_Ly_. Not their rivals, I suppose? _Her_. Oh, no. _Ly_. Laymen, then? _Her_. Just so. _Ly_. There you are again, cheating me with your irony; you take me for a blockhead, who will believe that an intelligent person like Hermotimus, at the age of forty, would accept the word of laymen about philosophy and philosophers, and make his own selection on the strength of what they said. _Her_. But you see, Lycinus, I did not depend on their judgement entirely, but on my own too. I saw the Stoics going about with dignity, decently dressed and groomed, ever with a thoughtful air and a manly countenance, as far from effeminacy as from the utter repulsive negligence of the Cynics, bearing themselves, in fact, like moderate men; and every one admits that moderation is right. _Ly_. Did you ever see them behaving like your master, as I described him to you just now? Lending money and clamouring for payment, losing their tempers in philosophic debates, and making other exhibitions of themselves? Or perhaps these are trifles, so long as the dress is decent, the beard long, and the hair close-cropped? We are provided for the future, then, with an infallible rule and balance, guaranteed by Hermotimus? It is by appearance and walk and haircutting that the best men are to be distinguished; and whosoever has not these marks, and is not solemn and thoughtful, shall be condemned and rejected? Nay, do not play with me like this; you want to see whether I shall catch you at it. _Her_. Why do you say that? _Ly_. Because, my dear sir, this appearance test is one for statues; _their_ decent orderly attire has it easily over the Stoics, because Phidias or Alcamenes or Myron designed them to be graceful. However, granting as much as you like that these are the right tests, what is a blind man to do, if he wants to take up philosophy? how is he to find the man whose principles are right, when he cannot see his appearance or gait? _Her_. I am not teaching the blind, Lycinus; I have nothing to do with them. _Ly_. Ah, but, my good sir, there ought to have been some universal criterion, in a matter of such great and general use. Still, if you will have it so, let the blind be excluded from philosophy, as they cannot see--though, by the way, they are just the people who most need philosophy to console them for their misfortune; but now, the people who _can_ see--give them the utmost possible acuity of vision, and what can they detect of the spiritual qualities from this external shell? What I mean is this: was it not from admiration of their _spirit_ that you joined them, expecting to have your own spirit purified? _Her_. Assuredly.