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LUCIAN.
Merc. Arithmetic, astronomy, prognostics, geometry, music, and conjuring—you've a first-rate soothsayer before you.
Cust. May one ask him a few questions?
Merc. Certainly—(aside) and much good may the answers do you.
Cust. What country do you come from?
Pythagoras. Samos.
Cust. Where were you educated?
Pyth. In Egypt, among the wise men there.
Cust. Suppose I buy you, now—what will you teach me?
Pyth. I will teach you nothing—only recall things to your memory.[1]
Cust. How will you do that?
Pyth. First, I will clean out your mind, and wash out all the rubbish.
Cust. Well, suppose that done, how do you proceed to refresh the memory?
Pyth. First, by long repose, and silence—speaking no word for five whole years.[2]
- ↑ That "all knowledge is but recollection" is an assertion attributed both to Pythagoras and Plate. The idea of "an immortal soul always learning and forgetting in successive periods of existence, haying seen and known all things at one time or other, and by association with one thing capable of recovering all," may be seen discussed in Plato's Dialogue, "Meno," 81, 82, &c.
- ↑ The injunction of a period of silence upon neophytes (the "five years" is most likely an exaggeration) was plainly meant as a check upon their presuming to teach before they had matured their knowledge. "It would be not unserviceable" (says Tooke) "in our own age, by preventing many of our raw
