who tell us they are actually natives of the place. But it would seem there is not one road thither, but many, and all in different directions—one east, one west, one north, another south; some lead through pleasant meadows and shady groves, with no obstacles or unpleasantness; others ever rough and stony ground, through much heat and thirst and toil; yet all are said to lead to that one and the same city, though their lines lie so far apart.
There are guides, too, each recommending their own path as the only true one; which of all such are we to follow? There is Plato's road, and Epicurus's road, and the road taken by the Stoics; who is to say which is right? The guides themselves know no road but their own: and though each may declare that they have seen a city at the end of it, who knows whether they mean the same city, after all? The only safe guide would be the man who had tried every path,—who had studied profoundly all the theories of Pythagoras, Plato, Epicurus, Chrysippus, Aristotle, and the rest, and chosen that which, from his own knowledge and experience, he found to he the best and safest. And what lifetime would suffice for this? "Twenty years," says his friend to Hermotimus, "you have already been studying under the Stoics, you told us; and some twenty more you thought you required to perfect yourself in their philosophy. And how many would you give to Plato? and how many to Aristotle? and how long do you expect to live?"
Poor Hermotimus is no match for his Socratic cross-
