HINTS FOR "THE FRIEND"
The falseness of that so very common opinion, "Mathematics, aye, that is something! that has been useful—but metaphysics!" Now fairly compare the two, what each has really done.
But [be thou] only concerned to find out truth, which, on what side soever it appears, is always victory to every honest mind.
Christianity, too (as well as Platonism and the school of Pythagoras), has its esoteric philosophy, or why are we forbidden to cast pearls before swine? But who are the swine? Are they the poor and despised, the unalphabeted in worldly learning? O, no! the rich whose hearts are steeled by ignorance of misery and habits of receiving slavish obedience—the dropsical learned and the St. Vitus' [bewitched] sciolist.
In controversy it is highly useful to know whether you are really addressing yourself to an opponent or only to partisans, with the intention of preserving them firm. Either is well, but they should never be commingled.
In her letter to Lord Willoughby Queen Elizabeth hath the word "eloign." There is no exact equivalent in modern use. Neither "withdraw" or "absent" are precisely synonymous.