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Chapter VII.—Unaided Quest of Truth Profitless.

“All therefore who ever sought the truth, trusting to themselves to be able to find it, fell into a snare.  This is what both the philosophers of the Greeks, and the more intelligent of the barbarians, have suffered.  For, applying themselves to things visible, they have given decisions by conjecture on things not apparent, thinking that that was truth which at any time presented itself to them as such.  For, like persons who know the truth, they, still seeking the truth, reject some of the suppositions that are presented to them, and lay hold of others, as if they knew, while they do not know, what things are true and what are false.  And they dogmatize concerning truth, even those who are seeking after truth, not knowing that he who seeks truth cannot learn it from his own wandering.  For not even, as I said, can he recognise her when she stands by him, since he is unacquainted with her.