The Runaways (11-15)

My followers would have restrained them, and exposed their errors: but they grew angry, and conspired against them, and in the end brought them under the power of the law, which condemned them to drink of hemlock. Doubttess I should have done well to renounce humanity there and then, and take my flight: but Antisthenes and Diogenes, and after them Crates, and our friend Menippus, prevailed upon me to tarry yet a little longer. Would that I had never yielded!' I should have been spared much pain in the sequel.

Zeus But, my dear, you are merely giving way to your feelings, instead of telling me what your wrongs were.

Philosophy Then hear them, father. There is a vile race upon the earth, composed for the most part of serfs and menials, creatures whose occupations have never suffered them to become acquainted with philosophy; whose earliest years have been spent in the drudgery of the fields, in learning those base arts for which they are most fitted—the fuller’s trade, the joiner’s, the cobbler’s—or in carding wool, that housewives may have ease in their spinning, and the thread be fit for warp and woof, Thus employed, they knew not in their youth so much as the name of Philosophy. But they had no sooner reached manhood, than they perceived the respect paid to my followers; how men submitted to their blunt speech, valued their advice, deferred to their judgement, and cowered beneath their censure; all this they saw, and held that here was a life for a king.

The learning, indeed, that befits a philosopher would have taken them long to acquire, if it was not utterly out of their reach. On the other hand, their own miserly handicrafts barely rewarded their toil with a sufficiency. To some, too, servitude was in itself an oppression: they knew it, in fact, for the intolerable thing it is. But they bethought them that there was still one chance left; their sheet-anchor, as sailors say, They took refuge with my lady Folly, called in the assistance of Boldness, Ignorance, and Impudence, ever their untiring coadjutors, and provided themselves with a stock of bran-new invectives; these they have ever ready on their tongues; ’tis their sole equipment; noble provision, is it not, for a philosopher? Nothing could be more plausible than the philosophic disguise they now assume, reminding one of the fabled ass of Cyme, in Aesop, who clothed himself in a lion’s skin, and, stoutly braying, sought to play the lion’s part; the beast, I doubt not, had his adherents.

The externals of philosophy, as you know, are easily aped: it is a simple matter to assume the cloak and wallet, walk with a stick, and bawl, and bark, and bray, against all comers, They know that they are safe; their cloth protects them. Liberty is thus within their grasp: no need to ask their master’s leave; should he attempt to reclaim them, their sticks are at his service. No more short commons for them now, no more of crusts whose dryness is mitigated only by herbs or salt fish; they have choice of meats, drink the best of wines, and take money where they will, shearing the sheep, as they call it when they levy contributions, in the certainty that many will give, from respect to their garb or fear of their tongues.

They foresee, of course, that they will be on the same footing as genuine philosophers; so long as their exterior is conformable, no one is likely to make critical distinctions. They take care not to risk exposure: at the first hint of a rational argument, they shout their opponent down, withdraw into the stronghold