14. In our Encyclical "Aetemi Patris," which we once again recommend to the attentive perusal of your seminarists and their masters, we declared, with St. Paul as our authority, that it is by the empty subtleties of false philosophy "per philosophiam et inanem fallaciam" that the minds of the faithful are most frequently led astray and the purity of the faith corrupted among men, we added, and the events of the last twenty years have furnished bitter confirmation of the reflections and apprehensions we expressed at the time. If one notes the critical condition of the times in which we live and ponders on the state of affairs in public and private life he will have no difficulty in seeing that the cause of the evils which oppress us, as well as those which menace, lies in the fact that erroneous opinions on all subjects, human and divine, have gradually percolated from philosophical schools through all ranks of society, and have come to be accepted by a large number of minds.⁹