brought to light by the disputations that are practised in the schools;
for while each strives for the victory, each is much more occupied in
making the best of mere verisimilitude, than in weighing the reasons on
both sides of the question; and those who have been long good advocates
are not afterwards on that account the better judges.

As for the advantage that others would derive from the communication of my
thoughts, it could not be very great; because I have not yet so far
prosecuted them as that much does not remain to be added before they can
be applied to practice. And I think I may say without vanity, that if
there is any one who can carry them out that length, it must be myself
rather than another: not that there may not be in the world many minds
incomparably superior to mine, but because one cannot so well seize a
thing and make it one's own, when it has been learned from another, as
when one has himself discovered it. And so true is this of the present
subject that, though I have often explained some of my opinions to persons
of much acuteness, who, whilst I was speaking, appeared to understand them
very distinctly, yet, when they repeated them, I have observed that they
almost always changed them to such an extent that I could no longer
acknowledge them as mine. I am glad, by the way, to take this opportunity
of requesting posterity never to believe on hearsay that anything has
proceeded from me which has not been published by myself; and I am not at
all astonished at the extravagances attributed to those ancient
philosophers whose own writings we do not possess; whose thoughts,
however, I do not on that account suppose to have been really absurd,
seeing they were among the ablest men of their times, but only that these
have been falsely represented to us. It is observable, accordingly, that
scarcely in a single instance has any one of their disciples surpassed
them; and I am quite sure that the most devoted of the present followers
of Aristotle would think themselves happy if they had as much knowledge of