The most we can say for our selves when the weakness of our Arguments comes to be discover’d, is that we were mistaken thro Rashness or Ignorance, which tho more pardonable than the former, are no recommending Qualities. If we argue falsly and know not that we do so, we shall be more pittied than when we do, but either way disappointed. And if we have added Rash Censures of those who are not of our Mind, Pride or Positiveness to our Errors as we cannot so handsomely Retreat so neither will so fair a Quarter be allow’d as those who Argue with Meekness, Modesty and Charity may well expect. So that when we have cast up our Account and estimated the Present Advantages that false Arguings bring us, I fear what we have got by a Pretence to Truth, won’t be found to countervail the loss we shall sustain by the Discovery that it was no more. Which may induce us (if other Considerations will not) to be wary in receiving any Proposition ourselves; and restrain us from being forward to impose our Sentiments on others. After all, ’tis a melancholy reflection that a great part of Mankind stand in need of Arguments drawn from so low a Motive as Worldly Interest, to persuade them to that to which they have much greater inducements. It is strange that we shou’d need any other considerations besides the bare performance of our Duty, and those unspeakable advantages laid up for all such as do it sincerely, hereafter. When we have the Approbation of GOD and the infinite Rewards he has propos’d to those who study to recommend themselves to him, for our Encouragement, how low are we sunk if the Applause of Men and the little Trifles which they can bestow weigh any thing with us! I am therefore almost asham’d of proposing so mean a consideration, but the degeneracy of the Age requir’d it, and they who perhaps at first follow Truth as the Jews did once, for the Loaves only, may at last be attracted by its own Native Beauties. [Sidenote: L’art de Penser, p. 22.] §. V. As Nature teaches us Logic, so does it instruct us in Rhetoric much better than Rules of Art, which if they are good ones are nothing else but those Judicious Observations which Men of Sense have drawn from Nature, and which all who reflect on the Operations of their own Minds will find out ’emselves. The common Precepts of Rhetoric may teach us how to reduce Ingenious ways of speaking to a certain Rule, but they do not teach us how to Invent them, this is Natures work and she does it best; there is as much difference between Natural and Artificial Eloquence as there is between Paint and True Beauty. So that as a good Author well observes, all that’s useful in this Art, “is the avoiding certain evil ways of Writing and Speaking, and above all an Artificial and Rhetorical Stile compos’d of false Thoughts, Hyperboles and forc’d Figures which is the greatest fault in Rhetoric.”