proves in the seventh chapter of
Ethics by the text of Homer the poet; therefore, let not those men who
are of the Uberti of Florence, nor those of the Visconti of Milan,
say, "Because I am of such a family or race, I am Noble," for the
Divine seed falls not into a race of men, that is, into a family; but
it falls into individual persons, and, as will be proved below, the
family does not make individual persons Noble, but the individual
persons make the family Noble.

Then when it says, "God only gives it to the Soul," the argument is of
the susceptive, that is, of the subject whereon this Divine gift
descends, which is indeed a Divine gift, according to the word of the
Apostle: "Every good gift and every perfect gift comes from above,
proceeding from the Father of Light." It says then that God alone
imparts this Grace to the Soul that He sees pure, within the Soul of
that man whom He sees to be perfectly prepared and fit to receive in
his own proper person this Divine action; for, according as the
Philosopher says in the second chapter Of the Soul, things must be
prepared for their agents and qualified to receive their acts;
wherefore if the Soul is imperfectly prepared, it is not qualified to
receive this blessed and Divine infusion, even as a precious stone, if
it is badly cut or prepared, wherever it is imperfect, cannot receive
the celestial virtue; even as that noble Guido Guinizzelli said, in a
Song of his which begins: "To gentle hearts Love ever will repair." It
is possible for the Soul to be unqualified through some defect of
temper, or perhaps through some sinister circumstances of the time in
which the person lives, and into a Soul so unhappy as this the Divine
radiance never shines. And it may be said of such men as these, whose
Souls are deprived of this Light, that they are as deep valleys turned
towards the North, or rather subterranean caves wherein the light of
the Sun never enters unless it be reflected from another part which
has caught its rays.

Finally, it deduces, from that which has been previously said, that
the Virtues are the fruit of Nobility, and that God places that
Nobility in the Soul which has a good foundation. For to some, that
is, to those who have intellect, who are but few, it is evident that
human Nobility is no other than the seed of Happiness

That seed of Ha