Epinomis

Cl. True to our agreement, good sir, we have come all three—you and I and Megillus here—to consider in what terms we ought to describe that part of understanding which we say produces, when it so intends, the most excellent disposition of the human being for wisdom which is possible for man. For we claim that we have described all the other matters connected with law-giving; but the most important thing for us to discover and state—what it is that mortal man should learn in order to be wise—this we have neither stated nor discovered. Let us, however, now try to make good this defect: else we shall practically leave incomplete the quest on which we all set out, with the purpose of making our subject clear from beginning to end.

Ath. My dear Cleinias, you are quite right, yet I think you are about to hear a strange statement; and, in a sense, one that is not so strange either. For many on becoming acquainted with life have the same account to give—that the human race will not be blessed or happy. So follow me now and apprehend if you conceive me, as well as them, to be giving a proper account of this matter. I say it is impossible for men to be blessed and happy, except a few; that is, so long as we are living: I limit it to that. But one may rightly hope to attain after death all the things for whose sake one may strive both in life to live as nobly as one can and in death to find a noble end. What I say is no subtle doctrine, but a thing that all of us, Greeks and foreigners alike, in some way perceive—that from the beginning existence is difficult for every live creature: first, partaking of the state of things conceived, then again, being born, and further, being reared and educated—all these processes involve a vast amount of toil, we all agree. And our time must be a short one, I do not say in the reckoning of the wretched, but on any supposition of what is tolerable. It does seem to give just a breathing-space about the middle of human life: yet swiftly old age is upon us, and must make any of us loth ever to live our life again, when one reckons over the life one has lived—unless one happens to be a bundle of childish notions. And what, pray, is my evidence for this? It is that such is the nature of the matter now under inquiry in our discussion. We are inquiring, you know, in what way we shall become wise, presuming that each of us has this power in some sort or other: but it evades and escapes us as soon as we attempt any knowledge of reputed arts or knowledges or any of the ordinary sciences, as we suppose them to be; for none of them is worthy to be called by the title of the wisdom that pertains to these human affairs. Yet the soul firmly believes and divines that in some fashion she has it, but what it is that she has, or when, or how, she is quite unable to discover. Is not this a fair picture of our puzzle about wisdom and the inquiry that we have to make—a greater one than any of us could expect who are found able to examine ourselves and others intelligently and consistently by every kind and manner of argument? Is the case not so, or shall we agree that so it is?