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Seeking such an effect, you found without difficulty arguments of double meaning, which lend themselves no more to the purpose of those who praise than of those who blame, but are capable of being turned both ways and leave room for much disputation—arguments the employment of which, when one contends in court over contracts for his own advantage, is shameful and no slight token of depravity but, when one discourses on the nature of man and of things, is honorable and bespeaks a cultivated mind.1
1 Surely this is ironical.