Scholarly Virtues of Gnossos

The Scholarly Virtues are among the eldest traditions of Gnossos, and form the basis of the institution's goals and methodologies, myriad though they may be. The original document upon which the Virtues were first recorded was partially destroyed in the second century. There is no universal agreement on what exactly the items of the list were beyond the handful that survive. More than one academic schism has been preceded by heated argument on these matters. Therefore, the author will list only these official virtues in this article and reserve mention of others for the articles of their schools of origin.

The First Virtue - Diligence
The most widely accepted and least controversial, although therefore most oft overlooked, scholarly virtue is Diligence. A scholar must go about their work thoroughly and without undue haste. For to rush one's research, or to ignore inconvenient evidence, is to court falsity and prejudice of cognition. The first virtue is so called because it was the one agreement the founding scholars were able to easily reach when penning their code. If the tales are to be believed, they took it so much to heart that after it was approved by the first Chancellory, they would not approve a second virtue until after a further forty-seven days of debate.
The Second Virtue - Persistence
A scholar must be faithful to their work, and be willing to delve into the darkest corners of the archives in search of knowledge. Only by pushing ourselves to the limits of mortal kenning can we hope to achieve the ultimate goals of our profession.
The Fifth Virtue - Contention
It was a commonly held belief at the time that unanimity was a sign of stagnation. Without debate and disagreement, much of the force that pushes academia forward would be lost. Therefore, this virtue was adopted along with the chancelloric regulation that any unanimous vote of the Chancellory would be considered null and void, and the matter in question could not be voted on again for a minimum of two seasons to allow for contention to be stirred up. Unfortunately, the motion to approve the virtue received no votes against. In accordance with the virtue, it was therefore accepted and came into effect at the same instant, rendering its passing vote null, which of course then rendered the vote valid once more. Given that the virtue could not be both written on the list and not written thereupon, it was decided that the first virtue dictated they should include it just to be safe, but not give it a number until it the paradox was resolved by a non-unanimous vote. This occurred two sessions of the chancellory later, by which time the third and fourth virtues had already passed and added to the list. Therefore, Contention retained its position between the second and third virtues but was officially labelled the fifth virtue.
The Third Virtue - Dillijence
The fact of the third virtue being almost identical to the first is often taken to be a joke, but this is far from true. The first congregation of the Chancellory occurred some two revolutions before the Resolution of Equivalent Forms was conceived, and it was considered a good observation of the first virtue to include at least one variant spelling as a means of ensuring that no scholar could flout the virtue of Diligence by claiming that the word should have been spelled differently.
The Fourth Virtue - The Flow of Fact
The fourth virtue requires that scholars accept the rules of logic and reason. If a premise leads inevitably to its conclusion, an academic of Gnossos is bound to accept it unless and until they can provide counter-proof or an equally sound contradicting theory. The story goes that some time after the vote concluded to induct this virtue into statute, one Chancellor famously exclaimed 'But how shall we search for counter-proof if we may not deny that which was previously proven?'. The flimfth virtue was adopted at the next session of the Chancellory as a failsafe.
The Flimfth Virtue - The Limit of Probable Truth/The Asymptote of Certain Knowledge
In order to ensure that no scholar's work would prohibit the work of another, while preserving the principle of the Flow of Fact, the Chancellory decreed that no theory may ever be considered definite truth. This virtue led to the creation of the post of 'Probabiliser', an official whose role was to remind scholars of the way in which knowledge may approach infinitesimally closely to being definite, but its veracity can never reach absolute certainty. They fulfilled this duty by loudly shouting phrases such as 'probably', 'as far as we know', and 'or maybe not' whenever a scholar was heard to express a theory with an excessive amount of confidence, and to provide official corrective annotations in written works containing the same. It should be noted that the fifth virtue was made official before the creation of the Limit of Probable Truth was finalised. It was generally accepted that the Limit ought to come next to the fourth virtue in the list, but the third and fifth virtues had already been defined. Thus, the scholarly number flimf was invented. To understand flimf, imagine the sequence of natural numbers as rungs on a ladder, with two directly above one, three above two, and so on. Flimf is located halfway between four and five and slightly to the left. It is exactly one away from both four and five, which remain unchanged in their relation to one another. Due to the somewhat esoterical nature of flimf and other non-Firezian values, the Limit of Probable Truth is often erroniously referred to as the Fourth-and-a-Half Virtue, which is nonsense as it is quite clearly a whole virtue - there is nothing partial or incomplete about it.
The Sixth Virtue - Scrugulation
This virtue is something of a special case, in that its name survives but not the explanation of its meaning. The most common interpretations are that a scholar must a) strive for perfection in the knowledge that it is unattainable; b) work for the expansion of collective knowledge and not the glory of the self; or c) scrugulate regularly.