_Philalethes_. Well, perhaps I may be able to satisfy you on this
point. Suppose I guarantee that after death you shall remain an
individual, but only on condition that you first spend three months of
complete unconsciousness.
_Thrasymachos_. I shall have no objection to that.
_Philalethes_. But remember, if people are completely unconscious,
they take no account of time. So, when you are dead, it's all the same
to you whether three months pass in the world of consciousness, or ten
thousand years. In the one case as in the other, it is simply a matter
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.
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