ÉPINOMIS.

but man who does not live in conformity with the rules of justice.

In our research on the laws, we have judged that in all else it was easy to know and to procure for men their greatest good, and that there is no one who cannot understand and put into practice what we have said, provided he knows how to distinguish the useful from the harmful: we have judged, I say, and we still judge, that everything concerning other duties does not have much difficulty; but to learn how one becomes a good man is a difficult thing. Indeed, what we have prescribed for the acquisition of other goods is possible and even easy. It is well known what the limits of the necessary and the superfluous are in wealth, and how the body must or must not be affected. As for the soul, everyone agrees that it must be good: it is also agreed that to be good it must be just, temperate, and strong; everyone also says it must be wise. But what wisdom? This is where, as we saw just a moment ago, opinions are so divided that one hardly finds two people who are of the same mind. Now, besides the other kinds of wisdom of which we have spoken, we have just discovered one which is no less capable than all the others of giving the appearance of a wise man to the one who possesses the science we have exposed. But would he be truly wise and virtuous? That is what we must examine.

CLINIAS. Stranger, you were quite right to say that you were going to entertain us with great things in a manner proportionate to the subject.

THE ATHENIAN. Yes, my dear Clinias, these are great