Folly's reference to the gullibility of the common people is a common Renaissance topos. It is historically important as it indicates the new and exciting nature of the insights into social and personal possibilities among those who experienced them. Erasmus was to explore the natural rectitude of moral aspirations but, like Rabelais and the Pléiade poets, he could only plausibly do so on the presupposition that he was dealing with the naturally well-endowed. High birth was a condition of entry into Thélème. But there are classical precedents.