of a purgative remedy procured belief and authority to what he said,
because in refuting others he himself affirmed nothing; and he the
sooner gained upon people, because he seemed rather to be inquisitive
after the truth as well as they, than to maintain his own opinion.

Now, however useful a thing judgment is, it is mightily infected By
the begetting of a man's own fancies. For the lover is blinded with the
thing loved; and nothing of a man's own is so beloved as is the opinion
and discourse he has begotten. And the distribution of children said to
be the justest, in respect of discourses is the unjustest; for there a
man must take his own, but here a man must choose the best, though it
be another man's. Therefore he that has children of his own, is a worse
judge of other men's; it being true, as the sophister said well, "The
Eleans would be the most proper judges of the Olympic games, were no
Eleans gamesters." So he that would judge of disputations cannot be
just, if he either seeks the bays for himself, or is himself antagonist
to either of the antagonists. For as the Grecian captains, when they
were to settle by their suffrages who had behaved himself the best,
every man of them voted for himself; so there is not a philosopher of
them all but would do the like, besides those that acknowledge, like
Socrates, that they can say nothing that is their own; and these only
are the pure uncorrupt judges of the truth. For as the air in the ears,
unless it be still and void of noise in itself, without any sound or
humming, does not exactly take sounds so the philosophical judgment
in disputations, if it be disturbed and obstreperous within, is hardly
comprehensive of what is said without. For our familiar and inbred
opinion will not allow that which disagrees with itself, as the number
of sects and parties shows, of which philosophy--if she deals with them
in the best manner--must maintain one to be right, and all the others to
be contrary to the truth in their positions.

Furthermore, if men can comprehend and know nothing, God did justly
interdict Socrates the procreation of false and unstable discourses,
which are like wind-eggs, and did him convince others who were of any
other opinion. And reasoning, which rids us of the greatest of evils,
error and vanity of mind, is none of the least benefit to us; "For God
has not granted this to the Esculapians." (Theognis, vs. 432,) Nor did
Socrates give physic to the body; inde