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.
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