he mire for mire's sake. Philosophy
has now discovered that when they roll in mud and ordure, it is only
from an excessive love of cleanliness, and a vehement desire to rid
themselves of scabs and vermin. Unfortunately, doubts keep pace with
discoveries. They are like warts, of which the blood that springs from
a great one extirpated, makes twenty little ones.

_Timotheus._ The Hydra would be a more noble simile.

_Lucian._ I was indeed about to illustrate my position by the old
Hydra, so ready at hand and so tractable; but I will never take hold
of a hydra, when a wart will serve my turn.

_Timotheus._ Continue then.

_Lucian._ Even children are now taught, in despite of Aesop, that
animals never spoke. The uttermost that can be advanced with any show
of confidence is, that if they spoke at all, they spoke in unknown
tongues. Supposing the fact, is this a reason why they should not be
respected? Quite the contrary. If the tongues were unknown, it tends
to demonstrate _our_ ignorance, not _theirs_. If we could not
understand them, while they possessed the gift, here is no proof that
they did not speak to the purpose, but only that it was not to _our_
purpose; which may likewise be said with equal certainty of the wisest
men that ever existed. How little have we learned from them, for the
conduct of life or the avoidance of calamity! Unknown tongues, indeed!
yes, so are all tongues to the vulgar and the negligent.

_Timotheus._ It comforts me to hear you talk in this manner, without a
glance at our gifts and privileges.

_Lucian._ I am less incredulous than you suppose, my cousin! Indeed I
have been giving you what ought to be a sufficient proof of it.

_Timotheus._ You have spoken with becoming gravity, I must confess.

_Lucian._ Let me then submit to your judgment some fragments of
history which have lately fallen into my hands. There is among them a
_hymn_, of which the metre is so incondite, and the phraseology so
ancient, that the grammarians have attributed it to Linus. But the
hymn will interest you less, and is less to our purpose, than the
tradition; by which it appears that certain priests of high antiquity
were of the brute creation.

_Timotheus._ No better, any of them.

_Lucian._ Now you have polished the palms of your hands, I will
commence my narrative from the manuscript.

_Timotheus._ Pray do.

_Lucian._ There existed in the city of Nephosis a fraternity of
priests, reverenced by the appel