his time so much, as not to think the answering such Trifles worth the loss of it.
And now having said thus much for Carneades, I hope the Reader will give me leave to say something too for my self.
And first, if some morose Readers shall find fault with my having made the Interlocutors upon occasion complement with one another, and that I have almost all along written these Dialogues in a stile more Fashionable then That of meer Scholars is wont to be, I hope I shall be excus’d by them that shall consider, that to keep a due decorum in the Discourses, it was fit that in a book written by a Gentleman, and wherein only Gentlemen are introduc’d as speakers, the Language should be more smooth, and the Expressions more civil than is usual in the more Scholastick way of writing. And indeed, I am not sorry to have this Opportunity of giving an example how to manage even Disputes with Civility; whence perhaps some Readers will be assisted to discern a Difference betwixt Bluntness of speech and Strength of reason, and find that a man may be a Champion for Truth, without being an Enemy to Civility; and may confute an Opinion without railing at Them that hold it; To whom he that desires to convince and not to provoke them, must make some amends by his Ci-
