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?
I will tell you—it is not mine, it comes from one of the sages: “Keep sober, and remember to disbelieve.”
Good, let us do this.
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.
Just so.
Then Epicurus in his turn, and the rest. You can realise that I do not put these figures too high, when you consider the number of Stoics, Epicureans, and Platonists, who are octogenarians but who admit, each and every one, that they do not know all the teachings of their own sect, so as to have a thorough knowledge of its doctrines. If they did not admit it, then Chrysippus and Aristotle and Plato would, and even more would Socrates, a man not one whit their inferior: he used to shout out to the whole world not only that he did not know everything, but that he knew absolutely nothing, or only this one thing—that he did not know. Let us count them up from the beginning: we gave twenty to Pythagoras, the same to Plato, and to all the others the same. What would the total be if we assume only ten philosophical sects?
More than two hundred years, Lycinus.
Shall we take off a quarter, and make a hundred and fifty years enough, or a whole half?