Moreover, you have never realised, I suppose, that virtue lies in action, in acting justly and wisely and bravely. While all of you (by “you” I mean the philosophers at the top) neglect these things, and are studying how to find and compose your wretched texts and syllogisms and problems. You spend most of your lives on this, and whoever wins in this race is your Conquering Hero. That, I fancy, is why you admire this teacher of yours, the old man, because he reduces his pupils to perplexity and knows how to question and quibble and cheat and throw into inextricable confusion. So you just throw away the fruit—which has to do with works—and busy yourselves with the husk, in your discussions throwing


 


the leaves over each other. Isn’t that what you all do, Hermotimus, from dawn till dusk? HERMOTIMUS Yes, just that. LYCINUS Then wouldn’t it be right to say that you forget the substance and hunt the shadow, or ignore the crawling serpent and hunt the slough? Yes, and that you are like a man pouring water into a mortar and braying it with an iron pestle who thinks that he is doing essential and productive work, not knowing that although you bray your arms off, as they say, water is still water?