Marius the Epicurean Volume II Part 4

-Perhaps! But as to those twenty years-that you will live so long. Has the master a.s.sured 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 worth while?

-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?

-Hus.h.!.+ my friend! All those are nothing in comparison of the life there.

-What, then, shall those who come to the [148] 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 G.o.d. 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 for ever, 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 to-day, 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 [149] 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: there are the enthusiasts for Diogenes, and Antisthenes, and the followers of Pythagoras, besides others.

-It was true, then. But again, is what they say the same or different?

-Very different.

-Yet the truth, I conceive, would be one and the same, from all of them. Answer me then-In what, or in whom, did you confide when you first betook yourself to philosophy, and seeing so many doors open to you, pa.s.sed them all by and went in to the Stoics, as if there alone lay the way of truth? What token had you? Forget, please, all you are to-day-half-way, or more, on the philosophic journey: [150] answer me as you would have done then, a mere outsider as I am now.

-Willingly! It was there the great majority went! 'Twas by that I judged it to be the better way.

-A majority how much greater than the Epicureans, the Platonists, the Peripatetics? You, doubtless, counted them respectively, as with the votes in a scrutiny.

-No! But this was not my only motive. I heard it said by every one that the Epicureans were soft and voluptuous, the Peripatetics avaricious and quarrelsome, and Plato's followers puffed up with pride. But of the Stoics, not a few p.r.o.nounced that they were true men, that they knew everything, that theirs was the royal road, the one road, to wealth, to wisdom, to all that can be desired.

-Of course those who said this were not themselves Stoics: you would not have believed them-still less their opponents. They were the vulgar, therefore.

-True! But you must know that I did not trust to others exclusively. I trusted also to myself-to what I saw. I saw the Stoics going through the world after a seemly manner, neatly clad, never in excess, always collected, ever faithful to the mean which all p.r.o.nounce 'golden.'

-You are trying an experiment on me. You would fain see how far you can mislead [151] me as to your real ground. The kind of probation you describe is applicable, indeed, to works of art, which are rightly judged by their appearance to the eye. There is something in the comely form, the graceful drapery, which tells surely of the hand of Pheidias or Alcamenes. But if philosophy is to be judged by outward appearances, what would become of the blind man, for instance, unable to observe the attire and gait of your friends the Stoics?

-It was not of the blind I was thinking.

-Yet there must needs be some common criterion in a matter so important to all. Put the blind, if you will, beyond the privileges of philosophy; though they perhaps need that inward vision more than all others. But can those who are not blind, be they as keen-sighted as you will, collect a single fact of mind from a man's attire, from anything outward?-Understand me! You attached yourself to these men-did you not?-because of a certain love you had for the mind in them, the thoughts they possessed desiring the mind in you to be improved thereby?

-a.s.suredly!

-How, then, did you find it possible, by the sort of signs you just now spoke of, to distinguish the true philosopher from the false? Matters of that kind are not wont so to reveal themselves. They are but hidden mysteries, hardly to be guessed at through the words and acts which [152] may in some sort be conformable to them. You, however, it would seem, can look straight into the heart in men's bosoms, and acquaint yourself with what really pa.s.ses there.

-You are making sport of me, Lucian! In truth, it was with G.o.d's help I made my choice, and I don't repent it.

-And still you refuse to tell me, to save me from peris.h.i.+ng in that 'vulgar herd.'

-Because nothing I can tell you would satisfy you.

-You are mistaken, my friend! But since you deliberately conceal the thing, grudging me, as I suppose, that true philosophy which would make me equal to you, I will try, if it may be, to find out for myself the exact criterion in these matters-how to make a perfectly safe choice. And, do you listen.

-I will; there may be something worth knowing in what you will say.

-Well!-only don't laugh if I seem a little fumbling in my efforts. The fault is yours, in refusing to share your lights with me. Let Philosophy, then, be like a city-a city whose citizens within it are a happy people, as your master would tell you, having lately come thence, as we suppose. All the virtues are theirs, and they are little less than G.o.ds. Those acts of violence which happen among us are not to be seen in their streets. They live together in one mind, very seemly; the things which beyond [153] everything else cause men to contend against each other, having no place upon them. Gold and silver, pleasure, vainglory, they have long since banished, as being unprofitable to the commonwealth; and their life is an unbroken calm, in liberty, equality, an equal happiness.

-And is it not reasonable that all men should desire to be of a city such as that, and take no account of the length and difficulty of the way thither, so only they may one day become its freemen?

