By
discrediting
falsehood,
truth grows in request.
truth grows in request.
Ben Jonson - Discoveries Made Upon Men, and Some Poems
--Some men, to
avoid redundancy, run into that; and while they strive to have no ill
blood or juice, they lose their good. There be some styles, again, that
have not less blood, but less flesh and corpulence. These are bony and
sinewy; _Ossa habent_, _et nervos_.
_Notae domini Sti. Albani de doctrin.
intemper_. --_Dictator_. --_Aristoteles_. --It was well noted by the late Lord
St. Albans, that the study of words is the first distemper of learning;
vain matter the second; and a third distemper is deceit, or the likeness
of truth: imposture held up by credulity. All these are the cobwebs of
learning, and to let them grow in us is either sluttish or foolish.
Nothing is more ridiculous than to make an author a dictator, as the
schools have done Aristotle. The damage is infinite knowledge receives
by it; for to many things a man should owe but a temporary belief, and
suspension of his own judgment, not an absolute resignation of himself,
or a perpetual captivity. Let Aristotle and others have their dues; but
if we can make farther discoveries of truth and fitness than they, why
are we envied? Let us beware, while we strive to add, we do not diminish
or deface; we may improve, but not augment.
By discrediting falsehood,
truth grows in request. We must not go about, like men anguished and
perplexed, for vicious affectation of praise, but calmly study the
separation of opinions, find the errors have intervened, awake antiquity,
call former times into question; but make no parties with the present,
nor follow any fierce undertakers, mingle no matter of doubtful credit
with the simplicity of truth, but gently stir the mould about the root of
the question, and avoid all digladiations, facility of credit, or
superstitious simplicity, seek the consonancy and concatenation of truth;
stoop only to point of necessity, and what leads to convenience. Then
make exact animadversion where style hath degenerated, where flourished
and thrived in choiceness of phrase, round and clean composition of
sentence, sweet falling of the clause, varying an illustration by tropes
and figures, weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument,
life of invention, and depth of judgment. This is _monte potiri_, to get
the hill; for no perfect discovery can be made upon a flat or a level.
_De optimo scriptore_. --_Cicero_. --Now that I have informed you in the
knowing of these things, let me lead you by the hand a little farther, in
the direction of the use, and make you an able writer by practice. The
conceits of the mind are pictures of things, and the tongue is the
interpreter of those pictures. The order of God's creatures in
themselves is not only admirable and glorious, but eloquent: then he who
could apprehend the consequence of things in their truth, and utter his
apprehensions as truly, were the best writer or speaker. Therefore
Cicero said much, when he said, _Dicere recte nemo potest_, _nisi qui
prudenter intelligit_. {124a} The shame of speaking unskilfully were
small if the tongue only thereby were disgraced; but as the image of a
king in his seal ill-represented is not so much a blemish to the wax, or
the signet that sealed it, as to the prince it representeth, so
disordered speech is not so much injury to the lips that give it forth,
as to the disproportion and incoherence of things in themselves, so
negligently expressed. Neither can his mind be thought to be in tune,
whose words do jar; nor his reason in frame, whose sentence is
preposterous; nor his elocution clear and perfect, whose utterance breaks
itself into fragments and uncertainties. Were it not a dishonour to a
mighty prince, to have the majesty of his embassage spoiled by a careless
ambassador? and is it not as great an indignity, that an excellent
conceit and capacity, by the indiligence of an idle tongue, should be
disgraced? Negligent speech doth not only discredit the person of the
speaker, but it discrediteth the opinion of his reason and judgment; it
discrediteth the force and uniformity of the matter and substance. If it
be so then in words, which fly and escape censure, and where one good
phrase begs pardon for many incongruities and faults, how shall he then
be thought wise whose penning is thin and shallow?
avoid redundancy, run into that; and while they strive to have no ill
blood or juice, they lose their good. There be some styles, again, that
have not less blood, but less flesh and corpulence. These are bony and
sinewy; _Ossa habent_, _et nervos_.
_Notae domini Sti. Albani de doctrin.
intemper_. --_Dictator_. --_Aristoteles_. --It was well noted by the late Lord
St. Albans, that the study of words is the first distemper of learning;
vain matter the second; and a third distemper is deceit, or the likeness
of truth: imposture held up by credulity. All these are the cobwebs of
learning, and to let them grow in us is either sluttish or foolish.
Nothing is more ridiculous than to make an author a dictator, as the
schools have done Aristotle. The damage is infinite knowledge receives
by it; for to many things a man should owe but a temporary belief, and
suspension of his own judgment, not an absolute resignation of himself,
or a perpetual captivity. Let Aristotle and others have their dues; but
if we can make farther discoveries of truth and fitness than they, why
are we envied? Let us beware, while we strive to add, we do not diminish
or deface; we may improve, but not augment.
By discrediting falsehood,
truth grows in request. We must not go about, like men anguished and
perplexed, for vicious affectation of praise, but calmly study the
separation of opinions, find the errors have intervened, awake antiquity,
call former times into question; but make no parties with the present,
nor follow any fierce undertakers, mingle no matter of doubtful credit
with the simplicity of truth, but gently stir the mould about the root of
the question, and avoid all digladiations, facility of credit, or
superstitious simplicity, seek the consonancy and concatenation of truth;
stoop only to point of necessity, and what leads to convenience. Then
make exact animadversion where style hath degenerated, where flourished
and thrived in choiceness of phrase, round and clean composition of
sentence, sweet falling of the clause, varying an illustration by tropes
and figures, weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument,
life of invention, and depth of judgment. This is _monte potiri_, to get
the hill; for no perfect discovery can be made upon a flat or a level.
_De optimo scriptore_. --_Cicero_. --Now that I have informed you in the
knowing of these things, let me lead you by the hand a little farther, in
the direction of the use, and make you an able writer by practice. The
conceits of the mind are pictures of things, and the tongue is the
interpreter of those pictures. The order of God's creatures in
themselves is not only admirable and glorious, but eloquent: then he who
could apprehend the consequence of things in their truth, and utter his
apprehensions as truly, were the best writer or speaker. Therefore
Cicero said much, when he said, _Dicere recte nemo potest_, _nisi qui
prudenter intelligit_. {124a} The shame of speaking unskilfully were
small if the tongue only thereby were disgraced; but as the image of a
king in his seal ill-represented is not so much a blemish to the wax, or
the signet that sealed it, as to the prince it representeth, so
disordered speech is not so much injury to the lips that give it forth,
as to the disproportion and incoherence of things in themselves, so
negligently expressed. Neither can his mind be thought to be in tune,
whose words do jar; nor his reason in frame, whose sentence is
preposterous; nor his elocution clear and perfect, whose utterance breaks
itself into fragments and uncertainties. Were it not a dishonour to a
mighty prince, to have the majesty of his embassage spoiled by a careless
ambassador? and is it not as great an indignity, that an excellent
conceit and capacity, by the indiligence of an idle tongue, should be
disgraced? Negligent speech doth not only discredit the person of the
speaker, but it discrediteth the opinion of his reason and judgment; it
discrediteth the force and uniformity of the matter and substance. If it
be so then in words, which fly and escape censure, and where one good
phrase begs pardon for many incongruities and faults, how shall he then
be thought wise whose penning is thin and shallow?
