But do you imagine that these same arguments have any force with those very persons who have invented, and canvassed, and published them, excepting indeed some very few particular persons?
For how few philosophers will you meet with whose life and manners are conformable to the dictates of reason! who look on their profession, not as a means of displaying their learning, but as a rule for their own practice! who follow their own precepts, and comply with their own decrees! You may see some of such levity and such vanity, that it would have been better for them to have been ignorant; some covetous of money, some others eager for glory, many slaves to their lusts; so that their discourses and their actions are most strangely at variance; than which nothing in my opinion can be more unbecoming: for just as if one who professed to teach grammar should speak with impropriety, or a master of music sing out of tune, such conduct has the worst appearance in these men, because they blunder in the very particular with which they profess that they are well acquainted.

So a philosopher who errs in the conduct of his life is the more infamous because he is erring in the very thing which he pretends to teach, and, while he lays down rules to regulate life by, is irregular in his own life.
V._A._ Should this be the case, is it not to be feared that you are dressing up philosophy in false colors?
For what stronger argument can there be that it is of little use than that some very profound philosophers live in a discreditable manner?
_M._ That, indeed, is no argument at all, for as all the fields which are cultivated are not fruitful (and this sentiment of Accius is false, and asserted without any foundation, The ground you sow on is of small avail; To yield a crop good seed can never fail), it is not every mind which has been properly cultivated that produces fruit; and, to go on with the comparison, as a field, although it may be naturally fruitful, cannot produce a crop without dressing, so neither can the mind without education; such is the weakness of either without the other.

Whereas philosophy is the culture of the mind: this it is which plucks up vices by the roots; prepares the mind for the receiving of seeds; commits them to it, or, as I may say, sows them, in the hope that, when come to maturity, they may produce a plentiful harvest.

Let us proceed, then, as we began.

Say, if you please, what shall be the subject of our disputation.
_A._ I look on pain to be the greatest of all evils.
_M._ What, even greater than infamy?
_A._ I dare not indeed assert that; and I blush to think I am so soon driven from my ground.
_M._ You would have had greater reason for blushing had you persevered in it; for what is so unbecoming--what can appear worse to you, than disgrace, wickedness, immorality?
To avoid which, what pain is there which we ought not (I will not say to avoid shirking, but even) of our own accord to encounter, and undergo, and even to court?
_A._ I am entirely of that opinion; but, notwithstanding that pain is not the greatest evil, yet surely it is an evil.
_M._ Do you perceive, then, how much of the terror of pain you have given up on a small hint?
_A._ I see that plainly; but I should be glad to give up more of it.
_M._ I will endeavor to make you do so; but it is a great undertaking, and I must have a disposition on your part which is not inclined to offer any obstacles.
_A._ You shall have such: for as I behaved yesterday, so now I will follow reason wherever she leads.
VI.