-It might well be the business of life:-leaving all else, forgetting one's native country here, unmoved by the tears, the restraining hands, of parents or children, if one had them-only bidding them follow the same road; and if they would not or could not, shaking them off, leaving one's very garment in their hands if they took hold on us, to start off straightway for that happy place! For there is no fear, I suppose, of being shut out if one came thither naked. I remember, indeed, long ago an aged man related to me how things pa.s.sed there, offering himself to be my leader, and enrol me on my arrival in the number of the citizens. I was but fifteen-certainly very foolish: and it may be that I was then actually within the suburbs, or at the very gates, of the city. Well, this aged man told me, among other things, that all the citizens were wayfarers from afar. Among them were barbarians and slaves, poor [154] men-aye! and cripples-all indeed who truly desired that citizens.h.i.+p. For the only legal conditions of enrolment were-not wealth, nor bodily beauty, nor n.o.ble ancestry-things not named among them-but intelligence, and the desire for moral beauty, and earnest labour. The last comer, thus qualified, was made equal to the rest: master and slave, patrician, plebeian, were words they had not-in that blissful place. And believe me, if that blissful, that beautiful place, were set on a hill visible to all the world, I should long ago have journeyed thither. But, as you say, it is far off: and one must needs find out for oneself the road to it, and the best possible guide. And I find a mult.i.tude of guides, who press on me their services, and protest, all alike, that they have themselves come thence. Only, the roads they propose are many, and towards adverse quarters. And one of them is steep and stony, and through the beating sun; and the other is through green meadows, and under grateful shade, and by many a fountain of water. But howsoever the road may be, at each one of them stands a credible guide; he puts out his hand and would have you come his way. All other ways are wrong, all other guides false. Hence my difficulty!-The number and variety of the ways! For you know, There is but one road that leads to Corinth.

-Well! If you go the whole round, you [155] will find no better guides than those. If you wish to get to Corinth, you will follow the traces of Zeno and Chrysippus. It is impossible otherwise.

-Yes! The old, familiar language! Were one of Plato's fellow-pilgrims here, or a follower of Epicurus-or fifty others-each would tell me that I should never get to Corinth except in his company. One must therefore credit all alike, which would be absurd; or, what is far safer, distrust all alike, until one has discovered the truth. Suppose now, that, being as I am, ignorant which of all philosophers is really in possession of truth, I choose your sect, relying on yourself-my friend, indeed, yet still acquainted only with the way of the Stoics; and that then some divine power brought Plato, and Aristotle, and Pythagoras, and the others, back to life again. Well! They would come round about me, and put me on my trial for my presumption, and say:-'In whom was it you confided when you preferred Zeno and Chrysippus to me?-and me?-masters of far more venerable age than those, who are but of yesterday; and though you have never held any discussion with us, nor made trial of our doctrine? It is not thus that the law would have judges do-listen to one party and refuse to let the other speak for himself. If judges act thus, there may be an appeal to another tribunal.' What should I answer? Would it [156] be enough to say:-'I trusted my friend Hermotimus?'-'We know not Hermotimus, nor he us,' they would tell me; adding, with a smile, 'your friend thinks he may believe all our adversaries say of us whether in ignorance or in malice. Yet if he were umpire in the games, and if he happened to see one of our wrestlers, by way of a preliminary exercise, knock to pieces an antagonist of mere empty air, he would not thereupon p.r.o.nounce him a victor. Well! don't let your friend Hermotimus suppose, in like manner, that his teachers have really prevailed over us in those battles of theirs, fought with our mere shadows. That, again, were to be like children, lightly overthrowing their own card-castles; or like boy-archers, who cry out when they hit the target of straw. The Persian and Scythian bowmen, as they speed along, can pierce a bird on the wing.'

-Let us leave Plato and the others at rest. It is not for me to contend against them. Let us rather search out together if the truth of Philosophy be as I say. Why summon the athletes, and archers from Persia?

-Yes! let them go, if you think them in the way. And now do you speak! You really look as if you had something wonderful to deliver.

-Well then, Lucian! to me it seems quite possible for one who has learned the doctrines of the Stoics only, to attain from those a knowledge [157] of the truth, without proceeding to inquire into all the various tenets of the others. Look at the question in this way. If one told you that twice two make four, would it be necessary for you to go the whole round of the arithmeticians, to see whether any one of them will say that twice two make five, or seven? Would you not see at once that the man tells the truth?

-At once.

-Why then do you find it impossible that one who has fallen in with the Stoics only, in their enunciation of what is true, should adhere to them, and seek after no others; a.s.sured that four could never be five, even if fifty Platos, fifty Aristotles said so?

-You are beside the point, Hermotimus! You are likening open questions to principles universally received. Have you ever met any one who said that twice two make five, or seven?

-No! only a madman would say that.

-And have you ever met, on the other hand, a Stoic and an Epicurean who were agreed upon the beginning and the end, the principle and the final cause, of things? Never! Then your parallel is false. We are inquiring to which of the sects philosophic truth belongs, and you seize on it by antic.i.p.ation, and a.s.sign it to the Stoics, alleging, what is by no means clear, that it is they for whom twice two make four. But the Epicureans, or the Platonists, [158] might say that it is they, in truth, who make two and two equal four, while you make them five or seven. Is it not so, when you think virtue the only good, and the Epicureans pleasure; when you hold all things to be material, while the Platonists admit something immaterial? As I said, you resolve offhand, in favour of the Stoics, the very point which needs a critical decision. If it is clear beforehand that the Stoics alone make two and two equal four, then the others must hold their peace. But so long as that is the very point of debate, we must listen to all sects alike, or be well-a.s.sured that we shall seem but partial in our judgment.

-I think, Lucian! that you do not altogether understand my meaning. To make it clear, then, let us suppose that two men had entered a temple, of Aesculapius,-say! or Bacchus: and that afterwards one of the sacred vessels is found to be missing. And the two men must be searched to see which of them has hidden it under his garment. For it is certainly in the possession of one or the other of them. Well! if it be found on the first there will be no need to search the second; if it is not found on the first, then the other must have it; and again, there will be no need to search him.