Note 18 — Ecclesiastical Survey of the Philippines
Reading edition
That is, “Nature makes one skilful.”
Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A., says of this expression that it “was an old one, as old at least as the schoolmen, and means little else than the truism ‘One’s handiness comes as a natural gift.’ According to San Antonio the diversity among the races of men as regards their bodily endowments as well as those of mind, genius, and customs, arises from the diversity of climate, and the diversity of air, drink, and meat, whence the axiom that Nature varies her gifts, or man’s character is due in a measure to his environments.”