“It really has been shown to us that, if we are ever to have pure knowledge, we must escape from the body and observe things in themselves [e] with the soul by itself. It seems likely that we shall, only then, when we are dead, attain that which we desire and of which we claim to be lovers, namely, wisdom, as our argument shows, not while we {104} live; for if it is impossible to attain any pure knowledge with the body, then one of two things is true: either we can never attain knowledge [67] or we can do so after death.

