The Sale of Lives (26-27)

Don't waste time. Call up another, the Peripatetic.

You are the man I want-the handsome, the rich one. Come now, buy the most intelligent life-the one whose forte is omniscience!

What sort of a person is he?

He leads a reasonable, well-ordered life, never doing either too much or too little. Most important of all, he is double.

What do you mean?

It seems that his visible man is one person and his inward man another; so, if you buy him, remember to call the one "exoteric," the other "esoteric."

What does he know best?

That there are three classes of goods, relating to the soul, the body, and to externals.

He thinks like a human being. What is his price?

Three hundred and seventy-five dollars.

That is high.

No, my good fellow, for he seems to have some money himself, so you can't buy him too quickly. Moreover, you will presently learn from him how long the gnat lives, how far down the sea is lighted by the sun, and the nature of the soul of the oyster.

Herakles! there's precision for you.

What would you say if you should hear things a great deal shrewder than these— how man is a laughing animal, but the ass neither a laughing, nor a house-building, nor a seafaring animal?

Edifying and profitable knowledge! I will take him for four hundred dollars.

Done.

Whom have we still left?

The sceptic here. Come forward, Pyrrhias, and be published as fast as you can. Most of the people have already stolen away, and there will be few buyers. All the same, who wants this fellow, too?

I do. But first tell me, what is your line of knowledge?

Nothing.

What do you mean by that?

That in my opinion nothing at all exists.

Then are we nobody, too?

I don't even know that.

Nor whether you happen to be somebody, either?

I am still more ignorant of that, by a good deal.

What an uncertainty! But, tell me, what do you want with these balances?

I weigh arguments in them and get them even, and when I see them exactly equal and of the same weight, then I am ignorant which is the truer.

What else are you clever at?

Everything, except chasing a runaway slave.

Why can't you do that?

Because, good sir, I never appresee. hend.

Of course. You do seem to be a slow, dull person. But what is the aim of your science?

Ignorance; neither to hear nor to apprehend.

You mean, then, to be blind and deaf?

Yes, and incapable of judgment and sensation, and, in a word, the double of an earthworm.

I must buy you for that. How much do you say he is worth?

Twenty dollars.

Here it is. What have you to say, fellow? Have I bought you?

Doubtful.

Not at all. I have purchased you and paid the money.

I suspend my judgment about it and consider.

You will follow me, as my slave should.

Who knows whether you are telling the truth?

The salesman and the eighteen dollars and the by-standers.

Are there, then, any standing by?

I will clap you into the mill in a moment, and persuade you by a vicious argument that I am your master.

Suspend your judgment about that.

No, by Heaven, I have formed my opinion already!

Here, stop your resistance and follow your purchaser. We will summon you again to-morrow, for we are going to put up the lives of the private citizens and artisans and tradesfolk.