Reader

Zeus Now get those benches straight there, and make the place fit to be seen. Bring up the lots, one of you, and put them in line. Give them a rub up first, though; we must have them looking their best, to attract bidders. Hermes, you can declare the sale-room open, and a welcome to all comers.—For Sale! A varied assortment of Live Creeds. Tenets of every description—Cash on delivery; or credit allowed on suitable security. Hermes Here they come, swarming in. No time to lose; we must not keep them waiting. Zeus Well, let us begin.

Heraclitus What are we to put up first? Zeus The Ionic fellow, with the long hair. He seems a showy piece of goods. Heraclitus Step up, Pythagoreanism, and show yourself. Zeus Go ahead. Heraclitus Now here is a creed of the first water. Who bids for this handsome article? What gentleman says Superhumanity? Harmony of the Universe! Transmigration of souls! Who bids? First Dealer. He looks all right. And what can he do? Heraclitus Magic, music, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, jugglery. Prophecy in all its branches, First Dealer Can I ask him some questions? Heraclitus Ask away, and welcome.

First Dealer Where do you come from? Pythagoras Samos. First Dealer Where did you get your schooling? Pythagoras From the sophists in Egypt. First Dealer If I buy you, what will you teach me? Pythagoras Nothing. I will remind you. First Dealer Remind me? Pythagoras But first I shall have to cleanse your soul of its filth. First Dealer Well, suppose the cleansing process complete. How is the reminding done? Pythagoras We shall begin with a long course of silent contemplation. Not a word to be spoken for five years. First Dealer You would have been just the creed for Croesus’s son! But I have a tongue in my head; I have no ambition to be a statue. And after the five years’ silence? Pythagoras You will study music and geometry. First Dealer A charming recipe!’ The way to be wise: learn the guitar.

Pythagoras Next you will learn to count. First Dealer I can do that already. Pythagoras Let me hear you. First Dealer One, two, three, four,— Pythagoras There you are, you see. Four (as you call it) is ten. Four the perfect triangle. Four the oath of our school. First Dealer Now by Four, most potent Four!—higher and holier mysteries than these I never heard. Pythagoras Then you will learn of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water; their action, their movement, their shapes. First Dealer Have Fire and Air and Water shapes? Pythagoras Clearly. That cannot move which lacks shape and form. You will also find that God is a number; an intelligence; a harmony. First Dealer You surprise me.

Pythagoras More than this, you have to learn that you yourself are not the person you appear to be. First Dealer What, I am some one else, not the I who am speaking to you? Pythagoras You are that you now: but you have formerly inhabited another body, and borne another name. And in course of time you will change once more. First Dealer Why then I shall be immortal, and take one shape after another?

First Dealer But enough of this, And now what is your diet? Pythagoras Of living things I eat none. All else I eat, except beans. First Dealer And why no beans? Do you dislike them? Pythagoras No. But they are sacred things. Their nature is a mystery. Consider them first in their generative aspect; take a green one and peel it, and you will see what I mean. Again, boil one and expose it to moonlight for a proper number of nights, and you have—blood. What is more, the Athenians use beans to vote with. First Dealer Admirable! A very feast of reason. Now just strip, and let me see what you are like. Bless me, here is a creed with a golden thigh! He is no mortal, he is a God. I must have him at any price. What do you start him at? Heraclitus Forty pounds. First Dealer He is mine for forty pounds, Zeus Take the gentleman’s name and address. Heraclitus He must come from Italy, I should think; Croton or Tarentum, or one of the Greek towns in those parts. But he is not the only buyer. Some three hundred of them have clubbed together. Zeus They are welcome to him. Now up with the next.

