THE LAW 5 



shall thus, in travelling through the cities, be esteemed phy- 

 sicians not only in name but in reality. But inexperience is 

 a bad treasure, and a bad fund to those who possess it, 

 whether in opinion or reality, being devoid of self-reliance 

 and contentedness, and the nurse both of timidity and au- 

 dacity. For timidity betrays a want of powers, and audacity 

 a lack of skill. They are, indeed, two things, knowledge and 

 opinion, of which the one makes its possessor really to know, 

 the other to be ignorant. 



5. Those things which are sacred, are to be imparted only 

 to sacred persons; and it is not lawful to impart them to 

 the profane until they have been initiated in the mysterier 

 of the science. 



