Epinomis

Ath. Then we must first go through the others, all those that are called kinds of knowledge but do not make wise the one who takes them up and has them, so that, having put these out of the way, we may try to set out those we need and, having set them out, to learn them.

First, then, among the things the mortal race needs first, let us see 974e how they are very nearly the most necessary, and in truth the first, and yet the one who comes to have knowledge of them, even if at the beginning someone once seemed to be wise, is certainly not now reputed wise, 975a and rather has disgrace from such knowledge. We shall say, then, both what they are and that every man flees them, nearly all of those before whom a contest is set, of seeming one who would turn out to have become the best man possible, because of the acquisition of intelligence and of practice. Let the first, then, be the one that, as the story has it, drew us away altogether from the eating of one another among living beings, from some of them, and, as to others, set us on lawful eating.¹ May those before us be gracious to us, as indeed they are — 975b for whoever they were † that we were speaking of, let the first ones fare well² — the making, at any rate, of barley-meal and wheat-flour, and with it nourishment, is fine and good, but it will never be willing to produce a man completely wise; for this very thing, the name of “making”, would produce distaste for the very things made.³ And hardly, either, the farming of all land: for it is not by craft but by nature, under the god, that we all appear to have taken the earth in hand. Nor indeed the weaving together of dwellings, and all building, and 975c the art that produces all equipment, smithing, and the furnishing of the instruments of carpentry and modeling and plaiting, and further of all instruments: it has what suits the people, but it is not spoken of for virtue. And indeed not even the whole art of hunting, great though