A DISPUTANT
Is a holder of arguments, and wagers too, when he cannot make them good. He takes naturally to controversy, like fishes in India that are said to have worms in their heads and swim always against the stream. The greatest mastery of his art consists in turning and winding the state of the question, by which means he can easily defeat whatsoever has been said by his adversary, though excellently to the purpose, like a bowler that knocks away the jack when he sees another man's bowl lie nearer to it than his own. Another of his faculties is with a multitude of words to render what he says so difficult to be recollected that his adversary may not easily know what he means, and consequently not understand what to answer, to which he secretly reserves an advantage to reply by interpreting what he said before otherwise than he at first intended it, according as he finds it serve his purpose to evade whatsoever shall be objected. Next to this, to pretend not to understand, or misinterpret what his antagonist says, though plain enough, only to divert him from the purpose, and to take occasion from his exposition of what he said to start new cavils on the bye and run quite away from the question; but when he finds himself pressed home and beaten from all his guards, to amuse the foe with some senseless distinction, like a falsified blow that never hits where 'tis aimed, but while it is minded makes way for some other trick that may pass. But that which renders him invincible is abundance of confidence and words, which are his offensive and defensive arms; for a brazen face is a natural helmet or beaver, and he that has store of words needs not surrender for want of ammunition. No matter for reason and sense, that go for no more in disputations than the justice of a cause does in war, which is understood but by few and commonly regarded by none. For the custom of disputants is not so much to destroy one another's reason as to cavil at the manner of expressing it, right or wrong; for they believe Dolus an virtus, &c., ought to be allowed in controversy as war, and he that gets the victory on any terms whatsoever deserves it and gets it honourably. He and his opponent are like two false lute-strings that will never stand in tune to one another, or like two tennis-players whose greatest skill consists in avoiding one another's strokes.