not have believed them--still less their opponents. They were the
vulgar, therefore.

--True! But you must know that I did not trust to others exclusively.
I trusted also to myself--to what I saw. I saw the Stoics going
through the world after a seemly manner, neatly clad, never in excess,
always collected, ever faithful to the mean which all pronounce
'golden.'

--You are trying an experiment on me. You would fain see how far you
can mislead [151] me as to your real ground. The kind of probation you
describe is applicable, indeed, to works of art, which are rightly
judged by their appearance to the eye. There is something in the
comely form, the graceful drapery, which tells surely of the hand of
Pheidias or Alcamenes. But if philosophy is to be judged by outward
appearances, what would become of the blind man, for instance, unable
to observe the attire and gait of your friends the Stoics?

--It was not of the blind I was thinking.

--Yet there must needs be some common criterion in a matter so
important to all. Put the blind, if you will, beyond the privileges of
philosophy; though they perhaps need that inward vision more than all
others. But can those who are not blind, be they as keen-sighted as
you will, collect a single fact of mind from a man's attire, from
anything outward?--Understand me! You attached yourself to these
men--did you not?--because of a certain love you had for the mind in
them, the thoughts they possessed desiring the mind in you to be
improved thereby?

--Assuredly!

--How, then, did you find it possible, by the sort of signs you just
now spoke of, to distinguish the true philosopher from the false?
Matters of that kind are not wont so to reveal themselves. They are
but hidden mysteries, hardly to be guessed at through the words and
acts which [152] may in some sort be conformable to them. You,
however, it would seem, can look straight into the heart in men's
bosoms, and acquaint yourself with what really passes there.

--You are making sport of me, Lucian! In truth, it was with God's help
I made my choice, and I don't repent it.

--And still you refuse to tell me, to save me from perishing in that
'vulgar herd.'

--Because nothing I can tell you would satisfy you.

--You are mistaken, my friend! But since you deliberately conceal the
thing, grudging me, as I suppose, that true philosophy which would make
me equal to you, I will try, if it may be, to find out for my