to the
laws? 'There is no hurry, and we have often said that the shorter and
worse method should not be preferred to the longer and better. The proof
that there are Gods who are good, and the friends of justice, is the
best preamble of all our laws.' Come, let us talk with the impious, who
have been brought up from their infancy in the belief of religion, and
have heard their own fathers and mothers praying for them and talking
with the Gods as if they were absolutely convinced of their existence;
who have seen mankind prostrate in prayer at the rising and setting of
the sun and moon and at every turn of fortune, and have dared to despise
and disbelieve all this. Can we keep our temper with them, when they
compel us to argue on such a theme? We must; or like them we shall go
mad, though with more reason. Let us select one of them and address him
as follows:

O my son, you are young; time and experience will make you change many
of your opinions. Do not be hasty in forming a conclusion about the
divine nature; and let me mention to you a fact which I know. You and
your friends are not the first or the only persons who have had these
notions about the Gods. There are always a considerable number who are
infected by them: I have known many myself, and can assure you that no
one who was an unbeliever in his youth ever persisted till he was old in
denying the existence of the Gods. The two other opinions, first, that
the Gods exist and have no care of men, secondly, that they care for
men, but may be propitiated by sacrifices and prayers, may indeed last
through life in a few instances, but even this is not common. I would
beg of you to be patient, and learn the truth of the legislator and
others; in the mean time abstain from impiety. 'So far, our discourse
has gone well.'

I will now speak of a strange doctrine, which is regarded by many as the
crown of philosophy. They affirm that all things come into being either
by art or nature or chance, and that the greater things are done by
nature and chance, and the lesser things by art, which receiving from
nature the greater creations, moulds and fashions all those lesser works
which are termed works of art. Their meaning is that fire, water, earth,
and air all exist by nature and chance, and not by art; and that out of
these, according to certain chance affinities of opposites, the sun, the
moon, the stars, and the earth have been framed, not by any action of
mind, but by nat