Laws
clear to you, I advise you to wait and consider if it be true or not;
ask of others, and above all of the legislator. In the meantime take
care that you do not offend against the Gods. For the duty of the
legislator is and always will be to teach you the truth of these
matters.
CLEINIAS: Our address, Stranger, thus far, is excellent.
ATHENIAN: Quite true, Megillus and Cleinias, but I am afraid that we
have unconsciously lighted on a strange doctrine.
CLEINIAS: What doctrine do you mean?
ATHENIAN: The wisest of all doctrines, in the opinion of many.
CLEINIAS: I wish that you would speak plainer.
ATHENIAN: The doctrine that all things do become, have become, and will
become, some by nature, some by art, and some by chance.
CLEINIAS: Is not that true?
ATHENIAN: Well, philosophers are probably right; at any rate we may as
well follow in their track, and examine what is the meaning of them and
their disciples.
CLEINIAS: By all means.
ATHENIAN: They say that the greatest and fairest things are the work of
nature and of chance, the lesser of art, which, receiving from nature
the greater and primeval creations, moulds and fashions all those lesser
works which are generally termed artificial.
CLEINIAS: How is that?
ATHENIAN: I will explain my meaning still more clearly. They say that
fire and water, and earth and air, all exist by nature and chance,
and none of them by art, and that as to the bodies which come next in
order--earth, and sun, and moon, and stars--they have been created
by means of these absolutely inanimate existences. The elements are
severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain
affinities among them--of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of
soft with hard, and according to all the other accidental admixtures of
opposites which have been formed by necessity. After this fashion and
in this manner the whole heaven has been created, and all that is in the
heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from
these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God,
or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only. Art sprang
up afterwards and out of these, mortal and of mortal birth, and produced
in play certain images and very partial imitations of the truth, having
an affinity to one another, such as music and painting create and their
companion arts. And there are other arts which have a serious purpose,
and these co-operate with nature, such, for example, as medicine, and
husbandry, and gymnastic. And they say that politics co-operate
with nature, but in a less degree, and have more of art; also that
legislation is entirely a work of art, and is based on assumptions which
are not true.
CLEINIAS: How do you mean?
ATHENIAN: In the first place, my dear friend, these people would say
that the Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by the laws of
states, which are different in different places, according to the
agreement of those who make them; and that the honourable is one thing
by nature and another thing by law, and that the principles of justice
have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always
disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which
are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority
for the moment and at the time at which they are made. These, my
friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which
find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the
highest right is might, and in this way the young fall into impieties,
under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine;
and hence arise factions, these philosophers inviting them to lead a
true life according to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over
others, and not in legal subjection to them.
CLEINIAS: What a dreadful picture, Stranger, have you given, and how
great is the injury which is thus inflicted on young men to the ruin
both of states and families!
ATHENIAN: True, Cleinias; but then what should the lawgiver do when
this evil is of long standing? should he only rise up in the state and
threaten all mankind, proclaiming that if they will not say and think
that the Gods are such as the law ordains (and this may be extended
generally to the honourable, the just, and to all the highest things,
and to all that relates to virtue and vice), and if they will not make
their actions conform to the copy which the law gives them, then he
who refuses to obey the law shall die, or suffer stripes and bonds,
or privation of citizenship, or in some cases be punished by loss of
property and exile? Should he not rather, when he is making laws for
men, at the same time infuse the spirit of persuasion into his words,
and mitigate the severity of them as far as he can?
CLEINIAS: Why, Stranger, if such persuasion be at all possible, then a
legislator who has anything in him ought never to weary of persuading
men; he ought to leave nothing unsaid in support of the ancient opinion
that there are Gods, and of all those other truths which you were
just now mentioning; he ought to support the law and also art, and
acknowledge that both alike exist by nature, and no less than nature, if
they are the creations of mind in accordance with right reason, as
you appear to me to maintain, and I am disposed to agree with you in
thinking.
ATHENIAN: Yes, my enthusiastic Cleinias; but are not these things when
spoken to a multitude hard to be understood, not to mention that they
take up a dismal length of time?
CLEINIAS: Why, Stranger, shall we, whose patience failed not when
drinking or music were the themes of discourse, weary now of discoursing
about the Gods, and about divine things? And the greatest help to
rational legislation is that the laws when once written down are always
at rest; they can be put to the test at any future time, and therefore,
if on first hearing they seem difficult, there is no reason for
apprehension about them, because any man however dull can go over them
and consider them again and again; nor if they are tedious but useful,
is there any reason or religion, as it seems to me, in any man refusing
to maintain the principles of them to the utmost of his power.
