"Its purpose is truth, friend Elpidias, and I will be brief. Once, you know, in ancient times, Miletus was exposed to the attacks of the barbarians. Among the youth who were seized was a son of the wisest and best of all the citizens in the land. His precious child was overtaken by a severe illness and became unconscious. He was abandoned and allowed to lie like worthless booty. In the dead of night he came to his senses. High above him glimmered the stars. Round about stretched the desert; and in the distance he heard the howl of beasts of prey. He was alone. "He was entirely alone, and, besides that, the gods had taken from him the recollection of his former life. In vain he racked his brain--it was as dark and empty as the inhospitable desert in which he found himself. But somewhere, far away, behind the misty and obscure figures conjured up by his reason, loomed the thought of his lost home, and a vague realisation of the figure of the best of all men; and in his heart resounded the word 'father.' Doesn't it seem to you that the fate of this youth resembles the fate of all humanity?" "How so?" "Do we not all awake to life on earth with a hazy recollection of another home? And does not the figure of the great unknown hover before our souls?" "Continue, Socrates, I am listening." "The youth revived, arose, and walked cautiously, seeking to avoid all dangers. When after long wanderings his strength was nearly gone, he discerned a fire in the misty distance which illumined the darkness and banished the cold. A faint hope crept into his weary soul, and the recollections of his father's house again awoke within him. The youth walked toward the light, and cried: 'It is you, my father, it is you!' "And was it his father's house?" "No, it was merely a night lodging of wild nomads. So for many years he led the miserable life of a captive slave, and only in his dreams saw the distant home and rested on his father's bosom. Sometimes with weak hand he endeavoured to lure from dead clay or wood or stone the face and form that ever hovered before him. There even came moments when he grew weary and embraced his own handiwork and prayed to it and wet it with his tears. But the stone remained cold stone. And as he waxed in years the youth destroyed his creations, which already seemed to him a vile defamation of his ever-present dreams. At last fate brought him to a good barbarian, who asked him for the cause of his constant mourning. When the youth, confided to him the hopes and longings of his soul, the barbarian, a wise man, said: "'The world would be better did such a man and such a country exist as that of which you speak. But by what mark would you recognise your father?' "'In my country,' answered the youth, 'they reverenced wisdom and virtue and looked up to my father as to the master.'