(4) But yet notwithstanding it is a thing not hastily to be
condemned, to clothe and adorn the obscurity even of philosophy
itself with sensible and plausible elocution. For hereof we have
great examples in Xenophon, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and of Plato
also in some degree; and hereof likewise there is great use, for
surely, to the severe inquisition of truth and the deep progress
into philosophy, it is some hindrance because it is too early
satisfactory to the mind of man, and quencheth the desire of further
search before we come to a just period. But then if a man be to
have any use of such knowledge in civil occasions, of conference,
counsel, persuasion, discourse, or the like, then shall he find it
prepared to his hands in those authors which write in that manner.
But the excess of this is so justly contemptible, that as Hercules,
when he saw the image of Adonis, Venus' minion, in a temple, said in
disdain, Nil sacri es; so there is none of Hercules' followers in
learning--that is, the more severe and laborious sort of inquirers
into truth--but will despise those delicacies and affectations, as
indeed capable of no divineness.
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