r
better and more graceful way of passing their time than the old man's
game of draughts.

CLEINIAS: I dare say; and these pastimes are not so very unlike a game
of draughts.

ATHENIAN: And these, as I maintain, Cleinias, are the studies which
our youth ought to learn, for they are innocent and not difficult; the
learning of them will be an amusement, and they will benefit the state.
If any one is of another mind, let him say what he has to say.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Then if these studies are such as we maintain, we will include
them; if not, they shall be excluded.

CLEINIAS: Assuredly: but may we not now, Stranger, prescribe these
studies as necessary, and so fill up the lacunae of our laws?

ATHENIAN: They shall be regarded as pledges which may be hereafter
redeemed and removed from our state, if they do not please either us who
give them, or you who accept them.

CLEINIAS: A fair condition.

ATHENIAN: Next let us see whether we are or are not willing that the
study of astronomy shall be proposed for our youth.

CLEINIAS: Proceed.

ATHENIAN: Here occurs a strange phenomenon, which certainly cannot in
any point of view be tolerated.

CLEINIAS: To what are you referring?

ATHENIAN: Men say that we ought not to enquire into the supreme God
and the nature of the universe, nor busy ourselves in searching out the
causes of things, and that such enquiries are impious; whereas the very
opposite is the truth.

CLEINIAS: What do you mean?

ATHENIAN: Perhaps what I am saying may seem paradoxical, and at variance
with the usual language of age. But when any one has any good and
true notion which is for the advantage of the state and in every way
acceptable to God, he cannot abstain from expressing it.

CLEINIAS: Your words are reasonable enough; but shall we find any good
or true notion about the stars?

ATHENIAN: My good friends, at this hour all of us Hellenes tell lies,
if I may use such an expression, about those great Gods, the Sun and the
Moon.

CLEINIAS: Lies of what nature?

ATHENIAN: We say that they and divers other stars do not keep the same
path, and we call them planets or wanderers.

CLEINIAS: Very true, Stranger; and in the course of my life I have often
myself seen the morning star and the evening star and divers others not
moving in their accustomed course, but wandering out of their path in
all manner of ways, and I have seen the sun and moon doing what we all
know that the