Now, is there only one road to philosophy--the Stoic way? they tell me
there are a great many other philosophers; is that so?

_Her_. Certainly--Peripatetics, Epicureans, Platonists, followers of
Diogenes, Antisthenes, Pythagoras, and more yet.

_Ly_. Quite so; numbers of them. Now, are their doctrines the same,
or different?

_Her_. Entirely different.

_Ly_. But the truth, I presume, is bound to be in one of them, and not in
all, as they differ?

_Her_. Certainly.

_Ly_. Then, as you love me, answer this: when you first went in pursuit of
philosophy, you found many gates wide open; what induced you to pass the
others by, and go in at the Stoic gate? Why did you assume that that was
the only true one, which would set you on the straight road to Virtue,
while the rest all opened on blind alleys? What was the test you applied
_then_? Please abolish your present self, the self which is now
instructed, or half-instructed, and better able to distinguish between
good and bad than we outsiders, and answer in your then character of a
layman, with no advantage over me as I am now.

_Her_. I cannot tell what you are driving at.

_Ly_. Oh, there is nothing recondite about it. There are a great many