Solemn Dissertation on the Philosophy of Silence

rarely or never attain the outcome of their intention. They sooner contract the hatreds and cavils of envious men than they enjoy the love of grateful men, because they have either unearthed some truth, or investigated an occult one, or restored one that was deeply lost. For it happens mostly to the editors of most excellent books, which Seneca excellently expresses in the Book on the Happy Life, cited chap. XIX, regarding the morals of envious men: At the name of great men, because of some exceptional praise, they bark, just as small dogs do at the approach of unknown men. For it is advantageous to them that no one appear good, as if the virtue of another were a reproach of their own faults. Unwillingly, they compare splendid things with their own filth, nor do they understand with how much detriment to themselves they dare to do so. The final reason is that true philosophy is destined for diminishing the dangers of life, which are best avoided not so much by books as by deeds, and those shining in good example. Therefore, what seems to them a despised philosophy of silence, to those whom an insatiable itch for writing tires, is considered the art of life by others whom good morals and true security of life delight, by the judgment of the same Seneca in Epistle XCV.

From this, however, they obtain no pardon who, assuming for themselves the office of a teacher, and a little later reduced to the straits of silence, take refuge either in that common proverb: By teaching we learn; or they retreat to the bald excuse: that they are indeed learned, but cannot bring forth their doctrine. The philosopher of Logic commands silence for both: for the former, because, just as what one does not have, one cannot give to another; so neither ought one to teach those things one does not know. For it is a vain pretext that they learn by teaching. Surely, the acquisition of knowledge is one thing, and experience is another; the trite saying, "by teaching it is learned," should be understood not of the former, but of the latter.