ld? Otherwise, how can you know the whole by the tasting of
one part? The whole is not the same--Ah! and it may be that God has
hidden the good wine of philosophy at the bottom of the cask. You must
drain it to the end if you are to find those drops of divine sweetness
you seem so much to thirst for! Yourself, after drinking so deeply,
are still but at the beginning, as you said. But is not philosophy
rather like this? Keep the figure of the merchant and the cask: but
let it be filled, not with wine, but with every sort of grain. You
come to buy. The merchant hands you a little of the wheat which lies
at the top. Could you tell by looking at that, whether the chick-peas
were clean, the lentils tender, the beans full? And then, whereas in
selecting our wine we risk only our money; in selecting our philosophy
we risk ourselves, as you told me--might ourselves sink into the dregs
of 'the vulgar herd.' Moreover, while you may not drain the whole cask
of wine by way of tasting, Wisdom grows no less by the depth of your
drinking. Nay! if you take of her, she is increased thereby.

And then I have another similitude to propose, as regards this tasting
of philosophy. Don't think I blaspheme her if I say that it may be
with her as with some deadly poison, [166] hemlock or aconite. These
too, though they cause death, yet kill not if one tastes but a minute
portion. You would suppose that the tiniest particle must be
sufficient.

--Be it as you will, Lucian! One must live a hundred years: one must
sustain all this labour; otherwise philosophy is unattainable.

--Not so! Though there were nothing strange in that, if it be true, as
you said at first, that Life is short and art is long. But now you
take it hard that we are not to see you this very day, before the sun
goes down, a Chrysippus, a Pythagoras, a Plato.

--You overtake me, Lucian! and drive me into a corner; in jealousy of
heart, I believe, because I have made some progress in doctrine whereas
you have neglected yourself.

--Well! Don't attend to me! Treat me as a Corybant, a fanatic: and do
you go forward on this road of yours. Finish the journey in accordance
with the view you had of these matters at the beginning of it. Only,
be assured that my judgment on it will remain unchanged. Reason still
says, that without criticism, without a clear, exact, unbiassed
intelligence to try them, all those theories--all things--will have
been seen but in vai