of believing what is told you when you awake. So far, then, you can
afford to be indifferent whether it is three months or ten thousand
years that pass before you recover your individuality.

_Thrasymachos_. Yes, if it comes to that, I suppose you're right.

_Philalethes_. And if by chance, after those ten thousand years have
gone by, no one ever thinks of awakening you, I fancy it would be
no great misfortune. You would have become quite accustomed to
non-existence after so long a spell of it--following upon such a very
few years of life. At any rate you may be sure you would be perfectly
ignorant of the whole thing. Further, if you knew that the mysterious
power which keeps you in your present state of life had never once
ceased in those ten thousand years to bring forth other phenomena like
yourself, and to endow them with life, it would fully console you.

_Thrasymachos_. Indeed! So you think you're quietly going to do me
out of my individuality with all this fine talk. But I'm up to your
tricks. I tell you I won't exist unless I can have my individuality.
I'm not going to be put off with 'mysterious powers,' and what you
call 'phenomena.' I can't do without my individuality, and I won't
give it up.

_Philalethes_. You mean, I suppose, that your individuality is such a
delightful thing, so splendid, so perfect, and beyond compare--that
you can't imagine anything better. Aren't you ready to exchange your
present state for one which, if we can judge by what is told us, may
possibly be superior and more endurable?

_Thrasymachos_. Don't you see that my individuality, be it what it