, by a peevish ignorance affecting a
proud contempt or a foolishly modest avoidance of further debate:
provided this man strikes, he cares not how much he lays himself open;
the other counts his words, and weighs them for reasons; another only
brawls, and uses the advantage of his lungs. Here's one who learnedly
concludes against himself, and another who deafens you with prefaces and
senseless digressions: an other falls into downright railing, and seeks a
quarrel after the German fashion, to disengage himself from a wit that
presses too hard upon him: and a last man sees nothing into the reason of
the thing, but draws a line of circumvallation about you of dialectic
clauses, and the formulas of his art.

Now, who would not enter into distrust of sciences, and doubt whether he
can reap from them any solid fruit for the service of life, considering
the use we put them to?

"Nihil sanantibus litteris."

["Letters which cure nothing."--Seneca, Ep., 59.]

Who has got understanding by his logic? Where are all her fair promises?

"Nec ad melius vivendum, nec ad commodius disserendum."

["It neither makes a man live better nor talk better."
--Cicero, De Fin., i. 19.]

Is there more noise or confusion in the scolding of herring-wives than in
the public disputes of men of this profession? I had rather my son
should learn in a tap-house to speak, than in the schools to prate. Take
a master of arts, and confer with him: why does he not make us sensible
of this artificial excellence? and why does he not captivate women and
ignoramuses, as we are, with admiration at the steadiness of his reasons
and the beauty of his order? why does he not sway and persuade us to what
he will? why does a man, who has so much advantage in matter and
treatment, mix railing, indiscretion, and fury in his disputations?
Strip him of his gown, his hood, and his Latin, let him not batter our
ears with Aristotle, pure and simple, you will take him for one of us,
or worse. Whilst they torment us with this complication and confusion of
words, it fares with them, methinks, as with jugglers; their dexterity
imposes upon our senses, but does not at all work upon our belief this
legerdemain excepted, they perform nothing that is not very ordinary and
mean: for being the more learned, they are none the less fools.

[So Hobbes said that if he had read as much as the academical
pedan