Epinomis

Clin. 973a In keeping with our agreement, stranger, we have all come here rightly, the three of us, I and you and Megillus here,¹ to look into the matter of intelligence: by what account we ought to go through that which, we say, once it has been thought out, makes the human state be in the finest condition with regard to intelligence, as much of it as it is possible for a human being to have.² 973b For all the rest, we say, we have gone through, everything that concerned the setting down of laws; but what is greatest to find and to say, by learning what a mortal human being would be wise, this we have neither said nor found; and now let us try not to leave it behind. For we would very nearly leave unfinished what we all set out for, intending to make things manifest from beginning to end.³

Ath. My dear Clinias, you speak well; but I think you will hear a strange account, and yet in a way, again, not a strange one. 973c For indeed many, once they have met with life, put forward the same account: that the human race will not be blessed or happy. Follow me, then, and see whether I too, along with them, seem to you to speak well about such a thing. I say that it is not possible for human beings to become blessed and happy, except for a few — so long as we live, I set this limit; but there is a fine hope that one who has died will obtain all the things for the sake of which a man would be eager, while living, to live as finely as he can, and, having died, 973d to meet with an end of that kind — and I am saying nothing wise, but what all of us, Greeks and barbarians, know in a way: that from