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.

CLEI