and the Stoics: let this diversity of
opinions be propounded to, and laid before, him; he will himself
choose, if he be able; if not, he will remain in doubt.

"Che, non men che saper, dubbiar m'aggrata." DANTE, _Inferno_, xl.
93.

["That doubting pleases me, not less than knowing." LONGFELLOW'S
_Translation_.]

For, if he embrace the opinions of Xenophon and Plato, by his own
reason, they will no more be theirs, but become his own. Who
follows another, follows nothing, finds nothing, nay, is
inquisitive after nothing. "Non sumus sub rege; sibi quisque se
vindicet." ["We are under no king; let each look to
himself."--SENECA, _Ep._ 33.] Let him, at least, know that he
knows. It will be necessary that he imbibe their knowledge, not
that he be corrupted with their precepts; and no matter if he
forget where he had his learning, provided he know how to apply it
to his own use. Truth and reason are common to every one, and are
no more his who spake them first, than his who speaks them after;
'tis no more according to Plato, than according to me, since both
he and I equally see and understand them. Bees cull their several
sweets from this flower and that blossom, here and there where they
find them; but themselves afterward make the honey, which is all
and purely their own, and no more thyme and marjoram: so the
several fragments he borrows from others he will transform and
shuffle together, to compile a work that shall be absolutely his
own; that is to say, his judgment: his instruction, labor, and
study tend to nothing else but to form that.... Conversation with
men is of very great use, and travel into foreign countries;... to
be able chiefly to give an account of the humors, manners, customs,
and laws of those nations where he has been, and that we may whet
and sharpen our wits by rubbing them against those of others....

In this conversing with men, I mean also, and principally, those
who live only in the records of history: he shall, by reading those
books, converse with the great and heroic souls of the best ages.

It is difficult to find a stopping-place in discourse so wise and so
sweet. We come upon sentences like Plato for height and for beauty. An
example: "The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness;
her state is like that of thi