130 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



appeHalUurprudens, sed dulcis eloquio majora reperict, signify- 

 in^ that profoundess of wisdom will help a man to a name or 

 admiration, but that it is eloquence that prevaileth in an active 

 life. And as to the labouring of it, the emulation of Aristotle 

 with the rhetoricians of his time, and the experience of Cicero, 

 hath made them in their works of rhetoric exceed themselves. 

 Again, the excellency of examples of eloquence in the orations 

 of Demosthenes and Cicero, added to the perfection of the 

 precepts of eloquence, hath doubled the progression in this 

 art- and therefore the deficiences which I shall note will 

 rather be in some collections, which may as handmaids attend 

 the art, than in the rules or use of the art itself. 



2. Notwithstanding, to stir the earth a little about the roota 

 of this science, as we have done of the rest, the duty and office 

 of rhetoric is to apply reason to imagination for the better 

 moving of the will. For we see reason is disturbed m t 

 administration thereof by three means by illaqueation or 

 sophism, which pertains to logic; by imagination or impres 

 sion, which pertains to rhetoric ; and by passion or affection, 

 which pertains to morality. And as in negotiation ^vlth 

 others, men are wrought by cunning, by importunity, and by 

 vehemency ; so in this negotiation within ourselves, men are 

 undermined by inconsequences, solicited and importuned by 

 impressions or observations, and transported by passions. 

 Neither is the nature of man so unfortunately built, as tnat 

 those powers and arts should have force to disturb reason, arid 

 not to establish and advance it. For the end of logic is 

 teach a form of argument to secure reason, and not to entrap 

 it the end of morality is to procure the affections to obey 

 reason and not to invade it ; the end of rhetoric is to fill the 

 imagination to second reason, and not to oppress it ; for these 

 abuses of arts come in but ex obliquo, for caution. 



(3) And therefore it was great injustice in Plato, though 

 springing out of a just hatred to the rhetoricians of his time, 

 to esteem of rhetoric but as a voluptuary art, resembling it to 

 cookery, that did mar wholesome meats, and help unwhole 

 some by variety of sauces to the pleasure of the taste. 1 

 we see that speech is much more conversant in adorning that 

 which is good than in colouring that which is evil ; for there is 

 no man but speaketh more honestly than he can do or think ; 

 and it was excellently noted by Thucydides, in Cleon, that be 

 cause he used to hold on the bad side in causes of estate, there 

 fore he was ever inveighing against eloquence and good speech, 

 knowing that no man can speak fair of courses sordid and base. 

 And therefore, as Plato said elegantly, &quot;That virtue, if she 



