_Ly_. To be sure.

_Her_. And from that little taste you could have answered for the quality
of the whole?

_Ly_. Yes.

_Her_. Now suppose you had gone to all the wine-merchants and said: I want
to buy a pint of wine; I must ask you, gentlemen, to let me drink the
whole of the cask which each of you has on tap; after that exhaustive
sampling, I shall know which of you keeps the best wine, and is the man
for my money. If you had talked like that, they might have laughed at
you, and, if you persisted in worrying them, have tried how you liked
water.

_Ly_. Yes; it would be no more than my deserts.

_Her_. Apply this to philosophy. What need to drink the whole cask,
when you can judge the quality of the whole from one little taste?

_Ly_. What an adept at evasion you are, Hermotimus! How you slip
through one's fingers! However, it is all the better this time; you
fancied yourself out, but you have flopped into the net again.

_Her_. What do you mean?

_Ly_. You take a thing whose nature is self-evident and universally
admitted, like wine, and argue from it to perfectly unlike things, whose
nature is obscure and generally debated. In fact I cannot tell what
analogy you find between philosophy and wine; there is just one, indeed: