ccurs in
Euripides; a later and otherwise little-known tragedian, Moschion,
developed it in detail in a still extant fragment; Plato accepted it and
made it the basis of his presentation of the origin of the State;
Aristotle takes it for granted. Its source, too, has been demonstrated: it
was presumably Democritus who first advanced it. Nevertheless the author
of the fragment has hardly got it direct from Democritus, who at this time
was little known at Athens, but from an intermediary. This intermediary is
probably Protagoras, of whom it is said that he composed a treatise, _The
Original State, i.e._ the primary state of mankind. Protagoras was a
fellow-townsman of Democritus, and recorded by tradition as one of his
direct disciples.

In another point also the fragment seems to betray the influence of
Democritus. When it is said that the wise inventors of the gods made them
dwell in the skies, because from the skies come those natural phenomena
which frighten men, it is highly suggestive of Democritus's criticism of
the divine explanation of thunder and lightning and the like. In this case
also Protagoras may have been the intermediary. In his work on the gods he
had every opportunity of discussing the question in detail. But here we
have the theory of Democritus combined with that of Prodicus in that it is
maintained that from the skies come also those things that benefit men,
and that they are on this account also a suitable dwelling-place for the
gods. It is obvious that the author of the fragment (or his source) was
versed in the most modern wisdom.

All this erudition, however, is made to serve a certain tendency: the
well-known tendency to represent religion as a political invention having
as its object the policing of society. It is a theory which in
antiquity--to its honour be it said--is but of rare occurrence. There is a
vague indication of it in Euripides, a more definite one in Aristotle, and
an elaborate application of it in Polybius; and that is in reality all.
(That many people in more enlightened ages upheld religion as a means of
keeping the masses in check, is a different matter.) However, it is an
interesting fact that the Critias fragment is not only the first evidence
of the existence of the theory known to us, but also presumably the
earliest and probably the best known to later antiquity. Otherwise we
should not find reference for the theory made to a fragment of a farce,
but to a quotation from