nk it is foolish and absurd to deprive that time in
which we are usually most talkative of the most useful and profitable
discourse; and in our schools to dispute of the offices of company, in
what consists the excellence of a guest, how mirth, feasting, and wine
are to be used and yet deny philosophy a place in these feasts, as if
not able to confirm by practice what by precepts it instructs.

And when you affirmed that none ought to oppose what Crato said, but
determine what sorts of philosophical topics were to be admitted as fit
companions at a feast, and so avoid that just and pleasant taunt put
upon the wrangling disputers of the age,

Come now to supper, that we may contend;

and when you seemed concerned and urged us to speak to that head, I
first replied: Sir, we must consider what company we have; for if
the greater part of the guests are learned men,--as for instance, at
Agatho's entertainment, characters like Socrates, Phaedrus, Pausanias,
Euryximachus; or at Callias's board, Charmides, Antisthenes, Hermogenes,
and the like,--we will permit them to philosohize, and to mix Bacchus
with the Muses as well as with the Nymphs; for the latter make him
wholesome and gentle to the body, and the other pleasant and agreeable
to the soul. And if there are some few illiterate persons present,
they, as consonants with vowels, in the midst of the other learned, will
participate not altogether inarticulately and insignificantly. But if
the greater part consists of such who can better endure the noise of any
bird, fiddle-string, or piece of wood than the voice of a philosopher,
Pisistratus hath shown us what to do; for being at difference with his
sons, when he heard his enemies rejoiced at it, in a full assembly he
declared that he had endeavored to persuade his sons to submit to him,
but since he found them obstinate, he was resolved to yield and submit
to their humors. So a philosopher, midst those companions that slight
his excellent discourse, will lay aside his gravity, follow them, and
comply with their humor as far as decency will permit; knowing very well
that men cannot exercise their rhetoric unless they speak, but may their
philosophy even whilst they are silent or jest merrily, nay, whilst
they are piqued upon or repartee. For it is not only (as Plato says) the
highest degree of injustice not to be just and yet seem so; but it is
the top of wisdom to philosophize, yet not appear to do it; and in mirth
to