, or however and whatever you
call yourselves, I wonder at you, for you seem to have no objection to
talking nonsense.

Fearing that there would be high words, I again endeavoured to soothe
Ctesippus, and said to him: To you, Ctesippus, I must repeat what I
said before to Cleinias--that you do not understand the ways of these
philosophers from abroad. They are not serious, but, like the Egyptian
wizard, Proteus, they take different forms and deceive us by their
enchantments: and let us, like Menelaus, refuse to let them go until
they show themselves to us in earnest. When they begin to be in earnest
their full beauty will appear: let us then beg and entreat and beseech
them to shine forth. And I think that I had better once more exhibit the
form in which I pray to behold them; it might be a guide to them. I will
go on therefore where I left off, as well as I can, in the hope that I
may touch their hearts and move them to pity, and that when they see me
deeply serious and interested, they also may be serious. You, Cleinias,
I said, shall remind me at what point we left off. Did we not agree that
philosophy should be studied? and was not that our conclusion?

Yes, he replied.

And philosophy is the acquisition of knowledge?

Yes, he said.

And what knowledge ought we to acquire? May we not answer with absolute
truth--A knowledge which will do us good?

Certainly, he said.

And should we be any the better if we went about having a knowledge of
the places where most gold was hidden in the earth?

Perhaps we should, he said.

But have we not already proved, I said, that we should be none the
better off, even if without trouble and digging all the gold which there
is in the earth were ours? And if we knew how to convert stones into
gold, the knowledge would be of no value to us, unless we also knew how
to use the gold? Do you not remember? I said.

I quite remember, he said.

Nor would any other knowledge, whether of money-making, or of medicine,
or of any other art which knows only how to make a thing, and not to use
it when made, be of any good to us. Am I not right?

He agreed.

And if there were a knowledge which was able to make men immortal,
without giving them the knowledge of the way to use the immortality,
neither would there be any use in that, if we may argue from the analogy
of the previous instances?

To all this he agreed.

Then, my dear boy, I said, the knowledge which we want is one that us