dare to say of a thief that he has a handsome leg? If a woman be a
strumpet, must it needs follow that she has a foul smell? Did they in
the wisest ages revoke the proud title of Capitolinus they had before
conferred on Marcus Manlius as conservator of religion and the public
liberty, and stifle the memory of his liberality, his feats of arms, and
military recompenses granted to his valour, because he, afterwards
aspired to the sovereignty, to the prejudice of the laws of his country?
If we take a hatred against an advocate, he will not be allowed the next
day to be eloquent. I have elsewhere spoken of the zeal that pushed on
worthy men to the like faults. For my part, I can say, "Such an one does
this thing ill, and another thing virtuously and well." So in the
prognostication or sinister events of affairs they would have every one
in his party blind or a blockhead, and that our persuasion and judgment
should subserve not truth, but to the project of our desires. I should
rather incline towards the other extreme; so much I fear being suborned
by my desire; to which may be added that I am a little tenderly
distrustful of things that I wish.

I have in my time seen wonders in the indiscreet and prodigious facility
of people in suffering their hopes and belief to be led and governed,
which way best pleased and served their leaders, despite a hundred
mistakes one upon another, despite mere dreams and phantasms. I no more
wonder at those who have been blinded and seduced by the fooleries of
Apollonius and Mahomet. Their sense and understanding are absolutely
taken away by their passion; their discretion has no more any other
choice than that which smiles upon them and encourages their cause.
I had principally observed this in the beginning of our intestine
distempers; that other, which has sprung up since, in imitating, has
surpassed it; by which I am satisfied that it is a quality inseparable
from popular errors; after the first, that rolls, opinions drive on one