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