Heraclitus What about yonder grubby PontianSee Diogenes in Notes.? Zeus Yes, he will do. Heraclitus You there with the wallet and cloak; come along, walk round the room. Lot No.2, A most sturdy and valiant creed, free-born. What offers? Second Dealer Hullo, Mr. Auctioneer, are you going to sell a free man? Heraclitus That was the idea Second Dealer Take care, he may have you up for kidnapping. This might be matter for the Areopagus. Heraclitus Oh, he would as soon be sold as not. He feels just as free as ever. Second Dealer But what is one to do with such a dirty fellow? He is a pitiable sight. One might put him to dig perhaps, or to carry water. Heraclitus That he can do and more. Set him to guard your house, and you will find him better than any watch-dog.— They call him Dog for short. Second Dealer Where does he come from? and what is his method? Heraclitus He can best tell you that himself. Second Dealer I don’t like his looks. He will probably snarl if I go near him, or take a snap at me, for all I know. See how he lifts his stick, and scowls; an awkward-looking customer! Heraclitus Don’t be afraid. He is quite tame.

Second Dealer Tell me, good fellow, where do you come from? Diogenes Everywhere. Second Dealer What does that mean? Diogenes It means that I am a citizen of the world. Second Dealer And your model? Diogenes Heracles. Second Dealer Then why no lion’s-skin? You have the orthodox club. Diogenes My cloak is my lion’s-skin. Like Heracles, I live in a state of warfare, and my enemy is Pleasure; but unlike him I am a volunteer. My purpose is to purify humanity. Second Dealer A noble purpose. Now what do I understand to be your strong subject?. What is your profession? Diogenes The liberation of humanity, and the treatment of the” passions, In short, I am the prophet of Truth and Candour.

Second Dealer Well, prophet; and if I buy you, how shall you handle my case? Diogenes I shall commence operations by stripping off your superfluities, putting you into fustian, and leaving you closeted with Necessity. Then I shall give you a course of hard labour. You will sleep on the ground, drink water, and fill your belly as best you can, Have you money? ‘Take my advice and throw it into the sea. With wife and children and country you will not concern yourself; there will be no more of that nonsense. You will exchange your present home for a sepulchre, a ruin, or a tub. What with lupines and close-written tomes, your knapsack will never be empty; and you will vote yourself happier than any king. Nor will you esteem it any inconvenience, if a flogging or a turn of the rack should fall to your lot. Second Dealer How! Am I a tortoise, a lobster, that I should be flogged and feel it not? Diogenes You will take your cue from Hippolytus; mutatis mutandis. Second Dealer How so? Diogenes ‘The heart may burn, the tongue knows nought thereof’Hippolytus (in Euripides’s play of that name) is reproached with having broken an oath, and thus defends himself; ‘The tongue hath sworn: the heart knew nonght thereof.’

Diogenes

‘The heart may burn, the tongue knows nought thereof’

1

Above all, be bold, be impudent; distribute your abuse impartially to king and commoner. They will admire your spirit. You will talk the Cynic jargon with the true Cynic snarl, scowling as you walk, and walking as one should who scowls; an epitome of brutality. Away with modesty, good-nature, and forbearance. Wipe the blush from your cheek for ever. Your hunting-ground will be the crowded city. You will live alone in its midst, holding communion with none, admitting neither friend nor guest; for such would undermine your power. Scruple not to perform the deeds of darkness in broad daylight: select your love-adventures with a view to the public entertainment: and finally, when the fancy takes you, swallow a raw cuttle-fish, and die. Such are the delights of Cynicism.

Second Dealer Oh, vile creed! Monstrous creed! Avaunt! Diogenes But look you, it is all so easy; it is within every man’s reach. No education is necessary, no nonsensical argumentation. I offer you a short cut to Glory. You may be the merest clown—cobbler, fishmonger, carpenter, money-changer; yet there is nothing to prevent your becoming famous. Given brass and boldness, you have only to learn to wag your tongue with dexterity. Second Dealer All this is of no use to me. But I might make a sailor or a gardener of you at a pinch; that is, if you are to be had cheap. Three-pence is the most I can give. Heraclitus He is yours, to have and to hold. And good riddance to the brawling foul-mouthed bully. He is a slanderer by wholesale.

