's bauble.

But let us proceed. What greater victory do you expect than to make your
enemy see and know that he is not able to encounter you? When you get
the better of your argument; 'tis truth that wins; when you get the
advantage of form and method,'tis then you who win. I am of opinion that
in, Plato and Xenophon Socrates disputes more in favour of the disputants
than in favour of the dispute, and more to instruct Euthydemus and
Protagoras in the, knowledge of their impertinence, than in the
impertinence of their art. He takes hold of the first subject like one
who has a more profitable end than to explain it--namely, to clear the
understandings that he takes upon him to instruct and exercise. To hunt
after truth is properly our business, and we are inexcusable if we carry
on the chase impertinently and ill; to fail of seizing it is another
thing, for we are born to inquire after truth: it belongs to a greater
power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of
the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine
knowledge. The world is but a school of inquisition: it is not who shall
enter the ring, but who shall run the best courses. He may as well play
the fool who speaks true, as he who speaks false, for we are upon the
manner, not the matter, of speaking. 'Tis my humour as much to regard
the form as the substance, and the advocate as much as the cause, as
Alcibiades ordered we should: and every day pass away my time in reading
authors without any consideration of their learning; their manner is what
I look after, not their subject: And just so do I hunt after the
conversation of any eminent wit, not that he may teach me, but that I may
know him, and that knowing him, if I think him worthy of imitation, I may
imitate him. Every man may speak truly, but to speak methodically,
prudently, and fully, is a talent that few men have. The falsity that
proceeds from ignorance does not offend me, but the foppery of it. I
have broken off several treaties that would have been of advantage to
me, by reason of the impertinent contestations of those with whom I
treated. I am not moved once in a year at the faults of those over whom
I have authority, but upon the account of the ridiculous obstinacy of
their allegations, denials, excuses, we are every day going together by
the ears; they neither understand what is said, nor why, and answer
accordingly; 'tis enough to drive a man ma