But it is plainly a preposterous method of instructing, of deciding
controversies, of begetting peace, to vex and anger those concerned
by ill language. Nothing surely doth more hinder the efficacy of
discourse, and prevent conviction, than doth this course, upon many
obvious accounts. It doth first put in a strong bar to attention:
for no man willingly doth afford an ear to him whom he conceiveth
disaffected towards him: which opinion harsh words infallibly will
produce; no man can expect to hear truth from him whom he
apprehendeth disordered in his own mind, whom he seeth rude in his
proceedings, whom he taketh to be unjust in his dealing; as men
certainly will take those to be, who presume to revile others for
using their own judgment freely, and dissenting from them in
opinion. Again, this course doth blind the hearer's mind, so that
he cannot discern what he that pretends to instruct him doth mean,
or how he doth assert his doctrine. Truth will not be discerned
through the smoke of wrathful expressions; right being defaced by
foul language will not appear, passion being excited will not suffer
a man to perceive the sense or the force of an argument. The will
also thereby is hardened and hindered from submitting to truth. In
such a case, non persuadebis, etiamsi persuaseris; although you stop
his mouth, you cannot subdue his heart; although he can no longer
fight, yet he never will yield: animosity raised by such usage
rendereth him invincibly obstinate in his conceits and courses.
Briefly, from this proceeding men become unwilling to mark, unfit to
apprehend, indisposed to embrace any good instruction or advice; it
maketh them indocile and intractable, averse from better
instruction, pertinacious in their opinions, and refractory in their
ways.