And thus I have known a man unskilful in syllogism, who at first
hearing could perceive the weakness and inconclusiveness of a long
artificial and plausible discourse, wherewith others better skilled in
syllogism have been misled: and I believe there are few of my
readers who do not know such. And indeed, if it were not so, the
debates of most princes' councils, and the business of assemblies,
would be in danger to be mismanaged, since those who are relied
upon, and have usually a great stroke in them, are not always such who
have the good luck to be perfectly knowing in the forms of
syllogism, or expert in mode and figure. And if syllogism were the
only, or so much as the surest way to detect the fallacies of
artificial discourses; I do not think that all mankind, even princes
in matters that concern their crowns and dignities, are so much in
love with falsehood and mistake, that they would everywhere have
neglected to bring syllogism into the debates of moment; or thought it
ridiculous so much as to offer them in affairs of consequence; a plain
evidence to me, that men of parts and penetration, who were not idly
to dispute at their ease, but were to act according to the result of
their debates, and often pay for their mistakes with their heads or
fortunes, found those scholastic forms were of little use to
discover truth or fallacy, whilst both the one and the other might
be shown, and better shown without them, to those who would not refuse
to see what was visibly shown them.
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