You have stated very justly the share you have in men's opinion of themselves.
FALSEHOOD.
To proceed, then, with my benefits: amongst the valuable entertainments of life, literature and philosophy are most eminent. Let us consider what part of them must be assigned to me. First, I think you will hardly contest my right to poetry; or, if you please, you shall correct the works of Homer, and expunge from them all the incidents that you disallow. Your genius for poetry will be proved by what remains, if, indeed, any thing is left; and it will be seen whether you have increased the glory of Greece by inspiring its poets. But I shall presume myself beyond dispute the author of poetry and other fiction; and amongst the arts of fiction I think oratory may be ranked.
TRUTH.
I confess you are a more successful orator than I am.
FALSEHOOD.
I go on to philosophy, moral and physical, in which many things are instituted as certainties, but I must observe that I can be as positive as you. When there are two contending certainties, I must be entitled to one of them, very frequently to both; and since there is not any opinion to be found in philosophy without an adverse opinion equally resolute, I must at least own half of that which is taught. But perhaps the most equitable division will be that which I proposed in the case of religion: you shall choose any one philosophical sect of which you like to have been the author, and I will resign to you all that has been written and said in defence of it, taking all the remaining controversy for my share. Or, if you hesitate to undertake any entire sect with all the belief that it exacts, I permit you from all the schools to select what opinions you please, and be the author of them, while I keep what you reject. I believe all that you have dictated would be comprised in a very small volume, and leave me a splendid library of philosophical writings.
TRUTH.
I grant you have been more copious than myself in works of this kind. But go on, let me next hear of your exploits in mathematics.
FALSEHOOD.