Book X - Page 2

be
unrighteous, or to be propitiated, or turned from their course by gifts.
For when we hear such things said of them by those who are esteemed to be
the best of poets, and orators, and prophets, and priests, and by
innumerable others, the thoughts of most of us are not set upon abstaining
from unrighteous acts, but upon doing them and atoning for them. When
lawgivers profess that they are gentle and not stern, we think that they
should first of all use persuasion to us, and show us the existence of
Gods, if not in a better manner than other men, at any rate in a truer;
and who knows but that we shall hearken to you? If then our request is a
fair one, please to accept our challenge.

CLEINIAS: But is there any difficulty in proving the existence of the
Gods?

ATHENIAN: How would you prove it?

CLEINIAS: How? In the first place, the earth and the sun, and the stars
and the universe, and the fair order of the seasons, and the division of
them into years and months, furnish proofs of their existence, and also
there is the fact that all Hellenes and barbarians believe in them.

ATHENIAN: I fear, my sweet friend, though I will not say that I much
regard, the contempt with which the profane will be likely to assail us.
For you do not understand the nature of their complaint, and you fancy
that they rush into impiety only from a love of sensual pleasure.

CLEINIAS: Why, Stranger, what other reason is there?

ATHENIAN: One which you who live in a different atmosphere would never
guess.

CLEINIAS: What is it?

ATHENIAN: A very grievous sort of ignorance which is imagined to be the
greatest wisdom.

CLEINIAS: What do you mean?

ATHENIAN: At Athens there are tales preserved in writing which the virtue
of your state, as I am informed, refuses to admit. They speak of the Gods
in prose as well as verse, and the oldest of them tell of the origin of
the heavens and of the world, and not far from the beginning of their
story they proceed to narrate the birth of the Gods, and how after they
were born they behaved to one another. Whether these stories have in other
ways a good or a bad influence, I should not like to be severe upon them,
because they are ancient; but, looking at them with reference to the
duties of children to their parents, I cannot praise them, or think that
they are useful, or at all true. Of the words of the ancients I have
nothing more to say; and I should wish to say of them only what is
pleasing to the Gods. But as to our younger generation and their wisdom, I
cannot let them off when they do mischief. For do but mark the effect of
their words: when you and I argue for the existence of the Gods, and
produce the sun, moon, stars, and earth, claiming