[41] It will be well for us to counter in this manner those who are pugnacious over the tenets which they maintain; for when we have been exercised in the forms which words take, we shall no more sink to the ground through inexperience of the tricks of the sophistic wrestling, but we shall spring up and carry on the struggle and disentangle ourselves with ease from the grips which their art has taught them. And when we have once found them out, they will be seen to be exhibiting the prowess of men sparring for practice, not that of men engaged in a real combat. For they are boxers who win admiration in a mock encounter among themselves and are thought very little of when they engage in a match.
[42] But if a man, though equipped in soul with all the virtues, has had no practice in rhetoric, so long as he keeps quiet he will win safety, a prize that entails no risk, but, when like Abel he steps out for a contest of wits, he will fall before he has obtained a firm footing.
[43] For, just as in medicine there are some practitioners who know how to treat almost all afflictions and illnesses and cases of impaired health, and yet are unable to render any scientific account either true or plausible of any one of them; and some, on the other hand, who are brilliant as far as theories go, admirable exponents of symptoms and causes and treatment, the subject matter of the science, but no good whatever for the relief of suffering bodies, incapable of making even the smallest contribution to their cure: in just the same way, those who have given themselves to the pursuit of the wisdom that comes through practice and comes out in practice have often neglected expression, while those who have been thoroughly instructed in the arts that deal with speech have failed to store up in soul any grand lesson which they have learned.
[44] It is in no way surprising that these latter should discover an arrogant audacity in the unbridled use of their tongue. They are only displaying the senselessness which has all along been their study. Those others, having been taught, as doctors would be, that part of the art which brings health to the sicknesses and plagues of the soul, must be content to wait, until God shall have equipped in addition the most perfect interpreter, pouring out and making manifest to him the fountains of utterance.