Cause Principle Unity

Third dialogue
the properties of drugs and medicine than Galen, Avicenna and all those
who communicate with the Roman tongue. Philosophies and laws are lost,
not through a penury of word-interpreters, but through a scarcity of
profound thinkers.
POLIINNIO. So, you number a man like me among the dull-witted
multitude?
GERVASIO. God forbid. I know that, with study and knowledge (rare
and remarkable things), you and your peers are thoroughly equipped to
judge doctrines, after having sifted through the opinions of the people who
champion them.
POLIINNIO. Since you are now speaking the pure truth, it is not so hard
to persuade myself that you have some motive. If it is not too hard for you,
pray take the trouble to set it out.
GERVASIO. I will say this (submitting myself throughout to your wise
and prudent judgement): it is a common proverb that those who are not in
a game follow it better than the ones playing. Similarly, those watching a
play can better judge of the performance than the actors on the stage, and
in the same way music can be better heard by someone not part of the
orchestra or choir. It is the same with card games, chess, fencing and the
like: and so, you other gentlemen pedants, excluded from all scientific and
philosophical activity, not having nor ever having had anything to do with
Aristotle, Plato and their kind, can better judge and condemn them with
your grammatical matchlessness and natural presumption, than the Nolan,
who finds himself on the same stage and in such familiarity and intimacy
with them, having made out their most profound and innermost notions,
that he fights them easily. I say that you, because you are outside every
practice of gentlemen or extraordinary wits, can better judge them.
POLIINNIO. I have no idea how to answer this gross impudence pointblank.
Vox faucibus haesit [The voice sticks in the throat] 8 .
GERVASIO. So, your sort possess that presumption lacking in those
whose feet are deep into the question; therefore, I assure you it is with good
title that you usurp the function of approving this, reproving that, glossing
still the other, here drawing up a table of concordances, there an appendix.
POLIINNIO. This complete ignoramus wishes to infer from the fact
that I am versed in letters that I am ignorant of philosophy!
GERVASIO. Most learned Poliinnio, sir, I must tell you that even if you
knew all the languages there are, which our preachers number seventy-two …
8 Virgil, Aeneid, ii, 774.
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