If we take a hatred against an advocate, he will not be allowed the next day to be eloquent.  I have elsewhere spoken of the zeal that pushed on worthy men to the like faults.  For my part, I can say, “Such an one does this thing ill, and another thing virtuously and well.”  So in the prognostication or sinister events of affairs they would have every one in his party blind or a blockhead, and that our persuasion and judgment should subserve not truth, but to the project of our desires.  I should rather incline towards the other extreme; so much I fear being suborned by my desire; to which may be added that I am a little tenderly distrustful of things that I wish.

I have in my time seen wonders in the indiscreet and prodigious facility of people in suffering their hopes and belief to be led and governed, which way best pleased and served their leaders, despite a hundred mistakes one upon another, despite mere dreams and phantasms.  I no more wonder at those who have been blinded and seduced by the fooleries of Apollonius and Mahomet.  Their sense and understanding are absolutely taken away by their passion; their discretion has no more any other choice than that which smiles upon them and encourages their cause.  I had principally observed this in the beginning of our intestine distempers; that other, which has sprung up since, in imitating, has surpassed it; by which I am satisfied that it is a quality inseparable from popular errors; after the first, that rolls, opinions drive on one another like waves with the wind:  a man is not a member of the body, if it be in his power to forsake it, and if he do not roll the common way.  But, doubtless, they wrong the just side when they go about to assist it with fraud; I have ever been against that practice:  ’tis only fit to work upon weak heads; for the sound, there are surer and more honest ways to keep up their courage and to excuse adverse accidents.

Heaven never saw a greater animosity than that betwixt Caesar and Pompey, nor ever shall; and yet I observe, methinks, in those brave souls, a great moderation towards one another:  it was a jealousy of honour and command, which did not transport them to a furious and indiscreet hatred, and was without malignity and detraction:  in their hottest exploits upon one another, I discover some remains of respect and good-will:  and am therefore of opinion that, had, it been possible, each of them would rather have done his business without the ruin of the other than with it.  Take notice how much otherwise matters went with Marius and Sylla.

We must not precipitate ourselves so headlong after our affections and interests.  As, when I was young, I opposed myself to the progress of love which I perceived to advance too fast upon me, and had a care lest it should at last become so pleasing as to force, captivate, and wholly reduce me to its mercy:  so I do the same upon all other occasions where my will is running on with too warm an appetite.