23
But this is one of the least inconveniences of this infirmity; and indeed we ought to make it one step towards the cure, to turn this violent vein of twattling upon such subjects as those. For such a loquacity is less a nuisance when it superabounds in what belongs to humane literature. It would be well also that the sort of people who are addicted to this vice should accustom themselves to write upon some subject or other, and to dispute of certain questions apart. For Antipater the Stoic, as we may probably conjecture, either not being able or else unwilling to come into dispute with Carneades, vehemently inveighing against the Stoics, declined to meet him fairly in the schools, yet would be always writing answers against him; and because he filled whole volumes full of contradictory arguments, and still opposed him with assertions that only made a noise, he was called Calamoboas, as one that made a great clamor with his pen to no purpose. So it is very probable that such fighting with their own shadows, and exclaiming one against another apart by themselves, driving and restraining them from the multitude, would render them gradually more tolerable and sociable in civil company; as curs, after they have once discharged their fury upon sticks and stones, become less fierce towards men. It would be always of great importance to them to converse with their superiors and elders; for that the awful reverence and respect which they bear to their dignity and gravity may accustom them in time to silence.
