marriage ought to be his own carver, sole
arbitrator of his proper thoughts, and from himself alone take counsel in
the main and peremptory closure of what his determination should be, in
either his assent to or dissent from it. Such always hath been my opinion
to you, and when at first you spoke thereof to me I truly told you this
same very thing; but tacitly you scorned my advice, and would not harbour
it within your mind. I know for certain, and therefore may I with the
greater confidence utter my conception of it, that philauty, or self-love,
is that which blinds your judgment and deceiveth you.

Let us do otherwise, and that is this: Whatever we are, or have,
consisteth in three things--the soul, the body, and the goods. Now, for
the preservation of these three, there are three sorts of learned men
ordained, each respectively to have care of that one which is recommended
to his charge. Theologues are appointed for the soul, physicians for the
welfare of the body, and lawyers for the safety of our goods. Hence it is
that it is my resolution to have on Sunday next with me at dinner a divine,
a physician, and a lawyer, that with those three assembled thus together we
may in every point and particle confer at large of your perplexity. By
Saint Picot, answered Panurge, we never shall do any good that way, I see
it already. And you see yourself how the world is vilely abused, as when
with a foxtail one claps another's breech to cajole him. We give our souls
to keep to the theologues, who for the greater part are heretics. Our
bodies we commit to the physicians, who never themselves take any physic.
And then we entrust our goods to the lawyers, who never go to law against
one another. You speak like a courtier, quoth Pantagruel. But the first
point of your assertion is to be denied; for we daily see how good
theologues make it their chief business, their whole and sole employment,
by their deeds, their words, and writings, to extirpate errors and heresies
out of the hearts of men, and in their stead profoundly plant the true and
lively faith. The second point you spoke of I commend; for, whereas the
professors of the art of medicine give so good order to the prophylactic,
or conservative part of their faculty, in what concerneth their proper
healths, that they stand in no need of making use of the other branch,
which is the curative or therapeutic, by medicaments. As for the third, I
grant it to be true, for