erect posture,
enabling him to see farther in front of him and to contemplate more
freely the height above, and to be less subject to distress than other
creatures (endowed like himself with eyes and ears and mouth). (12)
Consider next how they gave to the beast of the field (13) feet as a
means of progression only, but to man they gave in addition hands--those
hands which have achieved so much to raise us in the scale of happiness
above all animals. Did they not make the tongue also? which belongs
indeed alike to man and beast, but in man they fashioned it so as to
play on different parts of the mouth at different times, whereby we can
produce articulate speech, and have a code of signals to express our
every want to one another. Or consider the pleasures of the sexual
appetite; limited in the rest of the animal kingdom to certain seasons,
but in the case of man a series prolonged unbroken to old age. Nor did
it content the Godhead merely to watch over the interests of man's body.
What is of far higher import, he implanted in man the noblest and most
excellent type of soul. For what other creature, to begin with, has
a soul to appreciate the existence of the gods who have arranged this
grand and beauteous universe? What other tribe of animals save man
can render service to the gods? How apt is the spirit of man to take
precautions against hunger and thirst, cold and heat, to alleviate
disease and foster strength! how suited to labour with a view to
learning! how capable of garnering in the storehouse of his memory all
that he has heard or seen or understood! Is it not most evident to you
that by the side of other animals men live and move a race of gods--by
nature excellent, in beauty of body and of soul supreme? For, mark you,
had a creature of man's wit been encased in the body of an ox, (14)
he would have been powerless to carry out his wishes, just as the
possession of hands divorced from human wit is profitless. And then you
come, you who have obtained these two most precious attributes, and give
it as your opinion, that the gods take no thought or care for you. Why,
what will you have them to do, that you may believe and be persuaded
that you too are in their thoughts?

(12) See Kuhner for an attempt to cure the text.

(13) {erpetois}, a "poetical" word. Cf. "Od." iv. 418; Herod. i. 140.

(14) See Aristot. "de Part. Animal." iv. 10.

Ar. When they treat me as you tell us they treat you, and send me
counse