She, nevertheless, being conscious of no alloy within, discourses with boldness to all men, who therefore have little love for her.

See how angry you are now because I have stated the truth about certain things of which we are both alike enamoured--that they are hard to come by.

It is as if you had fallen in love with a statue and hoped to win its favour, thinking it a human creature; and I, understanding it to be but an image of brass or stone, had shown you, as a friend, that your love was impossible, and thereupon you had conceived that I bore you some ill-will.
-- But still, does it not follow from what you said, that we must renounce philosophy and pass our days in idleness?
-- When did you hear me say that?
I did but assert that if we are to seek after philosophy, whereas there are many ways professing to lead thereto, we must with much exactness distinguish them.
-- Well, Lucian! that we must go to all the schools in turn, and test what they say, if we are to choose the right one, is perhaps reasonable; but surely ridiculous, unless we are to live as [163] many years as the Phoenix, to be so lengthy in the trial of each; as if it were not possible to learn the whole by the part! They say that Pheidias, when he was shown one of the talons of a lion, computed the stature and age of the animal it belonged to, modelling a complete lion upon the standard of a single part of it.

You too would recognise a human hand were the rest of the body concealed.

Even so with the schools of philosophy:--the leading doctrines of each might be learned in an afternoon.