"I however speak only from hearsay; what then I have heard I have no scruple in telling. And perhaps it is most becoming for one who is about to travel there, to inquire and speculate about the journey thither, what kind we think it is. What else can one do in the interval before sunset?" "Why, then, Socrates, do they say that it is not allowable to kill one's self? for I, as you asked just now, have heard both Philolaus, when he lived with us, and several others say that it was not right to do this; but I never heard anything clear upon the subject from anyone." "Then you should consider it attentively," said Socrates, "for perhaps you may hear: probably, however, it will appear wonderful to you, if this alone of all other things is an universal truth,[41] and it never happens to a man, as is the case in all other things, that at some times and to some persons only it is better to die than to live; yet that these men for whom it is better to die--this probably will appear wonderful to you--may not, without impiety, do this good to themselves, but must await another benefactor." [Footnote 41: Namely, "that it is better to die than live."] Then Cebes, gently smiling, said, speaking in his own dialect, "Jove be witness." "And indeed," said Socrates, "it would appear to be unreasonable, yet still perhaps it has some reason on its side. The maxim indeed given on this subject in the mystical doctrines,[42] that we men are in a kind of prison, and that we ought not to free ourselves from it and escape, appears to me difficult to be understood, and not easy to penetrate. This however appears to me, Cebes, to be well said, that the gods take care of us, and that we men are one of their possessions. Does it not seem so to you?" [Footnote 42: Of Pythagoras.] "It does," replied Cebes. "Therefore," said he, "if one of your slaves were to kill himself, without your having intimated that you wished him to die, should you not be angry with him, and should you not punish him if you could?" "Certainly," he replied. "Perhaps then, in this point of view, it is not unreasonable to assert, that a man ought not to kill himself before the deity lays him under a necessity of doing so, such as that now laid on me."