Neither
is the nature of man so unfortunately built, as that those powers
and arts should have force to disturb reason, and not to establish
and advance it. For the end of logic is to 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 oblique, 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 unwholesome by variety of sauces to
the pleasure 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 eloquence and good
speech, knowing that no man can speak fair of courses sordid and
base.
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