Zeus Now for the Cyrenaic, the crowned and purple-robed. Heraclitus Attend please, gentlemen all. A most valuable article, this, and calls for a long purse.’ Look at him, A sweet thing in creeds. A creed for a king. Has any gentleman a use for the Lap of Luxury? Who bids?: Third Dealer Come and tell me what you know. If you are a practical creed, I will have you. Heraclitus Please not to worry him with questions, sir. He is drunk, and cannot answer; his tongue plays him tricks, as you see. Third Dealer And who in his senses would buy such an abandoned reprobate? How he smells of scent! And how he slips and staggers about! Well, you must speak for him, Hermes. What can he do? What is his line? Heraclitus Well, for any gentleman who is not strait-laced, who loves a pretty girl, a bottle, and a jolly companion, he is the very thing. He is also a past master in gastronomy, and a connoisseur in voluptuousness generally. He was educated at Athens, and has served royalty in SicilySee Aristippus in Notes., where he had a very good character. Here are his principles in a nutshell: Think the worst of things: make the most of things: get all possible pleasure out of things. Third Dealer You must look for wealthier purchasers. My purse is not equal to such a festive creed. Heraclitus Zeus, this lot seems likely to remain on our hands.

Zeus Put it aside, and up with another. Stay, take the pair from Abdera and Ephesus; the creeds of Smiles and Tears. They shall make one lot. Heraclitus Come forward, you two. Lot No. 4. A superlative pair. The smartest brace of creeds on our catalogue. Fourth Dealer Zeus! What a difference is here! One of them does nothing but laugh, and the other might be at a funeral; he is all tears—You there! what is the joke? Democritus You ask? You and your affairs are all one vast joke. Fourth Dealer So! You laugh at us? Our business is a toy? Democritus It is. There is no taking it seriously. All is vanity. Mere interchange of atoms in an infinite void. Fourth Dealer Your vanity is infinite, if you like. Stop that laughing, you rascal.—

Fourth Dealer And you, my poor fellow, what are you crying for? I must see what I can make of you. Heraclitus I am thinking, friend, upon human affairs; and well may I weep and lament, for the doom of all is sealed. Hence my compassion and my sorrow. For the present, I think not of it; but the future!—the future is all bitterness. Conflagration and destruction of the world. I weep to think that nothing abides, All things are whirled together in confusion. Pleasure and pain, knowledge and ignorance, great and small; up and down they go, the playthings of Time. Fourth Dealer And what is Time? Heraclitus A child; and plays at draughts and blindman’s-buff. Fourth Dealer And men? Heraclitus Are mortal Gods. Fourth Dealer And Gods? Heraclitus Immortal men. Fourth Dealer So! Conundrums, fellow? Nuts to crack? You are a very oracle for obscurity. Heraclitus Your affairs do not interest me. Fourth Dealer No one will be fool enough to bid for you at that rate. Heraclitus Young and old, him that bids and him that bids not, a murrain seize you all! Fourth Dealer A sad case. He will be melancholy mad before long. Neither of these is the creed for my money. Heraclitus No one bids. Zeus Next lot.

Heraclitus The Athenian there? Old Chatterbox? Zeus By all means. Heraclitus Come forward!—A good sensible creed this. Who buys Holiness? Fifth Dealer Let me see. What are you good for? Socrates I teach the art of love. Fifth Dealer A likely bargain for me! I want a tutor for my young Adonis. Socrates And could he have a better? The love I teach is of. the spirit, not of the flesh. Under my roof, be sure, a boy will come to no harm. Fifth Dealer Very unconvincing that. A teacher of the art of love, and never meddle with anything but the spirit? Never use the opportunities your office gives you?

Socrates Now by Dog and Plane-tree, it is as I say! Fifth Dealer Heracles! What strange Gods are these? Socrates Why, the Dog is a God, I suppose? Is not Anubis made much of in Egypt? Is there not a Dog-star in Heaven, and a Cerberus in the lower world?

