Stop there. This is just what I wanted. Now, suppose they are nine in number and they have all drawn and are holding their lots. You go round (I want to make you a National Judge instead of a spectator) and inspect the letters. I fancy you will not learn in advance who has been given a bye, unless you go to every one of them and pair them.

What do you mean by this, Lycinus?

What if you come on this one first or second, what will you do?

It is not what I shall do. You are the National Judge, and I want to know what you will do. Will you say at once that this man is given a bye, or will you have to go round them all, to see whether there is somewhere a corresponding letter? If you did not look at the lots of everyone, you would not discover who had the bye.

Oh, I should know quite easily, Lycinus. In the case of nine competitors, if I find epsilon first or second, I know that the one holding this lot is the one who has the bye.

How, Hermotimus?

You have spoken as if the letters are definitely written in order—I mean alpha first, beta second, and so on through the alphabet, until the number of competitors is completed at one of them. I grant that this is so at Olympia. But suppose we choose five letters completely at random—chi, sigma, zeta, kappa, and theta—and we write four of these twice on eight lots, but the zeta only on the ninth, which is going to show us the bye. What will you do if you find the zeta first? How can you pick out the competitor who holds it as the man for the bye, without going to all the others and finding no letter to correspond to it? You cannot, as you were just now, be sure from the alphabetical order.

Come now, look at the same question in another way. Suppose we wrote no letters on the lots, but signs and symbols, such as the many that the Egyptians use instead of letters—dog- and lion-headed men. What then? No, let us not use them, queer creatures that they are. No, let us write down simple, uniform symbols with as good a likeness as we can: human beings on two lots, two horses for another two, two cocks and two dogs, and for the ninth let the picture be a lion. Now, if at the beginning we find this lot with the picture of a lion, how will you be able to say that this is the one that gives the bye, unless you go to them all and compare whether another also has a lion?

I can give you no answer, Lycinus.

Of course not; there is no plausible answer. So, if we wish to find either the man who has the sacred chalice or the bye or the man who will best lead us to that city of Corinth, we shall of necessity go to everyone and make our research, trying them carefully, and stripping and comparing. And it will be only with difficulty that we shall find the truth by this means, and if anyone is likely to give me trustworthy advice on which philosophy to pursue, only that man who knows what they all say will be he; the rest will fall short, and I would not put my trust in them, as long as they are unacquainted with even one philosophy—that one might be the best. If someone were to produce a handsome man and say that he was the most handsome of all men, we should certainly not believe him, unless we knew that he had seen all men. This man may well be handsome, but whether the most handsome of all he could not know, since he has not seen them all. And we are looking, not just for something beautiful, but for the most beautiful; and if we do not find it, we shall not think that we have made any progress. For we are not going to be content with any chance beauty. No, we are looking for the supreme beauty, and of that there can only be one.

True.

Well then, can you name me a man who has tried every path in philosophy, who knows what Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Chrysippus, Epicurus, and the rest, say, and, finally, has chosen one path out of them all, has proved it genuine, and has learnt by experience that it alone leads straight to happiness? If we found such a person we should stop worrying.

It would not be easy to discover such a person.

Then what shall we do, Hermotimus? I do not think that we ought to give up because we have no such guide at the moment. Is it not the best and safest plan for everyone at the beginning to make his own way through every system and examine carefully the doctrines of each?

That seems to follow. But we must watch lest we meet this stumbling-block in what you said a little before. When we have once committed ourselves and spread the sail, it is not easy to return. How can we travel all the paths, if we are to be held fast in the first, as you say?

I will tell you. We will copy that stratagem of Theseus and take a thread from Ariadne in the play, and then enter every labyrinth. So, by winding it up we shall have no difficulty in getting out.

Then who will be our Ariadne? And where shall we get our thread?

Never fear, my friend. I think I have discovered what to hold on to, if we are to get out.

Well, what?

Well then, which path should we travel first? Or will this make no difference? Let us begin anywhere—with Pythagoras, for instance. If we do this, how long do we suppose we shall spend in learning all the doctrines of Pythagoras? Please do not leave out those five years of silence. Including the five years I suppose thirty years will be enough, or certainly a minimum of twenty.

