ict? How think you the man has spoken?

_Truth._ Ah, Philosophy, while he was speaking I was ready to sink
through the ground; it was all so true. As I listened, I could
identify every offender, and I was fitting caps all the time--this is
so-and-so, that is the other man, all over. I tell you they were all
as plain as in a picture--speaking likenesses not of their bodies
only, but of their very souls.

_Temperance._ Yes, Truth, I could not help blushing at it.

_Philosophy._ What say you, gentlemen?

_Res._ Why, of course, that he is acquitted of the charge, and stands
recorded as our friend and benefactor. Our case is just that of the
Trojans, who entertained the tragic actor only to find him reciting
their own calamities. Well, recite away, our tragedian, with these
pests of ours for dramatis personae.

_Diogenes._ I too, Philosophy, give him my meed of praise; I withdraw
my charges, and count him a worthy friend.

_Philosophy._ I congratulate you, Parrhesiades; you are unanimously
acquitted, and are henceforth one of us.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 121: From the "Fisher: A Resurrection Piece." Translated by
H. W. and F. G. Fowler.]

[Footnote 122: Famous as a mathematician as well as philosopher; born
in Samos about 582 B.C. He founded a famous school of philosophy at
Crotona in Southern Italy.]

[Footnote 123: After Zeno the most eminent of the Stoic philosophers;
born in 280 B.C.]

[Footnote 124: The guardian of the city of Athens. A famous statue of
Athenia Polias of the fifth century B.C. is preserved in the Villa
Albani at Rome.]

III

OF LIARS AND LYING[125]

_Tychiades._ Philocles, what is it that makes most men so fond of a
lie? Can you explain it? Their delight in romancing themselves is only
equaled by the earnest attention with which they receive other
people's efforts in the same direction.

_Philocles._ Why, in some cases there is no lack of motives for
lying--motives of self-interest.

_Tychiades._ Ah, but that is neither here nor there. I am not speaking
of men who lie with an object. There is some excuse for that: indeed,
it is sometimes to their credit, when they deceive their country's
enemies, for instance, or when mendacity is but the medicine to heal
their sickness. Odysseus, seeking to preserve his life and bring his
companions safe home, was a liar of that kind. The men I mean are
innocent of any ulterior motive: they prefer a lie to truth, simply on
its own merits; t