eart fail him, and the words
cease, broken off for ever. They are at the close of the dialogue
called _Critias_, in which he describes, partly from real tradition,
partly in ideal dream, the early state of Athens; and the genesis, and
order, and religion, of the fabled isle of Atlantis; in which genesis
he conceives the same first perfection and final degeneracy of man,
which in our own Scriptural tradition is expressed by saying that the
Sons of God inter-married with the daughters of men,[225] for he
supposes the earliest race to have been indeed the children of God;
and to have corrupted themselves, until "their spot was not the spot
of his children."[226] And this, he says, was the end; that indeed
"through many generations, so long as the God's nature in them yet was
full, they were submissive to the sacred laws, and carried themselves
lovingly to all that had kindred with them in divineness; for their
uttermost spirit was faithful and true, and in every wise great; so
that, in _all meekness of wisdom, they dealt with each other_, and
took all the chances of life; and despising all things except virtue,
they cared little what happened day by day, and _bore lightly the
burden_ of gold and of possessions; for they saw that, if _only their
common love and virtue increased, all these things would be increased
together with them_; but to set their esteem and ardent pursuit upon
material possession would be to lose that first, and their virtue and
affection together with it. And by such reasoning, and what of the
divine nature remained in them, they gained all this greatness of
which we have already told; but when the God's part of them faded and
became extinct, being mixed again and again, and effaced by the
prevalent mortality; and the human nature at last exceeded, they then
became unable to endure the courses of fortune; and fell into
shapelessness of life, and baseness in the sight of him who could see,
having lost everything that was fairest of their honour; while to the
blind hearts which could not discern the true life, tending to
happiness, it seemed that they were then chiefly noble and happy,
being filled with an iniquity of inordinate possession and power.
Whereupon, the God of Gods, whose Kinghood is in laws, beholding a
once just nation thus cast into misery, and desiring to lay such
punishment upon them as might make them repent into restraining,
gathered together all the gods into his dwelling-place, which