178 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [XVIII.2. 



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, re 

 sembling it to cookery, that did mar wholesome meats, 

 and help unwholesome by variety of sauces to the plea 

 sure of the taste. For 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 

 because he used to hold on the bad side in causes of 

 estate, therefore he was ever inveighing against elo 

 quence and good speech ; knowing that no man can 

 speak fair of courses sordid and base. And therefore 

 as Plato said elegantly, That virtue, if she could be seen, 

 would move great love and affection ; so seeing that she 

 cannot be showed to the sense by corporal shape, the 

 next degree is to show her to the imagination in lively 

 representation : for to show her to reason only in sub- 

 tility of argument was a thing ever derided in Chrysip- 

 pus and many of the Stoics, who thought to thrust 

 virtue upon men by sharp disputations and conclusions, 

 which have no sympathy with the will of man. 



4. Again, if the affections in themselves were pliant and 

 obedient to reason, it were true there should be no great 

 use of persuasions and insinuations to the will, more than 

 of naked proposition and proofs ; but in regard of the 

 continual mutinies and seditions of the affections, 



Video meliora, proboque, 

 Deteriora sequor, 



