But let us proceed.  What greater victory do you expect than to make your enemy see and know that he is not able to encounter you?  When you get the better of your argument; ’tis truth that wins; when you get the advantage of form and method,’tis then you who win.  I am of opinion that in, Plato and Xenophon Socrates disputes more in favour of the disputants than in favour of the dispute, and more to instruct Euthydemus and Protagoras in the, knowledge of their impertinence, than in the impertinence of their art.  He takes hold of the first subject like one who has a more profitable end than to explain it—­namely, to clear the understandings that he takes upon him to instruct and exercise.  To hunt after truth is properly our business, and we are inexcusable if we carry on the chase impertinently and ill; to fail of seizing it is another thing, for we are born to inquire after truth:  it belongs to a greater power to possess it.  It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine knowledge.  The world is but a school of inquisition:  it is not who shall enter the ring, but who shall run the best courses.  He may as well play the fool who speaks true, as he who speaks false, for we are upon the manner, not the matter, of speaking.  ’Tis my humour as much to regard the form as the substance, and the advocate as much as the cause, as Alcibiades ordered we should:  and every day pass away my time in reading authors without any consideration of their learning; their manner is what I look after, not their subject:  And just so do I hunt after the conversation of any eminent wit, not that he may teach me, but that I may know him, and that knowing him, if I think him worthy of imitation, I may imitate him.  Every man may speak truly, but to speak methodically, prudently, and fully, is a talent that few men have.  The falsity that proceeds from ignorance does not offend me, but the foppery of it.  I have broken off several treaties that would have been of advantage to me, by reason of the impertinent contestations of those with whom I treated.  I am not moved once in a year at the faults of those over whom I have authority, but upon the account of the ridiculous obstinacy of their allegations, denials, excuses, we are every day going together by the ears; they neither understand what is said, nor why, and answer accordingly; ’tis enough to drive a man mad.  I never feel any hurt upon my head but when ’tis knocked against another, and more easily forgive the vices of my servants than their boldness, importunity, and folly; let them do less, provided they understand what they do:  you live in hope to warm their affection to your service, but there is nothing to be had or to be expected from a stock.