Well,  Socrates,  said  Simmias,  then  I  will  tell  you  my  diffi
culty,  and  Cebes  will  tell  you  his.  For  I  dare  say  that  you,
Socrates,  feel  as  I  do,  how  very  hard  or  almost  impossible  is  the
attainment  of  any  certainty  about  questions  such  as  these  in
the  present  life.  And  yet  I  should  deem  him  a  coward  who  did
not  prove  of  what  is  said  about  them  to  the  uttermost,  or  whose
heart  failed  him  before  he  had  examined  them  on  every  side.
For  he  should  persevere  until  he  has  attained  one  of  two  things :
either  he  should  discover  or  learn  the  truth  about  them ;  or,  if
this  is  impossible,  I  would  have  him  take  the  best  and  most
irrefragable  of  human  notions,  and  let  this  be  the  raft  upon
which  he  sails  through  life— not  without  risk,  as  I  admit,  if  he
cannot  find  some  word  of  God  which  will  more  surely  and  safely
carry  him.  And  now,  as  you  bid  me,  I  will  venture  to  question
you,  as  I  should  not  like  to  reproach  myself  hereafter  with  not
having  said  at  the  time  what  I  think.  For  when  I  consider  the


PH/EDO  109

matter  either  alone  or  with  Cebes,  the  argument  does  certainly
appear  to  me,  Socrates,  to  be  not  sufficient.
Socrates  answered :  I  dare  say,  my  friend,  that  you  may  be
right,  but  I  should  like  to  know  in  what  respect  the  argument
is  not  sufficient.
