While I was in this state of mind, when I once resolved to fill myself with deep stillness and to shun the trodden paths of men, I went off to a certain spot not far from the sea. As I drew near to that place, where I intended on arriving to be by myself, an aged old man, of no contemptible appearance, displaying a gentle and dignified character, followed close behind me. When I turned toward him, I halted and fixed my gaze on him rather keenly.
And he said, 'Do you know me?' I denied it. 'Why then,' he said to me, 'do you study me so?' 'I am amazed,' I said, 'that you happen to be in the same place as I; for I did not expect to see any man here.' And he said, 'I am anxious about certain of my household. These have gone abroad, so I have come myself to look out for news of them, in case they should appear from somewhere. But what are you doing here?' he asked me. 'I delight,' I said, 'in such occupations; for here my converse with myself proceeds unhindered, and such places are most conducive to the love of learning.'
'So you are a lover of words,' he said, 'but by no means a lover of work or of truth; nor do you try to be a man of action rather than a sophist?' 'But what greater work,' I said, 'could anyone accomplish than to show that reason rules over all things, and, having laid hold of it and being borne upon it, to look down upon the error of others and their pursuits, seeing that they do nothing sound or pleasing to God? And without philosophy and right reason, prudence could not be present in anyone. Therefore every man ought to philosophize and to regard this as the greatest and most honorable work, and the rest as second and third; for the things that depend on philosophy are moderate and worthy of acceptance, but, deprived of it and not accompanied by it, they are burdensome and vulgar to those who busy themselves with them.'
'Does philosophy then produce happiness?' he replied, interrupting. 'It does indeed,' I said, 'and it alone.' 'Then what is philosophy,' he asked, 'and what is the happiness it brings? If there is nothing to hinder your telling me, tell me.' 'Philosophy,' I said, 'is the knowledge of that which truly is, and the recognition of the truth; and happiness is the reward of this knowledge and wisdom.'
'But what do you call God?' he said. 'That which is ever the same in the same way, and the cause of being to all other things—this indeed is God.' So I answered him; and he was pleased to hear me, and asked me again thus: 'Is not knowledge a name common to different things? For in all the arts the one who understands any of them is called knowledgeable—in generalship, in piloting, in medicine, alike. But in things divine and human, is it not the same? Is there a kind of knowledge which provides an understanding of human and divine things themselves, and then a recognition of the divinity and righteousness in them?' 'Certainly,' I said.
'What then? Is it the same thing to know man and to know God, as one knows music and arithmetic and astronomy or some such thing?' 'By no means,' I said. 'Then you have not answered me rightly,' he said; 'for some kinds of knowledge come to us from learning or some discipline, while others impart knowledge from actually seeing. If someone were to tell you that there is in India an animal of a nature unlike all others, but such-and-such, of many forms and varied appearance, you would not know it before you saw it, nor indeed could you give any account of it unless you heard it from one who had seen it.'
'No indeed,' I said. 'How then,' he said, 'could the philosophers think rightly about God, or say anything true, when they have no knowledge of Him, and have never seen or heard Him?' 'But the divine,' I said, 'is not visible to their eyes, father, as are the other living creatures, but is apprehensible by the mind alone, as Plato says; and I am persuaded by him.'