49
Then there is every necessity for us to live all that time, if we are going first to make a good choice when we have made trial of them all, then to practise philosophy after we have made our choice, and finally to be happy after we have practised our philosophy. Until we do this we shall be dancing in the dark, as they say, and whatever we happen to stumble on, and whatever comes first into our hands, we shall assume to be what we are after because of our ignorance of the truth. In any case even if by some good fortune we happen to fall over the truth, we shall not be able to know for sure if it is what we are after. There are many things much alike, each claiming to be the real truth.
50
I feel, Lycinus, that what you say is reasonable, but—and I shall be honest—you annoy me a great deal by this detailed examination and your unnecessary precision. It may be that it has done me no good in leaving home today and then meeting you. I was already near the fulfilment of my hopes, but you have thrown me into difficulties with your demonstration that the search for truth is impossible since it needs all those years.
50
Surely it would be much fairer, my friend, to blame your father, Menecrates, and your mother, whatever her name was (I do not know) or before them our human natures for having made you (unlike Tithonus) of few years and short life, and for decreeing a hundred years as the longest life for man All I did was with your help to consider and discover the conclusions of the argument.
51
That is not so. You always lord it over us. I don’t know what makes you hate philosophy and mock philosophers.