Let us assume so.

Following that, we must obviously give the same number to Plato, and not less to Aristotle.

No, not less.

For Chrysippus, I shall not ask you how many. I know from what I have heard you say that forty will hardly suffice.

You would know better than I see this: few would get through them all even on this reckoning, if they began right from the day they were born.

I feel, Lycinus, that what you say is reasonable, but—and I shall be honest—you annoy me a great deal by this detailed examination and your unnecessary precision. It may be that it has done me no good in leaving home today and then meeting you. I was already near the fulfilment of my hopes, but you have thrown me into difficulties with your demonstration that the search for truth is impossible since it needs all those years.

Surely it would be much fairer, my friend, to blame your father, Menecrates, and your mother, whatever her name was (I do not know) or before them our human natures for having made you (unlike Tithonus) of few years and short life, and for decreeing a hundred years as the longest life for man All I did was with your help to consider and discover the conclusions of the argument.

That is not so. You always lord it over us. I don’t know what makes you hate philosophy and mock philosophers.

What truth is, Hermotimus, you wise men can say better than I—you and your master I mean. For myself I know thus much: truth is not all pleasant to listen to; in estimation it is far outfamed by falsehood. Falsehood presents a fairer face, and is therefore more pleasant, while truth knows no deceit and speaks with freedom to men, and for this they take offence. Look at us: you now take offence with me for discovering the truth of these matters with your help and showing that what you and I are in love with is not easy at all. Suppose you had happened to be in love with a statue and, thinking it to be human, hoped to win it, and suppose I saw it was stone or bronze and told you out of friendship that your love was impossible, you would in that case too think that I was an enemy, because I had not let you be deceived when you hoped for what was monstrous and beyond your reach.

Then this is what you say, Lycinus, that we must not study philosophy, but give ourselves up to idleness and live out our lives as laymen?

When have you heard me say that? What I say is not that we must not study philosophy, but that since we must, and as there are many paths to philosophy and each one claims that it leads to virtue, and the true one is not clear, we must be careful in our choice. But with so many before us we saw it was impossible to choose the best unless we were to visit and test every path. Then the trial was seen to be somewhat lengthy. Now what do you think? I will ask you again—will you follow the first guide you light on and join him in his study while he takes you for a lucky gift from heaven?

What answer could I give you now, when you say that no one can judge for himself, unless he lives as long as a phoenix and goes the full round testing all the philosophers, and when you do not see fit to trust those who have made the test before you or the many who give their praise and their testimony?

Well, Lycinus, the obligation to go round them all, making trial of what they say, and the superiority of this method of choosing are perhaps reasonable, but it is quite ridiculous to spend so many years on each test, as if it were not possible to get a thorough knowledge of the whole from a scrutiny of a small part. This sort of thing seems to me to be quite easy, needing little time. At least, they say that some sculptor (Phidias, I think) saw only the claw of a lion and from it estimated the size of the whole animal on the assumption that it was modelled on the same scale as the claw. You too, if you were shown only the hand of a man, the rest of the body being hidden, would, I suppose, know at once that the hidden figure was a human being, even though you did not see the whole body. So in a fraction of a day it is easy to acquire a good knowledge of the essential points of all the systems, and this precise enquiry which calls for lengthy research is quite unnecessary for choosing that which is preferable. No, you can make a judgment from samples.

Goodness, Hermotimus, how sure you sound when you affirm that you can know the whole from the parts! And yet I remember hearing just the opposite, that if you know the whole you know the part as well, while if you know only the part, it does not follow now that you know the whole. Tell me this: would Phidias when he saw the lion’s claw ever have known that it belonged to a lion, if he had never seen a whole lion? If you saw a human hand, could you have said that it belonged to a man if you had not previously known or seen a man? Why do you not answer? Am I to give the only possible answer for you, that you could not have said it? It looks as though Phidias has retired unsuccessful and has modelled his lion in vain; clearly he is saying what has nothing to do with Dionysus! I.e., irrelevant. Epigenes of Sicyon, a tragic poet, is said to have been upbraided by his audience for introducing into the worship of Dionysus themes which had nothing to do with the god. Or what comparison is there? Both Phidias and you yourself had no other means of recognising the parts than your knowledge of the whole—I mean the whole man and lion; and in a philosophy (the Stoic, for instance) how can you by knowing a part see the rest as well? How can you prove the rest beautiful? You see, you do not know the whole of which they are parts.

