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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: life our wit or folly have so refined, that they seldom subsist but
in idea; a true friend, a good marriage, a perfect form of
government, with some others, require so many ingredients, so good
in their several kinds, and so much niceness in mixing them, that
for some thousands of years men have despaired of reducing their
schemes to perfection. But in conversation it is or might be
otherwise; for here we are only to avoid a multitude of errors,
which, although a matter of some difficulty, may be in every man's
power, for want of which it remaineth as mere an idea as the other.
Therefore it seemeth to me that the truest way to understand
conversation is to know the faults and errors to which it is
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