48
Then Epicurus in his turn, and the rest. You can realise that I do not put these figures too high, when you consider the number of Stoics, Epicureans, and Platonists, who are octogenarians but who admit, each and every one, that they do not know all the teachings of their own sect, so as to have a thorough knowledge of its doctrines. If they did not admit it, then Chrysippus and Aristotle and Plato would, and even more would Socrates, a man not one whit their inferior: he used to shout out to the whole world not only that he did not know everything, but that he knew absolutely nothing, or only this one thing—that he did not know. Let us count them up from the beginning: we gave twenty to Pythagoras, the same to Plato, and to all the others the same. What would the total be if we assume only ten philosophical sects?
48
More than two hundred years, Lycinus.
48
Shall we take off a quarter, and make a hundred and fifty years enough, or a whole half?
49
You would know better than I see this: few would get through them all even on this reckoning, if they began right from the day they were born.
49
If that is the case, Hermotimus, what can we do? Must we go back on what we have already agreed—that no one can choose the best out of so many without trying them all? We agreed that to choose without putting to the test was to seek the truth more by divination than by judgment. Is that not what we said?
49
Yes.
