rn, even if we
began in early life. I know not how it is; but though you seem to me
to speak reasonably, yet (I must confess it) you have distressed me not
a little by this exact exposition of yours. I was unlucky in coming
out to-day, and in my falling in with you, who have thrown me into
utter perplexity by your proof that the discovery of truth is
impossible, just as I seemed to be on the point of attaining my hope.

--Blame your parents, my child, not me! Or rather, blame mother Nature
herself, for giving us but seventy or eighty years instead of making us
as long-lived as Tithonus. For my part, I have but led you from
premise to conclusion.

--Nay! you are a mocker! I know not wherefore, but you have a grudge
against philosophy; and it is your entertainment to make a jest of her
lovers.

--Ah! Hermotimus! what the Truth may [162] be, you philosophers may be
able to tell better than I. But so much at least I know of her, that
she is one by no means pleasant to those who hear her speak: in the
matter of pleasantness, she is far surpassed by Falsehood: and
Falsehood has the pleasanter countenance. She, nevertheless, being
conscious of no alloy within, discourses with boldness to all men, who
therefore have little love for her. See how angry you are now because
I have stated the truth about certain things of which we are both alike
enamoured--that they are hard to come by. It is as if you had fallen
in love with a statue and hoped to win its favour, thinking it a human
creature; and I, understanding it to be but an image of brass or stone,
had shown you, as a friend, that your love was impossible, and
thereupon you had conceived that I bore you some ill-will.

--But still, does it not follow from what you said, that we must
renounce philosophy and pass our days in idleness?

--When did you hear me say that? I did but assert that if we are to
seek after philosophy, whereas there are many ways professing to lead
thereto, we must with much exactness distinguish them.

--Well, Lucian! that we must go to all the schools in turn, and test
what they say, if we are to choose the right one, is perhaps
reasonable; but surely ridiculous, unless we are to live as [163] many
years as the Phoenix, to be so lengthy in the trial of each; as if it
were not possible to learn the whole by the part! They say that
Pheidias, when he was shown one of the talons of a lion, computed the
stature and age of the animal it belon