Hermotimus

Lycinus Good morning, Hermotimus; I guess by your book and the pace you are going at that you are on your way to lecture, and a little late. You were conning over something as you walked, your lips working and muttering, your hand flung out this way and that as you got a speech into order in your mind; you were doubtless inventing one of your crooked questions, or pondering some tricky problem; never a vacant mind, even in the streets; always on the stretch and in earnest, bent on advancing in your studies.

Hermotimus I admit the impeachment; I was running over the details of what he said in yesterday’s lecture. One must lose no chance, you know; the Coan doctor[*](Hippocrates.) spoke so truly: ars longa, vita brevis. And what he referred to was only physic—a simpler matter. As to philosophy, not only will you never attain it, however long you study, unless you are wide awake all the time, contemplating it with intense eager gaze; the stake is so tremendous, too,—whether you shall rot miserably with the vulgar herd, or be counted among philosophers and reach Happiness.

Lycinus A glorious prize, indeed! however, you cannot be far off it now, if one may judge by the time you have given to philosophy, and the extraordinary vigour of your long pursuit. For twenty years now, I should say, I have watched you perpetually

Hermotimus Alas, Lycinus, I am only just beginning to get an inkling of the right way. Very far off dwells Virtue, as Hesiod says, and long and steep and rough is the way thither, and travellers must bedew it with sweat.

Lycinus And you have not yet sweated and travelled enough?

Hermotimus Surely not; else should I have been on the summit, with nothing left between me and bliss; but I am only starting yet, Lycinus.

Lycinus Ah, but Hesiod, your own authority, tells us, Well begun is half done; so we may safely call you half-way by this time.

Hermotimus Not even there yet; that would indeed have been much.

Lycinus Where shall we put you, then?

Hermotimus Still on the lower slopes, just making an effort to get on; but it is slippery and rough, and needs a helping hand.

Lycinus Well, your master can give you that; from his station on the summit, like Zeus in Homer with his golden cord, he can let you down his discourse, and therewith haul and heave you up to himself and to the Virtue which he has himself attained this long time.

Hermotimus The very picture of what he is doing; if it depended on him alone, I should have been hauled up long ago; it is my part that is still wanting.

Lycinus You must be of good cheer and keep a stout heart; gaze at the end of your climb and the Happiness at the top, and remember that he is working with you. What prospect does he hold out? when are you to be up? does he think you will

Hermotimus Too soon, Lycinus.

Lycinus By next Olympiad, then?

Hermotimus All too short a time, even that, for habituation to Virtue and attainment of Happiness.

Lycinus Say two Olympiads, then, for an outside estimate. You may fairly be found guilty of laziness, if you cannot get it done by then; the time would allow you three return trips from the Pillars of Heracles to India, with a margin for exploring the tribes on the way instead of sailing straight and never stopping. How much higher and more slippery, pray, is the peak on which your Virtue dwells than that Aornos crag which Alexander stormed in a few days?

Hermotimus There is no resemblance, Lycinus; this is not a thing, as you conceive it, to be compassed and captured quickly, though ten thousand Alexanders were to assault it; in that case, the scalers would have been legion. As it is, a good number begin the climb with great confidence, and do make progress, some very little indeed, others more; but when they get half-way, they find endless difficulties and discomforts, lose heart, and turn back, panting, dripping, and exhausted. But those who endure to the end reach the top, to be blessed thenceforth with wondrous days, looking down from their height upon the ants which are the rest of mankind.

Lycinus Dear me, what tiny things you make us out—not so big as the Pygmies even, but positively grovelling on the face of the earth. I quite understand it; your thoughts are up aloft already. And we, the common men that walk the earth, shall mingle you with the Gods in our prayers; for you are translated above the clouds, and gone up whither you have so long striven.

Hermotimus If but that ascent might be, Lycinus! but it is far yet.

Lycinus But you have never told me how far, in terms of time.

Hermotimus No; for I know not precisely myself. My guess is that it will not be more than twenty years; by that time I shall surely be on the summit.

Lycinus Mercy upon us, you take long views!

Hermotimus Ay; but, as the toil, so is the reward.

Lycinus That may be; but about these twenty years—have you your master’s promise that you will live so long? is he prophet as well as philosopher? or is it a soothsayer or Chaldean expert that you trust? such things are known to them, I understand. You would never, of course, if there were any uncertainty of your life’s lasting to the Virtue-point, slave and toil night and day like this; why, just as you were close to the top, your fate might come upon you, lay hold of you by the heel, and lug you down with your hopes unfulfilled.

Hermotimus God forbid! these are words of ill omen, Lycinus; may life be granted me, that I may grow wise, and have if it be but one day of Happiness!

