“the truth about a thing, which consists in truth as in the subject, is the perfect image of the thing as it is” (par 5).
“Of those things which are, there are some which are absolute within themselves; there are some which are dependent on something else through some relationship, such as to be at the same time and to exist with something else” (par 5).
“There are six things to be looked at at the beginning of any doctrinal work, viz. subject, actor, form, purpose, title, and the type of philosophy” (par 6).
“the sense of this work is not simple, rather it may be called polysemantic, that is, of many senses; the first sense is that which comes from the letter, the second is that of that which is signified by the letter. And the first is called the literal, the second allegorical or moral or anagogical” (par 7).
“Its form is twofold, the form of the treatise and the form of the treatment. The form of the treatise is three-fold, according to the three- fold division. The first division is that by which the entire work is divided into three canticles. The second that by which each canticle is divided into cantos. The third that by which each canto is divided into rhyming units. The form or the mode of treatment is poetic, fictive, descriptive, digressive, transumptive; and along with this definitive, divisive, probative, improbative, and setting examples” (par 9).
“The genus of philosophy under which we proceed here in the whole and in the part is the business of morals or ethics, since both the part and the whole are composed for practice rather than theory. But if in some place or passage things are lengthened out in the manner of theory, this is not for the purpose of theory, but of practice; for, as the Philosopher says in the second book of Metaphysics: `practical men theorize now and again’” (par 16).
“Everything which is either has being of itself or through something else. But it is known that to have being of itself is proper to only one being, that is the first one or the beginning, who is God, since to have being does not argue for the necessity of being of itself, and only one thing has the necessity of being of itself, namely the first or the beginning, which is the cause of all; ergo all things which are, except for one alone, have being from something else” (par 20).
“The container is connected with the contained in natural condition as the formative to the formable” (par 25).