Fifth Dealer Quite so. My mistake. Now what is your manner of life? Socrates I live in a city of my own building; I make my own laws, and have a novel constitution of my own. Fifth Dealer I should like to hear some of your statutes. Socrates You shall hear the greatest of them all. No woman shall be restricted to one husband. Every man who likes is her husband. Fifth Dealer What! Then the laws of adultery are clean swept away? Socrates I should think they were! and a world of hair-splitting with them. Fifth Dealer And what do you do with the handsome boys? Socrates ‘Their kisses are the reward of merit, of noble and spirited actions.

Fifth Dealer Unparalleled generosity!—And now, what are the main features of your philosophy? Socrates Ideas and types of things. All things that you see, the earth and all that is upon it, the sea, the sky,—each has its counterpart in the invisible world. Fifth Dealer And where are they? Socrates Nowhere. Were they anywhere, they were not what they are. Fifth Dealer I see no signs of these ‘types’ of yours. Socrates Of course not; because you are spiritually blind. I see the counterparts of all things; an invisible you, an invisible me; everything is in duplicate. Fifth Dealer Come, such a shrewd and lynx-eyed creed is worth a bid. Let me see. What do you want for him? Heraclitus Five hundred. Fifth Dealer Done with you. Only I must settle the bill another day.

Heraclitus What name? Fifth Dealer Dion; of Syracuse. Heraclitus Take him, and much good may he do you. Now I want Epicureanism. Who offers for Epicureanism? He isa disciple of the laughing creed and the drunken creed, whom we were offering just now. But he has one extra accomplishment— impiety. For the rest, a dainty, lickerish creed. Sixth Dealer What price? Heraclitus Eight pounds. Sixth Dealer Here you are. By the way, you might let me know what he likes to eat. Heraclitus Anything sweet. Anything with honey in it. Dried figs are his favourite dish. Sixth Dealer That is all right. We will get in a supply of Carian fig-cakes,

Zeus Call the next lot. Stoicism; the creed of the sorrowful countenance, the close-cropped creed. Heraclitus Ah yes, several customiers, I fancy, are on the look-out for him. Virtue incarnate! The very quintessence of creeds! Who is for universal monopoly? Seventh Dealer How are we to understand that? Heraclitus Why, here is monopoly of wisdom, monopoly of beauty, monopoly of courage, monopoly of justice. Sole king, sole orator, sole legislator, sole millionaire. Seventh Dealer And I suppose sole cook, sole tanner, sole carpenter, and all that? Heraclitus Presumably.

Seventh Dealer Regard me as your purchaser, good fellow, and tell me all about yourself. I dare say you think it rather hard to be sold for a slave? Chrysippus Not at all. These things are beyond our control. And what is beyond our control is indifferent. Seventh Dealer I don’t see how you make that out. Chrysippus What! Have you yet to learn that of indifferentia some are praepostta and others rejecta? Seventh Dealer Still I don’t quite see. Chrysippus No; how should you? You are not familiar with our terms. You lack the comprebensio vist. The earnest student of logic knows this and more than this. He understands the nature of subject, predicate, and contingent, and the distinctions between them. Seventh Dealer Now in Wisdom’s name, tell me, pray, what is a predicate? what is a contingent? ‘There is a ring about those words that takes my fancy. Chrysippus With all my heart. A man lame in one foot knocks that foot accidentally against a stone, and gets a cut. Now the man is subject to lameness; which is the predicate. And the cut is a contingency.

