do handsomely, if they be not trained thereto: and yet shall that, for which these and such-like qualities they learn, to wit, good life and honest conversation, be reckoned a mere casual thing, coming by chance and fortune, and which can neither be taught nor learned? Oh, good sirs, what a thing is this? In saying that virtue cannot be taught, we deny withal that it is, or hath any being. For if it be true that the learning of it is the generation and breeding thereof, certes he that hindereth the one disannulleth the other: and in denying that it may be taught, we grant that no such thing there is at all: And yet, as Plato saith, for the neck of a lute not made in proportion to the rest of the body, there was never known one brother go to war with another, nor a friend to quarrel with his friend, nor yet two neighbour cities to fall out and maintain deadly feud, to the interchangeable working and suffering of those miseries and calamities which follow open war. Neither can any man come forth and say, that by occasion of an accent (as, for example, whether the word telchines should be pronounced with the accent over the second syllable or no) there arose sedition and dissension in any city; or debate in a house between man and wife about the warp and woof of any web: Howbeit never man yet would take in hand to wear a piece of cloth, nor handle a book, nor play upon the lute or harp, unless he had learned before; for albeit he were not like to sustain any great loss and notable damage thereby, yet he would fear to be mocked and laughed to scorn for his labour, in which case, as Heraclitus saith, it were better for a man to conceal his own ignorance: and may such an one think, then, that he could order a house well, rule a wife, and behave himself as it becometh in marriage, bear magistracy, or govern a commonweal as he ought, being never bound and brought up to it? Diogenes, espying upon a time a boy eating greedily and unmannerly, gave his master or tutor a good cuff on the ear: and good reason he had so to do, as imputing the fault rather to him, who had not taught, than to the boy, who had not learned better manners. And is it so indeed? ought they of necessity, who would be mannerly at the table, both in putting hand to a dish of meat, and taking the:up with a good grace, or as Aristophanes saith,
At board not feeding greedily,
Nor laughing much, indecently,
Nor crossing feet full wantonly,
to be taught even from their infancy. And is it possible that the same should know how to behave themselves in wedlock,
