Of asking Questions. After this, it will be convenient to lay down some directions touching asking of questions. For it is true, he that comes to a great collation must eat what is set before him, not rudely calling for what is not to be had nor finding fault with the provision. But he that is invited to partake of a discourse, if it be with that proviso, must hear with silence; for such disagreeable hearers as occasion digressions by asking impertinent questions and starting foolish doubts are an hindrance both to the speaker and the discourse, without benefiting themselves. But when the speaker encourages them to propose their objections, he must take care that the question be of some consequence The suitors in Homer scorned and derided Ulysses.— To no brave prize aspired the worthless swain, ’Twas but for scraps he asked, and asked in vain, Odyss. XVII. 222. because they thought it required a great and heroic soul no less to ask than to bestow great gifts. But there is much better reason to slight and laugh at such a hearer as can please himself in asking little trifling questions. Thus some young fellows, to proclaim their smattering in logic and mathematics, upon all occasions enquire about the divisibility of the infinite, or about motion through a diagonal orupon the sides. But we may answer them with Philotimus, who, being asked by a consumptive phthisical person for a remedy against a whitlow, and perceiving the condition he was in by his color and his shortness of breath, replied, Sir, you have no reason to be apprehensive of that. So we must tell them, You have no reason, young gentlemen, to trouble yourselves about these questions; but how to shake off your conceit and arrogance, to have done with your intrigues and fopperies, and to settle immediately upon a modest and well-governed course of life, is the question for you. Great regard is to be had also to the genius and talent of a speaker, that we may enquire about such things as are in his way, and not take him out of his knowledge; as if one should propose physical or mathematical queries to a moral philosophy reader, or apply himself to one who prides himself on his knowledge of physics to give his opinion on conditional propositions or to resolve a fallacy in logic. For, as he that goes about to cleave wood with a key or to unlock a door with an axe does not so much misemploy those instruments as deprive himself of the proper use of them, so such as are not content with what a speaker offers them, but call for such things as he is a stranger to, not only are disappointed, but incur the suspicion of malice and ill-nature. Be cautious also how you ask questions yourself, or ask too often; for that betrays somewhat of conceit and ostentation. But to wait civilly while another proposes his scruples argues a studious spiritand willingness that others should be informed, unless some sudden perturbation of mind require to be repressed or some distemper to be assuaged. For perhaps, as Heraclitus says, it is an ill thing to conceal even a man’s ignorance; it must be laid open, that the remedy may be applied. So also if anger or superstition or a violent quarrel with your domestics or the mad passion of love, — Which doth the very heart-strings move, That ne’er were stirred before, — excite any commotion in your mind, you are not, for fear of being galled by reproof, to fly to such as are treating.of other arguments: but you must frequent those places where your particular case is stating, and after lecture address yourself privately to the speaker for better information and fuller satisfaction therein. On the contrary, men commonly flatter themselves, and admire the philosopher so long as he discourses of indifferent things; but if he come home to themselves and deal freely with them about their real interests, this they think is beyond all enduring, or at best a needless piece of supererogation. For they naturally think that they ought to hear philosophy in the schools, like actors on the stage, while in matters out of the school they believe them to be no better men than themselves; and, to confess the truth, they have but reason to think so of many Sophists, who, having once left the desk and laid aside their books, in the serious concerns of human life are utterly insignificant and even more ignorant than the vulgar. But they do not know that even the austerity or raillery of real philosophers, their very nod or look, their smile or frown, and especially their admonitions directed to particular persons, are of weighty importance to such as can brook or attend to them.