As to your contention that it is easy in a small part of a day to hear the essentials of all philosophies (I suppose you mean their principles and ends, their views of the gods and the soul, who say that everything is corporeal, who assert that immaterial things also exist, the fact that some identify “pleasure,” others “the beautiful “with goodness and happiness, and so on), after a hearing of this sort it is easy and no trouble to state the facts; but to know which is the one that is telling the truth will surely require not part of a day but many days. If not, why on earth have they all written books by the hundreds and thousands on these very subjects, to prove the truth, I suppose, of these very parts, those few parts, which you think easy and soon learnt? Here too, I fancy, you will have need of a prophet to help you choose the best, unless you spend time on accurate selection and make a personal and detailed study of all and everything. It would certainly be a short cut with no complications or delays if you sent for a prophet, listened to the essentials of them all, and sacrificed for each one: the god will save you a great deal of trouble if he reveals in the victim’s liver the choice you must make..

I will, if you like, suggest another, less troublesome way, without this slaughter of victims or sacrifice to anybody or calling in one of these expensive priests: put some tablets into a pitcher with the name of each of the philosophers on them, and tell a boy—a young lad with both parents living—to go to the pitcher and pick out whichever tablet he first touches with his hand; then all you have to do is to study the philosophy of the one whose lot he has picked.

This is mere burlesque and not like you. Now you tell me: have you ever bought wine yourself?

Of course, many a time.

Then did you go round all the wine-merchants of the city in turn, tasting and comparing and judging the wines?

Not at all.

I think that you must take away the first wine you come to that is good and satisfactory.

Certainly.

Could you have said from that brief tasting what was the quality of the whole?

Yes.

If you had approached the wine-merchants and said: “I wish to buy half a pint of wine; each of you give me, please, the whole jar to drink, so that when I have drained it all I may learn who has the better wine and who is to receive my custom”—if you had said this, do you not think that they would have laughed at you, and if you troubled them further, you might have had a jug of water poured on you?

I do think so, and I should deserve it.

Apply the same consideration to philosophy. Why drain a butt when the tasting of a little can indicate the quality of the whole?

How slippery you are, Hermotimus! And how you glide through my fingers! But you have helped us: you thought you had got away, but you have fallen into the same net.

What do you mean?

You take an object which is quite self-evident and which is known to everyone, wine, and you compare to it things that are unlike and the object of universal dispute, they are so uncertain. I certainly cannot say how in your view philosophy and wine are comparable, except perhaps at this one point that philosophers sell their lessons as wine-merchants their wines—most of them adulterating and cheating and giving false measure. Now let us examine your logic. You say that all the wine in a butt is the same, the whole measure; that is certainly not unreasonable. Now if you care to draw ever so little of it and take a taste, you say you would know at once the quality of the whole butt; this too follows and I would not deny it. Look at what comes next: do philosophy and these who, like your teacher, study philosophy say the same things to you on the same topics every day, or different things on different days? It is quite clear, my friend, that there are many different topics; you would not have stayed with him twenty years like an Odysseus in your wanderings and journeying, if he had said the same things all the time, but you would have been satisfied with one hearing.

Of course.

Then how could you have known the whole from just the first taste? There were not the same, but always new things being said on new subjects, unlike wine, which is always the same. So, my friend, unless you drink the whole butt, your tipsiness has been to no purpose; god seems to me to have hidden the good of philosophy right down at the bottom beneath the very lees. You will have to drain it all to the end or you will never find that divine drink for which I think you have long thirsted. But you imagine it to be such that, if you were but to taste and draw just a drop, you would at once become all-wise, as, they say, the prophetess at Delphi becomes inspired as soon as she drinks of the sacred spring and gives her answers to those who consult the oracle. But it seems it is not so: you had drunk over half the butt, and you said that you were still at the beginning.