Lycinus For all these toils will you be content with your one day?

Hermotimus Content? yes, or with the briefest moment of it.

Lycinus But is there indeed Happiness up there—and worth all the pains? How can you tell? You have never been up yourself.

Hermotimus I trust my master’s word; and he knows well; is he not on the topmost height?

Lycinus Oh, do tell me what he says about it; what is Happiness like? wealth, glory, pleasures incomparable?

Hermotimus Hush, friend! all these have nought to do with the Virtuous life.

Lycinus Well, if these will not do, what are the good things he offers to those who carry their course right through?

Hermotimus Wisdom, courage, true beauty, justice, full and firm

Lycinus

By Heracles (and his death on Oeta), they quit themselves like men, and have their reward, it seems. But there is one thing I should like to know: are they allowed to come down from their elevation sometimes, and have a taste of what they left behind them? or when they have once got up, must they stay there, conversing with Virtue, and smiling at wealth and glory and pleasure?

Hermotimus The latter, assuredly; more than that, a man once admitted of Virtue’s company will never be subject to wrath or fear or desire any more; no, nor can he feel pain, nor any such sensation.

Lycinus Well, but—if one might dare to say what one thinks— but no—let me keep a good tongue in my head—it were irreverent to pry into what wise men do.

Hermotimus Nay, nay; let me know your meaning.

Lycinus Dear friend, I have not the courage.

Hermotimus Out with it, my good fellow; we are alone.

Lycinus Well, then—most of your account I followed and accepted —how they grow wise and brave and just, and the rest—indeed I was quite fascinated by it; but then you went on to say they despised wealth and glory and pleasure; well, just there (quite between ourselves, you know) I was pulled up; I thought of

Hermotimus No, no; we must have that too.

Lycinus Your own professor himself, then,—a person to whom all respect is due, surely, not to mention his years.

Hermotimus Well?

Lycinus You know the Heracleot, quite an old pupil of his in philosophy by this time—red-haired—likes an argument?

Hermotimus Yes; Dion, he is called.

Lycinus Well, I suppose he had not paid up punctually; anyhow the other day the old man haled him before the magistrate, with a halter made of his own coat; he was shouting and fuming, and if some friends had not come up and got the young man out of his hands, he would have bitten off his nose, he was in such a temper.

Hermotimus Ah, be is a bad character, always an unconscionable time paying his debts. There are plenty of others who owe the professor money, and he has never treated any of them so; they pay him his interest punctually.

Lycinus Not so fast; what in the world does it matter to him, if they do not pay up? he is purified by philosophy, and has no further need of the cast clothes of Oeta.

Hermotimus Do you suppose his interest in such things is selfish? no, but he has little ones; his care is to save them from indigence.

Lycinus Whereas he ought to have brought them up to Virtue too, and let them share his inexpensive Happiness.

Hermotimus Well, I have no time to argue it, Lycinus; I must not be late for lecture, lest in the end I find myself left behind.

Lycinus Don’t be afraid, my duteous one; to-day is a holiday; I can save you the rest of your walk.

Hermotimus What do you mean?

Lycinus You will not find him just now, if the notice is to be

Hermotimus Which had the victory, though, he or Euthydemus—if Midas said anything about that?

Lycinus Why, at first, I gathered, it was very even between them; but you Stoics had it in the end, and your master was much too hard for him. Euthydemus did not even get off whole; he had a great cut on his head. He was pretentious, insisted on proving his point, would not give in, and proved a hard nut to crack; so your excellent professor, who had a goblet as big as Nestor’s in his hand, brought this down on him as he lay within easy reach, and the victory was his.

Hermotimus Good; 80 perish all who will not yield to their betters!

Lycinus Very reasonable, Hermotimus; what was Euthydemus thinking of, to irritate an old man who is purged of wrath and master of his passions, when he had such a heavy goblet in his hand?

But we have time to spare—you might tell a friend like me the story of your start in philosophy; then I might perhaps,

Hermotimus If only you would, Lycinus! you will soon find out how much you are superior to the rest of men. I do assure you, you will think them all children, you will be so much wiser.

Lycinus Enough for me, if after twenty years of it I am where you are now.

Hermotimus Oh, I was about your age when I started on philosophy; I was forty; and you must be about that.

Lycinus Just that; so take and lead me on the same way; that is but right. And first tell me—do you allow learners to criticize, if they find difficulties in your doctrines, or must juniors abstain from that?

Hermotimus Why, yes, they must; but you shall have leave to ask questions and criticize; you will learn easier that way.