Seventh Dealer Oh, subtle! What else can you tell me? Chrysippus I have verbal involutions, for the better hampering, crippling, and muzzling of my antagonists. This is performed by the use of the far-famed syllogism. Seventh Dealer Syllogism! I warrant him a tough customer. Chrysippus Take a case. You have a child? Seventh Dealer Well, and what if I have? Chrysippus A crocodile catches him as he wanders along the bank of a river, and promises to restore him to you, if you will first guess correctly whether he means to restore him or not. Which are you going to say? Seventh Dealer A difficult question. I don’t know which way I should get him back soonest. In Heaven’s hame, answer for me, and save the child before he is eaten up. Chrysippus Ha, ha. I will teach you far other things than that. Seventh Dealer For instance? Chrysippus There is the ‘Reaper.’ There is the ‘Rightful Owner.’ Better still, there is the ‘Electra’ and the ‘Man in the Hood.’ Seventh Dealer Who was he? and who was Electra? Chrysippus She was the Electra, the daughter of Agamemnon, to whom the same thing was known and unknown at the same time. She knew that Orestes was her brother: yet when he stood before her she did not know (until he revealed himself) that her brother was Orestes. As to the Man in the Hood, he will surprise you considerably. Answer me now: do you know your own father? Seventh Dealer Yes. Chrysippus Well now, if I present to you a man in a hood, shall you know him? eh? Seventh Dealer Of course not.

Chrysippus Well, but the Man in the Hood is your father. You don’t know the Man in the Hood. Therefore you don’t know your own father. Seventh Dealer Why, no. But if I take his hood off, I shall get at the facts. Now tell me, what is the end of your philosophy? What happens when you reach the goal of virtue? Chrysippus In regard to things external, health, wealth, and the like, I am then all that Nature intended me to be. But there is much previous toil to be undergone. You will first sharpen your eyes on minute manuscripts, amass commentaries, and get your bellyful of outlandish terms. Last but not least, it is forbidden to be wise without repeated doses of hellebore. Seventh Dealer All this is exalted and magnanimous to a degree. But what am I to think when I find that you are also the creed of cent-per-cent, the creed of the usurer? Has be swallowed his hellebore? is be made perfect in virtue? Chrysippus Assuredly. On none but the wise man does usury sit well, Consider. His is the art of putting two and two together, and usury is the art of putting interest together. The two are evidently connected, and one as much as the other is the prerogative of the true believer; who, not content, like common men, with simple interest, will also take interest upon interest. For interest, as you are probably aware, is of two kinds. There is simple interest, and there is its offspring, compound interest. Hear Syllogism on the subject. ‘If I take simple interest, I shall also take compound. But I shall take simple interest: therefore I shall take compound.’

Seventh Dealer And the same applies to the fees you take from your youthful pupils? None but the true believer sells virtue for a fee? Chrysippus Quite right. I take the fee in my pupil’s interest, not because I want it. The world is made up of diffusion and accumulation. I accordingly practise my pupil in the former, and myself in the latter. Seventh Dealer But it ought to be the other way. The pupil ought to accumulate, and you, ‘sole millionaire,’ ought to diffuse. Chrysippus Ha! you jest with me? Beware of the shaft of insoluble syllogism. Seventh Dealer What harm can that do? Chrysippus It cripples; it ties the tongue, and turns the brain.

Chrysippus It cripples; it ties the tongue, and turns the brain. Nay, I have but to will it, and you are stone this instant. Seventh Dealer Stone! You are no Perseus, friend? Chrysippus See here. A stone is a body? Seventh Dealer Yes. Chrysippus Well, and an animal is a body? Seventh Dealer Yes. Chrysippus And you are an animal? Seventh Dealer I suppose I am. Chrysippus ‘Therefore you are a body. Therefore a stone. Seventh Dealer Mercy, in Heaven’s name! Unstone me, and let me be flesh as heretofore. Chrysippus That is soon done. Back with you into flesh! Thus: Is every body animate? Seventh Dealer No. Chrysippus Is a stone animate? Seventh Dealer No. Chrysippus Now, you are a body? Seventh Dealer Yes. Chrysippus And an animate body? Seventh Dealer Yes. Chrysippus Then being animate, you cannot be a stone. Seventh Dealer Ah! thank you, thank you. I was beginning to feel my limbs growing numb and solidifying like Niobe’s. Oh, I must have you. What’s to pay? Heraclitus Fifty pounds. Seventh Dealer Here it is. Heraclitus Are you sole purchaser? Seventh Dealer Not I. All these gentlemen here are going shares. Heraclitus A fine strapping lot of fellows, and will do the ‘Reaper’ credit.

