he sole
Principle of the universe." He is "the Immutable;" "the All-perfect;"
"the eternal Being." He is "the Architect of the world; "the Maker of
the universe; the Father of gods and men; the sovereign Mind which
orders all things, and passes through all things; the sole Monarch and
Ruler of the world.[193]

And yet remarkable as these expressions are, sounding, as they do, so
like the language of inspiration,[194] there can be no doubt that Plato
was also a sincere believer in a plurality of gods, of which, indeed,
any one may assure himself by reading the _tenth_ book of "the Laws."

[Footnote 193: See chap. xi.]

[Footnote 194: Some writers have supposed that Plato must have had
access through some medium to "the Oracles of God." See Butler, vol. ii.
p. 41.]

And, now that we have in Plato the culmination of Grecian speculative
thought, we may learn from him the mature and final judgment of the
ancients in regard to the gods of pagan mythology. We open the _Timaeus_,
and here we find his views most definitely expressed. After giving an
account of the "generation" of the sun, and moon, and planets, which are
by him designated as "visible gods," he then proceeds "to speak
concerning the other divinities:" "We must on this subject assent to
those who in former times have spoken thereon; who were, as they said,
the offspring of the gods, and who doubtless were well acquainted with
their own ancestors..... Let then the genealogy of the gods be, and be
acknowledged to be, that which they deliver. Of Earth and Heaven the
children were Oceanus and Tethys; and of these the children were
Phorcys, and Kronos, and Rhea, and all that followed these; and from
these were born Zeus and Hera, and those who are regarded as brothers
and sisters of these, and others their offspring.

"When, then, _all the gods were brought into existence_, both those
which move around in manifest courses [the stars and planets], and those
which appear when it pleases them [the mythological deities], the
Creator of the Universe thus addressed them: 'Gods, and sons of gods, of
whom I am the father and the author, produced by me, ye are
indestructible because I will.... Now inasmuch as you have been
_generated_, you are hence _not_ immortal, nor wholly indissoluble; yet
you shall never be dissolved nor become subject to the fatality of
death, because _so I have willed_.... Learn, therefore, my commands.
Three races of mortals yet remain to be creat