Lycinus I thank you for it, Hermotimus, by your name-God Hermes.

Now, is there only one road to philosophy—the Stoic way? they tell me there are a great many other philosophers; is that so?

Hermotimus Certainly—Peripatetics, Epicureans, Platonists, followers of Diogenes, Antisthenes, Pythagoras, and more yet.

Lycinus Quite so; numbers of them. Now, are their doctrines the same, or different?

Hermotimus Entirely different.

Lycinus But the truth, I presume, is bound to be in one of them, and not in all, as they differ?

Hermotimus Certainly.

Lycinus Then, as you love me, answer this: when you first went in pursuit of philosophy, you found many gates wide open; what induced you to pass the others by, and go in at the Stoic gate? Why did you asspme that that was the only true one,

Hermotimus I cannot tell what you are driving at.

Lycinus Oh, there is nothing recondite about it. There are a great many philosophers—let us say Plato, Aristotle, Antisthenes, and your spiritual fathers, Chrysippus, Zeno, and all the rest of them; what was it that induced you, leaving the rest alone, to pick out the school you did from among them all, and pin your philosophic faith to it? Were you favoured like Chaerephon with arevelation from Apollo? Did he tell you the Stoics were the best of men, and send you to their school? I dare say he recommends different philosophers to different persons, according to their individual needs?

Hermotimus Nothing of the kind, Lycinus; I never consulted him upon it.

Lycinus Why? was it not a dignus vindice nodus? or were you confident in your own unaided discrimination?

Hermotimus Why, yes; I was.

Lycinus Then this must be my first lesson from you—how one can decide out of hand which is the best and the true philosophy to be taken, and the others left.

Hermotimus 1 will tell you: I observed that it attracted most disciples, and thence inferred that it was superior.

Lycinus Give me figures; how many more of them than of Epicureans, Platonists, Peripatetics? Of course you took a sort of show of hands.

Hermotimus Well, no; I didn’t count; I just guessed.

Lycinus Now, now! you are not teaching, but hoaxing me;

Hermotimus Well, that was not my only way; every one told me the Epicureans were sensual and self-indulgent, the Peripatetics avaricious and contentious, the Platonists conceited and vain; about the Stoics, on the contrary, many said they had fortitude and an open mind; he who goes their way, I heard, was the true king and millionaire and wise man, alone and all in one.

Lycinus And, of course, it was other people who so described them; you would not have taken their own word for their excellences.

Hermotimus Certainly not; it was others who said it.

Lycinus Not their rivals, I suppose?

Hermotimus Oh, no.

Lycinus Laymen, then?

Hermotimus Just so.

Lycinus There you are again, cheating me with your irony; you take me for a blockhead, who will believe that an intelligent person like Hermotimus, at the age of forty, would accept the word of laymen about philosophy and philosophers, and make his own selection on the strength of what they said.

Hermotimus But you see, Lycinus, I did not depend on their judgement entirely, but on my own too. I saw the Stoics going about with dignity, decently dressed and groomed, ever with a thoughtful air and a manly countenance, as far from effeminacy as from the utter repulsive negligence of the Cynics, bearing themselves, in fact, like moderate men; and every one admits that moderation is right.

Lycinus Did you ever see them behaving like your master, as I described him to you just now? Lending money and clamouring for payment, losing their tempers in philosophic debates, and making other exhibitions of themselves? Or perhaps these are trifles, so long as the dress is decent, the beard long, and the

Nay, do not play with me like this; you want to see whether I shall catch you at it.

Hermotimus Why do you say that?

Lycinus Because, my dear sir, this appearance test is one for statues; their decent orderly attire has it easily over the Stoics, because Phidias or Alcamenes or Myron designed them to be graceful. However, granting as much as you like that these are the right tests, what is a blind man to do, if he wants to take up philosophy? how is he to find the man whose principles are right, when he cannot see his appearance or gait?

Hermotimus I am not teaching the blind, Lycinus; I have nothing to do with them.

Lycinus Ah, but, my good sir, there ought to have been some universal criterion, in a matter of such great and general use. Still, if you will have it so, let the blind be excluded from philosophy, as they cannot see—though, by the way, they are just the people who most need philosophy to console them for their misfortune; but now, the people who can see—give them the utmost possible acuity of vision, and what can they detect of the spiritual qualities from this external shell?

What I mean is this: was it not from admiration of their Spirit that you joined them, expecting to have your own spirit purified?

Hermotimus Assuredly.

Lycinus How could you possibly discern the true philosopher from the false, then, by the marks you mentioned? It is not the way of such qualities to come out like that; they are hidden and secret; they are revealed only under long and patient