Book 3
2
The third topic belongs to those scholars who are now somewhat advanced; and is a security to the other two, that no bewildering semblance may surprise us, either in sleep, or wine, or in depression. This, say you, is beyond us. Yet our present philosophers, leaving the first and second topics, employ themselves wholly about the third; dealing in the logical subtilties. For they say that we must, by engaging in these subjects, take care to guard against deception. Who must? A wise and good man. Is this really, then, the thing you need? Have you mastered the other points? Are you not liable to be deceived by money? When you see a fine girl, do you oppose the seductive influence? If your neighbor inherits an estate, do you feel no vexation? Is it not steadfastness which you chiefly need? You learn even these very things, slave, with trembling, and a solicitous dread of contempt; and are inquisitive to know what is said of you. And if any one comes and tells you that, in a dispute as to which was the best of the philosophers, one of the company named a certain person as the only philosopher, that little soul of yours grows to the size of two cubits instead of an inch. But if another comes and says, You are mistaken, he is not worth hearing; for what does he know? He has the first rudiments, but nothing more, you are thunderstruck; you presently turn pale, and cry out, will show what I am; that I am a great philosopher. You exhibit by these very things what you are aiming to show in other ways. Do not you know that Diogenes exhibited some sophist in this manner, by pointing with his middle finger; Extending the middle finger, with the ancients, was a mark of the greatest contempt.—C. and when the man was mad with rage, This, said Diogenes, is the very man; I have exhibited him to you. For a man is not shown by the finger in the same sense as a stone or a piece of wood, but whoever points out his principles shows him as a man.