MEGILLUS: Stranger, I like what Cleinias is saying.
ATHENIAN: Yes, Megillus, and we should do as he proposes; for if impious
discourses were not scattered, as I may say, throughout the world, there
would have been no need for any vindication of the existence of the
Gods--but seeing that they are spread far and wide, such arguments are
needed; and who should come to the rescue of the greatest laws, when
they are being undermined by bad men, but the legislator himself?
MEGILLUS: There is no more proper champion of them.
ATHENIAN: Well, then, tell me, Cleinias--for I must ask you to be my
partner--does not he who talks in this way conceive fire and water and
earth and air to be the first elements of all things? these he calls
nature, and out of these he supposes the soul to be formed afterwards;
and this is not a mere conjecture of ours about his meaning, but is what
he really means.
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: Then, by Heaven, we have discovered the source of this vain
opinion of all those physical investigators; and I would have you
examine their arguments with the utmost care, for their impiety is
a very serious matter; they not only make a bad and mistaken use of
argument, but they lead away the minds of others: that is my opinion of
them.
CLEINIAS: You are right; but I should like to know how this happens.
ATHENIAN: I fear that the argument may seem singular.
CLEINIAS: Do not hesitate, Stranger; I see that you are afraid of such
a discussion carrying you beyond the limits of legislation. But if there
be no other way of showing our agreement in the belief that there are
Gods, of whom the law is said now to approve, let us take this way, my
good sir.
ATHENIAN: Then I suppose that I must repeat the singular argument of
those who manufacture the soul according to their own impious notions;
they affirm that which is the first cause of the generation and
destruction of all things, to be not first, but last, and that which is
last to be first, and hence they have fallen into error about the true
nature of the Gods.
CLEINIAS: Still I do not understand you.
ATHENIAN: Nearly all of them, my friends, seem to be ignorant of the
nature and power of the soul, especially in what relates to her origin:
they do not know that she is among the first of things, and before all
bodies, and is the chief author of their changes and transpositions. And
if this is true, and if the soul is older than the body, must not the
things which are of the soul's kindred be of necessity prior to those
which appertain to the body?
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Then thought and attention and mind and art and law will be
prior to that which is hard and soft and heavy and light; and the great
and primitive works and actions will be works of art; they will be
the first, and after them will come nature and works of nature, which
however is a wrong term for men to apply to them; these will follow, and
will be under the government of art and mind.
CLEINIAS: But why is the word 'nature' wrong?
ATHENIAN: Because those who use the term mean to say that nature is
the first creative power; but if the soul turn out to be the primeval
element, and not fire or air, then in the truest sense and beyond other
things the soul may be said to exist by nature; and this would be true
if you proved that the soul is older than the body, but not otherwise.
CLEINIAS: You are quite right.
ATHENIAN: Shall we, then, take this as the next point to which our
attention should be directed?
CLEINIAS: By all means.
ATHENIAN: Let us be on our guard lest this most deceptive argument with
its youthful looks, beguiling us old men, give us the slip and make a
laughing-stock of us. Who knows but we may be aiming at the greater, and
fail of attaining the lesser? Suppose that we three have to pass a rapid
river, and I, being the youngest of the three and experienced in rivers,
take upon me the duty of making the attempt first by myself; leaving you
in safety on the bank, I am to examine whether the river is passable
by older men like yourselves, and if such appears to be the case then
I shall invite you to follow, and my experience will help to convey you
across; but if the river is impassable by you, then there will have been
no danger to anybody but myself--would not that seem to be a very fair
proposal? I mean to say that the argument in prospect is likely to be
too much for you, out of your depth and beyond your strength, and I
should be afraid that the stream of my questions might create in you who
are not in the habit of answering, giddiness and confusion of mind,
and hence a feeling of unpleasantness and unsuitableness might arise.
I think therefore that I had better first ask the questions and then
answer them myself while you listen in safety; in that way I can carry
on the argument until I have completed the proof that the soul is prior
to the body.
CLEINIAS: Excellent, Stranger, and I hope that you will do as you
propose.
ATHENIAN: Come, then, and if ever we are to call upon the Gods, let us
call upon them now in all seriousness to come to the demonstration of
their own existence. And so holding fast to the rope we will venture
upon the depths of the argument. When questions of this sort are asked
of me, my safest answer would appear to be as follows: Some one says to
me, 'O Stranger, are all things at rest and nothing in motion, or is the
exact opposite of this true, or are some things in motion and others at