mages devoid of motion or one who could fashion living
creatures endowed with understanding and activity?

Ar. Decidedly the latter, provided his living creatures owed their birth
to design and were not the offspring of some chance.

Soc. But now if you had two sorts of things, the one of which presents
no clue as to what it is for, and the other is obviously for some useful
purpose--which would you judge to be the result of chance, which of
design?

Ar. Clearly that which is produced for some useful end is the work of
design.

Soc. Does it not strike you then that he who made man from the beginning
(5) did for some useful end furnish him with his several senses--giving
him eyes to behold the visible word, and ears to catch the intonations
of sound? Or again, what good would there be in odours if nostrils had
not been bestowed upon us? what perception of sweet things and pungent,
and of all the pleasures of the palate, had not a tongue been fashioned
in us as an interpreter of the same? And besides all this, do you
not think this looks like a matter of foresight, this closing of the
delicate orbs of sight with eyelids as with folding doors, which, when
there is need to use them for any purpose, can be thrown wide open and
firmly closed again in sleep? and, that even the winds of heaven may not
visit them too roughly, this planting of the eyelashes as a protecting
screen? (6) this coping of the region above the eyes with cornice-work
of eyebrow so that no drop of sweat fall from the head and injure them?
again this readiness of the ear to catch all sounds and yet not to be
surcharged? this capacity of the front teeth of all animals to cut
and of the "grinders" to receive the food and reduce it to pulp? the
position of the mouth again, close to the eyes and nostrils as a portal
of ingress for all the creature's supplies? and lastly, seeing that
matter passing out (7) of the body is unpleasant, this hindward
direction of the passages, and their removal to a distance from the
avenues of sense? I ask you, when you see all these things constructed
with such show of foresight can you doubt whether they are products of
chance or intelligence?

(5) Cf. Aristot. "de Part. Animal." 1. For the "teleological" views
see IV. iii. 2 foll.

(6) "Like a sieve" or "colander."

(7) "That which goeth out of a man."

Ar. To be sure not! Viewed in this light they would seem to be the
handiwork of some wise artificer, (8) full