Dialogues

do as you say, and we will help you as well as we can. Athenian There will probably be no difficulty in proving to him that the Gods care about the small as well as about the great. For he was present and heard what was said, that they are perfectly good, and that the care of all things is most entirely natural to them.542 Cleinias No doubt he heard that. Athenian Let us consider together in the next place what we mean by this virtue which we ascribe to them. Surely we should say that to be temperate and to possess mind belongs to virtue, and the contrary to vice? Cleinias Certainly. Athenian Yes; and courage is a part of virtue, and cowardice of vice? Cleinias True. Athenian And the one is honourable, and the other dishonourable? Cleinias To be sure. Athenian And the one, like other meaner things, is a human quality, but the Gods have no part in anything of the sort? Cleinias That again is what everybody will admit. Athenian But do we imagine carelessness and idleness and luxury to be virtues? What do you think? Cleinias Decidedly not. Athenian They rank under the opposite class? Cleinias Yes. Athenian And their opposites, therefore, would fall under the opposite class? Cleinias Yes. Athenian But are we to suppose that one who possesses all these good qualities will be luxurious and heedless and idle, like those whom the poet compares to stingless drones?543 Cleinias And the comparison is a most just one. Athenian Surely God must not be supposed to have a nature which He Himself hates? he who dares to say this sort of thing must not be tolerated for a moment. Cleinias Of course not. How could he have? Athenian Should we not on any principle be entirely mistaken in praising anyone who has some special business entrusted to him, if he have a mind which takes care of great matters and no care of small ones? Reflect; he who acts in this way, whether he be God or man, must act from one of two principles. Cleinias What are they? Athenian Either he must think that the neglect of the small matters is of no consequence to the whole, or if he knows that they are of consequence, and he neglects them, his neglect must be attributed to carelessness and indolence. Is there any other way in which his neglect can be explained? For surely, when it is impossible for him to take care of all, he is not negligent if he fails to attend to these things great or small, which a God or some inferior being might be wanting in strength or capacity to manage? Cleinias Certainly not. Athenian Now, then, let us examine the offenders, who both alike confess that there are Gods, but with a difference⁠—the one saying that they may be appeased, and the other that they have no care of small matters: there are three of us and two of them, and we will say to them⁠—In the first place, you both acknowledge that the Gods hear and see and know all things, and that nothing can escape them which is matter of sense and knowledge: do you admit this? Cleinias Yes. Athenian And do you admit also that they have all power which mortals and immortals can have? Cleinias They will, of course, admit this also. Athenian And surely we three and they two⁠—five in all⁠—have acknowledged that they are good and perfect? Cleinias Assuredly. Athenian But, if they are such as we conceive them to be, can we possibly suppose that they ever act in the spirit of carelessness and indolence? For in us inactivity is the child of cowardice, and carelessness of inactivity and indolence. Cleinias Most true. Athenian Then not from inactivity and carelessness is any God ever negligent; for there is no cowardice in them. Cleinias That is very true. Athenian Then the alternative which remains is, that if the Gods neglect the lighter and lesser concerns of the universe, they neglect them because they know that they ought not to care about such matters⁠—what other alternative is there but the opposite of their knowing? Cleinias There is none. Athenian And, O most excellent and best of men, do I understand you to mean that they are careless because they are ignorant, and do not know that they ought to take care, or that they know, and yet like the meanest sort of men, knowing the better, choose the worse because they are overcome by pleasures and pains? Cleinias Impossible. Athenian Do not all human things partake of the nature of soul? And is not man the most religious of all animals?544 Cleinias That is not to be denied. Athenian And we acknowledge that all mortal creatures are the property of the Gods, to whom also the whole of heaven belongs?545 Cleinias Certainly. Athenian And, therefore, whether a person says that these things are to the Gods great or small⁠—in either case it would not be natural for the Gods who own us, and who are the most careful and the best of owners, to neglect us. There is also a further consideration. Cleinias What is it? Athenian Sensation and power are in an inverse ratio to each other in respect to their ease and difficulty. Cleinias What do you mean? Athenian I mean that there is greater difficulty in seeing and hearing the small than the great, but more facility in moving and controlling and taking care of small and unimportant things than of their opposites. Cleinias Far more. Athenian Suppose the case of a physician who is willing and able to cure some living thing as a whole⁠—how will the whole fare at his hands if he takes care only of the greater and neglects the parts which are lesser? Cleinias Decidedly not well. Athenian No better would be the result with pilots or generals, or householders or statesmen, or any other such class, if they neglected the small and regarded only the great⁠—as the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without the lesser. Cleinias Of course not. Athenian Let us not, then, deem God inferior