One would very much astonish Solon the son of Execestidas, Zeno the stoic, Antipater, Eudoxus, Lysis of Tarentum, Cebes, Menedemus, Plato, Epicurus, Aristotle, and Epimenides, if one were to tell Solon that it is not the moon which regulates the year; to Zeno, that it is not proved that the soul is divided into eight parts; to Antipater, that the heaven is not formed of five circles; to Eudoxus, that it is not certain that between the Egyptians embalming the dead, the Romans burning them, and the Pæonians throwing them into ponds, the Pæonians are those who are right; to Lysis of Tarentum, that it is not exact that the sight is a hot vapour; to Cebes, that it is false that the principle of elements is the oblong triangle and the isosceles triangle; to Menedemus, that it is not true that in order to know the secret bad intentions of men it suffices to stick on one's head an Arcadian hat with the twelve signs of the zodiac; to Plato, that sea-water does not cure all diseases; to Epicurus, that matter is divisible _ad infinitum_; to Aristotle, that the fifth element has not an orbicular movement, for the reason that there is no fifth element; to Epimenides, that the plague cannot be infallibly got rid of by letting black and white sheep go at random, and sacrificing to unknown gods hidden in the places where the sheep happen to stop. If you should try to hint to Pythagoras how improbable it is that he should have been wounded at the siege of Troy,--he Pythagoras, by Menelaus, two hundred and seven years before his birth,--he would reply that the fact is incontestable, and that it is proved by the fact that he perfectly recognizes, as having already seen it, the shield of Menelaus suspended under the statue of Apollo at Branchides, although entirely rotten, except the ivory face; that at the siege of Troy his own name was Euphorbus, and that before being Euphorbus he was Æthalides, son of Mercury, and that after having been Euphorbus, he was Hermotimus, then Pyrrhus, fisherman at Delos, then Pythagoras; that it is all evident and clear,--as clear as it is clear that he was present the same day and the same minute at Metapontum and Crotona, as evident as it is evident that by writing with blood on a mirror exposed to the moon, one may see in the moon what he wrote on the mirror; and lastly, that he is Pythagoras, living at Metapontum, in the Street of the Muses, the author of the multiplication-table, and of the square of the hypothenuse, the greatest of all mathematicians, the father of exact science, and that you, you are an imbecile.