—With pleasure, Lucian.—Yes! I was ruminating yesterday’s conference. One must not lose a moment. Life is short and art is long! And it was of the art of medicine, that was first said—a thing so much easier than divine philosophy, to which one can hardly attain in a lifetime, unless one be ever wakeful, ever on the watch. And here the hazard is no little one:—By the attainment of a true philosophy to attain happiness; or, having missed both, to perish, as one of the vulgar herd.
—The prize is a great one, Hermotimus! and you must needs be near it, after these months of toil, and with that scholarly pallor of yours. Unless, indeed, you have already laid hold upon it, and kept us in the dark.
—How could that be, Lucian? Happiness, as Hesiod says, abides very far hence; and the way to it is long and steep and rough. I see myself still at the beginning of my journey; still but at the mountain’s foot. I am trying with all my might to get forward. What I need is a hand, stretched out to help me.
—And is not the master sufficient for that? Could he not, like Zeus in Homer, let down to you, from that high place, a golden cord, to draw you up thither, to himself and to that Happiness, to which he ascended so long ago?
—The very point, Lucian! Had it depended on him I should long ago have been caught up. ’Tis I, am wanting.
—Well! keep your eye fixed on the journey’s end, and that happiness there above, with confidence in his goodwill.
—Ah! there are many who start cheerfully on the journey and proceed a certain distance, but lose heart when they light on the obstacles of the way. Only, those who endure to the end do come to the mountain’s top, and thereafter live in Happiness:—live a wonderful manner of life, seeing all other people from that great height no bigger than tiny ants.
—What little fellows you make of us—less than the pygmies—down in the dust here. Well! we, ‘the vulgar herd,’ as we creep along, will not forget you in our prayers, when you are seated up there above the clouds, whither you have been so long hastening. But tell me, Hermotimus!—when do you expect to arrive there?
—Ah! that I know not. In twenty years, perhaps, I shall be really on the summit.—A great while! you think. But then, again, the prize I contend for is a great one.
—Perhaps! But as to those twenty years—that you will live so long. Has the master assured you of that? Is he a prophet as well as a philosopher? For I suppose you would not endure all this, upon a mere chance—toiling day and night, though it might happen that just ere the last step, Destiny seized you by the foot and plucked you thence, with your hope still unfulfilled.
—Hence, with these ill-omened words, Lucian! Were I to survive but for a day, I should be happy, having once attained wisdom.
—How?—Satisfied with a single day, after all those labours?
—Yes! one blessed moment were enough!
—But again, as you have never been, how know you that happiness is to be had up there, at all—the happiness that is to make all this worthwhile?
—I believe what the master tells me. Of a certainty he knows, being now far above all others.
—And what was it he told you about it? Is it riches, or glory, or some indescribable pleasure?
—Hush! my friend! All those are nothing in comparison of the life there.
—What, then, shall those who come to the end of this discipline—what excellent thing shall they receive, if not these?
—Wisdom, the absolute goodness and the absolute beauty, with the sure and certain knowledge of all things—how they are. Riches and glory and pleasure—whatsoever belongs to the body—they have cast from them: stripped bare of all that, they mount up, even as Hercules, consumed in the fire, became a god. He too cast aside all that he had of his earthly mother, and bearing with him the divine element, pure and undefiled, winged his way to heaven from the discerning flame. Even so do they, detached from all that others prize, by the burning fire of a true philosophy, ascend to the highest degree of happiness.
—Strange! And do they never come down again from the heights to help those whom they left below? Must they, when they be once come thither, there remain forever, laughing, as you say, at what other men prize?
—More than that! They whose initiation is entire are subject no longer to anger, fear, desire, regret. Nay! They scarcely feel at all.
—Well! as you have leisure today, why not tell an old friend in what way you first started on your philosophic journey? For, if I might, I should like to join company with you from this very day.
—If you be really willing, Lucian! you will learn in no long time your advantage over all other people. They will seem but as children, so far above them will be your thoughts.
—Well! Be you my guide! It is but fair. But tell me—Do you allow learners to contradict, if anything is said which they don’t think right?
—No, indeed! Still, if you wish, oppose your questions. In that way you will learn more easily.
—Let me know, then—Is there one only way which leads to a true philosophy—your own way—the way of the Stoics: or is it true, as I have heard, that there are many ways of approaching it?
—Yes! Many ways! There are the Stoics, and the Peripatetics, and those who call themselves after Plato:
