H. It is a monstrosity, like every other phantasy which cannot exist in the world as we know it. Your virtue reminds me of a centaur. So long as it prances about in your imagination, how splendid it is, how strong! and when the sculptor represents it for you, what a superhuman form! But anatomise it, and you find four lungs, two hearts, and two stomachs. It dies at the moment of birth like any other monstrosity, or, to be more correct, it never existed anywhere but in your brain.[1] W. But virtue must be something, must be somewhere. By the eternal beard of my father, who doubted it? Meseems it dwelt with us, in demigods and heroes. Do you suppose we lived like brute beasts? We had splendid fellows among us. W. What do you call splendid fellows? H. Those who share what they have with others. And the richest was the best If he had more muscular strength than he needed, he gave another man a good thrashing; and of course no good man and true will have anything to do with a weaker man than himself, only with his equals, or his superiors. If he had a superfluity of sap and vigour, he provided the women with as many children as they might wish for--I myself begot fifty men-children in a single night. And if Heaven had given him goods and gold enough for a thousand, he opened his doors and bade a thousand welcome to enjoy it with him. W. Most of this would be considered vice in our day. H. Vice? that is another of your fine words I The very reason why everything is so poor and small with you is, that you represent virtue and vice as two extremes between which you oscillate, instead of thinking the middle course the ordained and best, as do your peasants and your men-servants and maid-servants. W. Let me tell you that in my century you would be stoned for such opinions. See how they have denounced me for my little attack on virtue and religion. H. And what had you to do attacking them? I have fought with horses, cannibals, and dragons, to the best of my ability, but never with clouds, what shape soever it pleased them to take. A sensible man leaves it to the winds that have blown them together to sweep them away again. W. You are a monster, a blasphemer. H. And you can't understand. Your Hercules stands like a beardless simpleton, hesitating between virtue and vice. If the two jades had met _me_ on the way--see! one under this arm, one under that, off I'd have gone with them both.