'There is nothing which we should like to hear better.' Listen, then; having plenty of time, we will go back to the beginning of things, which is an old subject with us.
'Right.' Either the race of mankind never had a beginning and will never have an end, or the time which has elapsed since man first came into being is all but infinite.

'No doubt.' And in this infinity of time there have been changes of every kind, both in the order of the seasons and in the government of states and in the customs of eating and drinking.

Vines and olives were at length discovered, and the blessings of Demeter and Persephone, of which one Triptolemus is said to have been the minister; before his time the animals had been eating one another.
And there are nations in which mankind still sacrifice their fellow-men, and other nations in which they lead a kind of Orphic existence, and will not sacrifice animals, or so much as taste of a cow--they offer fruits or cakes moistened with honey.

Perhaps you will ask me what is the bearing of these remarks?
'We would gladly hear.' I will endeavour to explain their drift.

I see that the virtue of human life depends on the due regulation of three wants or desires.