9. This learning very little benefits society.
For, notwithstanding these learned disputants, these all-knowing
doctors, it was to the unscholastic statesman that the governments of the world owed their peace, defence, and
liberties; and from the illiterate and contemned mechanic (a name of disgrace) that they received the
improvements of useful arts. Nevertheless, this artificial ignorance, and learned gibberish, prevailed mightily in
these last ages, by the interest and artifice of those who found no easier way to that pitch of authority and
dominion they have attained, than by amusing the men of business, and ignorant, with hard words, or employing
the ingenious and idle in intricate disputes about unintelligible terms, and holding them perpetually entangled in
that endless labyrinth. Besides, there is no such way to gain admittance, or give defence to strange and absurd
doctrines, as to guard them round about with legions of obscure, doubtful, and undefined words. Which yet make
these retreats more like the dens of robbers, or holes of foxes, than the fortresses of fair warriors: which, if it be
hard to get them out of, it is not for the strength that is in them, but the briars and thorns, and the obscurity of the
thickets they are beset with. For untruth being unacceptable to the mind of man, there is no other defence left for
absurdity but obscurity.