5. Has made men more conceited and obstinate.
This inconvenience, in an ill use of words, men suffer in their
own private meditations: but much more manifest are the disorders which follow from it, in conversation,
discourse, and arguings with others. For language being the great conduit, whereby men convey their discoveries,
reasonings, and knowledge, from one to another, he that makes an ill use of it, though he does not corrupt the
fountains of knowledge, which are in things themselves, yet he does, as much as in him lies, break or stop the
pipes whereby it is distributed to the public use and advantage of mankind. He that uses words without any clear
and steady meaning, what does he but lead himself and others into errors? And he that designedly does it, ought to
be looked on as an enemy to truth and knowledge. And yet who can wonder that all the sciences and parts of
knowledge have been so overcharged with obscure and equivocal terms, and insignificant and doubtful
expressions, capable to make the most attentive or quick-sighted very little, or not at all, the more knowing or
orthodox: since subtlety, in those who make profession to teach or defend truth, hath passed so much for a virtue:
a virtue, indeed, which, consisting for the most part in nothing but the fallacious and illusory use of obscure or
deceitful terms, is only fit to make men more conceited in their ignorance, and more obstinate in their errors.
