Philosophies for Sale (22-23)

Oh, what subtlety! And what else do you claim to know best?

The word-snares with which I entangle those who converse with me and stop their mouths and make them hold their peace, putting a very muzzle on them. This power is called the syllogism of wide renown.[*]

Heracles! An invincible and mighty thing, by what you say.

See for yourself. Have you a child?

What of it?

If a crocodile should seize it on finding it straying beside the river, and then should promise to give it back to you if you told him truly what he intended

Your question is hard to answer, for I don’t know which alternative I should follow in my reply, in order to get back the child. Come, in Heaven’s name answer it yourself and save the child for me, for fear the beast may get ahead of us and devour it!

Courage! I'll teach you other things that are more wonderful.

What are they?

The Reaper, the Master,[*] and above all, the Electra and the Veiled Figure.

What do you mean by the Veiled Figure and the Electra?

The Electra is the famous Electra, the daughter of Agamemnon, who at once knew and did not know the same thing; for when Orestes stood beside her before the recognition she knew that Orestes was

Yes.

But if I put a veiled figure before you and asked you if you know him, what will you say?

That I don’t, of course.

But the veiled figure turns out to be your own father; so if you don’t know him, you evidently don’t know your own father.

Not so: I should unveil him and find out the truth! But to go on—what is the purpose of your wisdom, and what shall you do when you reach the summit of virtue?

I shall then devote myself to the chief natural goods, I mean wealth, health, and the like.[*] But first I must go through many preparatory toils, whetting my eyesight with closely-written books,

These projects of yours are noble and dreadfully courageous. But tobe a Gnipho and a usurer—for I see that this is one of your traits too—what shall we say of this? That it is the mark of a man who has already taken his hellebore-treatment and is consumuinate in virtue?

Yes; at any rate money-lending is especially appropriate to a wise man, for as drawing inferences is a specialty of his, and as money-lending and drawing interest is next-door to drawing inferences, the one, like the other, belongs particularly to the scholar: and not only getting simple interest, like other people, but interest upon interest. For don’t you know that there is a first interest and a second interest, the offspring,[*] as it were, of the first? And you surely perceive what logic says: “If he gets the first interest, he will get the second; but he will get the first, ergo he will get the second.”