are
the abominable wicked men of Italy who hold this precious Mother
Tongue in vile contempt, which if it be vile in any case, is so only
inasmuch as it sounds in the evil mouth of these adulterers, under
whose guidance go those blind men of whom I spoke in the first
argument.

CHAPTER XII.

If flames of fire should issue visibly through the windows of a house,
and if any one should ask if there were fire within it, and if another
should answer "Yes" to him, one would not well know how to judge which
of those might be mocking the most. Not otherwise would the question
and the answer pass between me and that man who should ask me if love
for my own language is in me, and if I should answer "Yes" to him,
after the arguments propounded above.

But, nevertheless, it has to be proved that not only love, but the
most perfect love for it exists in me, and again its adversaries must
be blamed. Whilst demonstrating this to him who will understand well,
I will tell how I became the friend of it, and then how my friendship
is confirmed.

I say that (as Tullius writes in his book on Friendship, not
dissenting from the opinion of the Philosopher opened up in the eighth
and in the ninth of the Ethics) Neighbourhood and Goodness are,
naturally, the causes of the birth of Love: Benevolence, Study, and
Custom are the causes of the growth of Love. And there have been all
these causes to produce and to strengthen the love which I bear to my
Native Language, as I shall briefly demonstrate. A thing is so much
the nearer in proportion as it is most nearly allied to all the other
things of its own kind; wherefore, of all men the son is nearest to
the father, and of all the Arts, Medicine is nearest to the Doctor,
and Music to the Musician, because they are more allied to them than
the others. Of all parts of the earth the nearest is that whereon a
man lives, because he is most united to it. And thus his own Native
Language is nearest to him, inasmuch as he is most united to it; for
it, and it alone, is first in the mind before any other. And not only
of itself is it united, but by accident, inasmuch as it is united with
the persons nearest to him, as his parents, and his fellow-citizens,
and his own people. And this is his own Mother Tongue, which is not
only nearest, but especially the nearest to each man. Therefore, if
near neighbourhood be the seed of friendship, as is said above, it is
manifest that it has been one of the c