, to throw down
an edifice before you have collected materials for reconstruction.

_Lucian._ Of all metaphors and remarks, I believe this of yours, my
good cousin Timotheus, is the most trite, and pardon me if I add, the
most untrue. Surely we ought to remove an error the instant we detect
it, although it may be out of our competence to state and establish
what is right. A lie should be exposed as soon as born: we are not to
wait until a healthier child is begotten. Whatever is evil in any way
should be abolished. The husbandman never hesitates to eradicate
weeds, or to burn them up, because he may not happen at the time to
carry a sack on his shoulder with wheat or barley in it. Even if no
wheat or barley is to be sown in future, the weeding and burning are
in themselves beneficial, and something better will spring up.

_Timotheus._ That is not so certain.

_Lucian._ Doubt it as you may, at least you will allow that the
temporary absence of evil is an advantage.

_Timotheus._ I think, O Lucian, you would reason much better if you
would come over to our belief.

_Lucian._ I was unaware that belief is an encourager and guide to
reason.

_Timotheus._ Depend upon it, there can be no stability of truth, no
elevation of genius, without an unwavering faith in our holy
mysteries. Babes and sucklings who are blest with it, stand higher,
intellectually as well as morally, than stiff unbelievers and proud
sceptics.

_Lucian._ I do not wonder that so many are firm holders of this novel
doctrine. It is pleasant to grow wise and virtuous at so small an
expenditure of thought or time. This saying of yours is exactly what I
heard spoken with angry gravity not long ago.

_Timotheus._ Angry! no wonder! for it is impossible to keep our
patience when truths so incontrovertible are assailed. What was your
answer?

_Lucian._ My answer was: If you talk in this manner, my honest friend,
you will excite a spirit of ridicule in the gravest and most saturnine
of men, who never had let a laugh out of their breasts before. Lie to
_me_, and welcome; but beware lest your own heart take you to task for
it, reminding you that both anger and falsehood are reprehended by all
religions, yours included.

_Timotheus._ Lucian! Lucian! you have always been called profane.

_Lucian._ For what? for having turned into ridicule the gods whom you
have turned out of house and home, and are reducing to dust?

_Timotheus._ Well; but you are equally