I will, if you like, suggest another, less troublesome way, without this slaughter of victims or sacrifice to anybody or calling in one of these expensive priests: put some tablets into a pitcher with the name




 


of each of the philosophers on them, and tell a boy—a young lad with both parents living—to go to the pitcher and pick out whichever tablet he first touches with his hand; then all you have to do is to study the philosophy of the one whose lot he has picked.