For we must here observe that all learning was esteemed among them
to be compounded from the same principle. Because, first, it is
generally affirmed or confessed that learning puffeth men up; and,
secondly, they proved it by the following syllogism: "Words are but
wind, and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing
but wind." For this reason the philosophers among them did in their
schools deliver to their pupils all their doctrines and opinions by
eructation, wherein they had acquired a wonderful eloquence, and of
incredible variety. But the great characteristic by which their
chief sages were best distinguished was a certain position of
countenance, which gave undoubted intelligence to what degree or
proportion the spirit agitated the inward mass. For after certain
gripings, the wind and vapours issuing forth, having first by their
turbulence and convulsions within caused an earthquake in man's
little world, distorted the mouth, bloated the cheeks, and gave the
eyes a terrible kind of relievo. At which junctures all their
belches were received for sacred, the sourer the better, and
swallowed with infinite consolation by their meagre devotees.
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