Zeus Don’t waste time. Next lot,—the Peripatetic! Heraclitus Now, my beauty, now, Affluence! Gentlemen, if you want Wisdom for your money, here is a creed that comprises all knowledge.: Eighth Dealer What is he like? Heraclitus He is temperate, good-natured, easy to get on with; and his strong point is, that he is twins, Eighth Dealer How can that be? Heraclitus Why, he is one creed outside, and another inside. So remember, if you buy him, one of him is called Esoteric, and the other Exoteric. Eighth Dealer And what has he to say for himself? Heraclitus He has to say that there are three kinds of good: spiritual, corporeal, circumstantial, Eighth Dealer There’s something a man can understand. How much is he? Heraclitus Eighty pounds. Eighth Dealer Eighty pounds is a long price. Heraclitus Not at all, my dear sir, not at all. You see, there is some money with him, to all appearance. Snap him up before it is too late. Why, from him you will find out in no time how long a gnat lives, to how many fathoms’ depth the sunlight penetrates the sea, and what an oyster’s soul is like. Eighth Dealer Heracles! Nothing escapes him. Heraclitus Ah, these are trifles. You should hear some of his more abstruse speculations, concerning generation and birth and the development of the embryo; and his distinction between man, the laughing creature, and the ass, which is neither a laughing nor a carpentering nor a shipping creature. Eighth Dealer Such knowledge is as useful as it is ornamental. Eighty pounds be it, then.

Heraclitus He is yours, Zeus What have we left? Heraclitus There is Scepticism. Come along, Pyrrhias, and be put up. Quick’s the word. The attendance is dwindling; there will be small competition. Well, who buys Lot 9? Ninth Dealer I. Tell me first, though, what do you know? Scepticism Nothing. Ninth Dealer But how’s that? Scepticism There does not appear to me to de anything. Ninth Dealer Are not we something? Scepticism How do I know that? Ninth Dealer And you yourself? Scepticism Of that I am still more doubtful. Ninth Dealer Well, you are in a fix! And what have you got those scales for? Scepticism I use them to weigh arguments in, and get them evenly balanced, They must be absolutely equal—not a feather-weight to choose between them; then, and not till then, can I make uncertain which is right. Ninth Dealer What else can you turn your hand to? Scepticism Anything; except catching a runaway. Ninth Dealer And why not that? Scepticism Because, friend, everything eludes my grasp. Ninth Dealer I believe you. A slow, lumpish fellow you seem to be. And what is the end of your knowledge? Scepticism Ignorance. Deafness. Blindness. Ninth Dealer What! sight and hearing both gone? Scepticism And with them judgement and perception, and all, in short, that distinguishes man from a worm. Ninth Dealer You are worth money!—What shall we say for him? Heraclitus Four pounds. Ninth Dealer Here it is, Well, fellow; so you are mine? Scepticism I doubt it. Ninth Dealer Nay, doubt it not! You are bought and paid for. Scepticism It is a difficult case.... I reserve my decision. Ninth Dealer Now, come along with me, like a good slave. Scepticism But how am I to know whether what you say is true? Ninth Dealer Ask the auctioneer. Ask my money. Ask the spectators. Scepticism Spectators? But can we be sure there are any? Ninth Dealer Oh, V'll send you to the treadmill. That will convince you with a vengeance that I am your master. Scepticism Reserve your decision. Ninth Dealer Too late. It is given. Heraclitus Stop that wrangling and go with your purchaser. Gentlemen, we hope to see you here again to-morrow, when we shall be offering some lots suitable for plain men, artisans, and shopkeepers.