PHILOSOPHER.--I have a number of them for myself. Do you happen to have heard that a fool can ask more questions in a breath than a philosopher can answer in a life? F.--I happen to have heard that in such a case the one is as great a fool as the other. PH.--Then there is no distinction between folly and philosophy? F.--Don't lay the flattering unction to your soul. The province of folly is to ask unanswerable questions. It is the function of philosophy to answer them. PH.--Admirable fool! F.--Am I? Pray tell me the meaning of "a fool." PH.--Commonly he has none. F.--I mean-- PH.--Then in this case he has one. F.--I lick thy boots! But what does Solomon indicate by the word fool? That is what I mean. PH.--Let us then congratulate Solomon upon the agreement between the views of you two. However, I twig your intent: he means a wicked sinner; and of all forms of folly there is none so great as wicked sinning. For goodness is, in the end, more conducive to personal happiness--which is the sole aim of man. F.--Hath virtue no better excuse than this? PH.--Possibly; philosophy is not omniscience. F.--Instructed I sit at thy feet! PH.--Unwilling to instruct, I stand on my head. * * * * * FOOL.--You say personal happiness is the sole aim of man. PHILOSOPHER.--Then it is. F.--But this is much disputed. PH.--There is much personal happiness in disputation. F.--Socrates-- PH.--Hold! I detest foreigners. F.--Wisdom, they say, is of no country. PH.--Of none that I have seen. * * * * * FOOL.--Let us return to our subject--the sole aim of mankind. Crack me these nuts. (1) The man, never weary of well-doing, who endures a life of privation for the good of his fellow-creatures? PHILOSOPHER.--Does he feel remorse in so doing? or does the rascal rather like it? F.--(2) He, then, who, famishing himself, parts his loaf with a beggar? PH.--There are people who prefer benevolence to bread. F.--Ah! _De gustibus_-- PH.--Shut up! F.--Well, (3) how of him who goes joyfully to martyrdom? PH.--He goes joyfully. F.--And yet-- PH.--Did you ever converse with a good man going to the stake? F.--I never saw a good man going to the stake. PH.--Unhappy pupil! you were born some centuries too early. * * * * * FOOL.--You say you detest foreigners. Why? PHILOSOPHER.--Because I am human. F.--But so are they. PH.--Excellent fool! I thank thee for the better reason. * * * * * PHILOSOPHER.--I have been thinking of the _pocopo_. FOOL.--Is it open to the public? PH.--The pocopo is a small animal of North America, chiefly remarkable for singularity of diet. It subsists solely upon a single article of food. F.--What is that?