【正文】 easily appeased and turned aside from theirpurpose, by sacrifices and prayers. Cleinias. What shall we say or do to these persons? Athenian Stranger. My good friend, let us first hear the jests whichI suspect that they in their superiority will utter against us. Cle. What jests? Ath. They will make some irreverent speech of this sort:O inhabitants of A thens, and Sparta, and Cnosus, they will reply, inthat you spea k truly。 and others that they are turned from their course bygifts. Now we have a right to claim, as you yourself allowed, in thematter of laws, that before you are hard upon us and threaten us,you should argue with us and convince usyou should f irst attempt toteach and persuade us that there are Gods by reasonable evidences, andalso that they are too good to be unrighteous, or to be propitiated,or turned from the ir course by gifts. For when we hear such thingssaid of them by those who are esteemed to be the best of poets, andorators, and prophets, and priests, and by innumerable others, thethoughts of most of us are not set upon abstaining from unrighteousacts, but upon doin g them and atoning for them. When lawgivers professthat they are gentle and not stern, we think that they should f irst ofall use persuasion to us, and show us the existence of Gods, if not ina better manne r than other men, at any rate in a truer。 and also there is the fact that all Hellenes and barbariansbelieve in them. Ath. I fear, my sweet friend, though I will not say that I muchregard, the contempt with w hich the profane will be likely to assailus. For you do not understand the nature of their plaint, and youfancy that they rush into impiety only from a love of sensualpleasure. Cle. Why, Stranger, what other reason is there? Ath. One which you who live in a different atmosphere would neverguess. Cle. What is it? Ath. A very grievous sort of ignorance which is imagined to be thegreatest wisdom. Cle. What do you mean? Ath. At A thens there are tales preserved in writing which the virtueof your state, as I am informed, refuses to admit. They speak of theGods in prose as well as verse, and the oldest of them tell of theorigin of the heavens and of the world, and not far from the beginningof their story they proceed to narrate the birth of the Gods, andhow after they were born they behaved to one another. Whether thesestories have in other ways a good or a bad influence, I should notlike to be severe upon them, because they are ancient。 and Ishould wish to say of them only what is pleasing to the Gods. But asto our younger generation and their wisdom, I cannot let them off whenthey do mischief. For do but mark the effect of their words: w henyou and I argue for the existence of the Gods, and produce the sun,moon, stars, and earth, claiming for them a divine being, if wewould listen to the aforesaid philosophers we should say that they areearth and stones only, which can have no care at all of human affairs,and that all religion is a cooking up of words and a makebelieve. Cle. One such teacher, O Stranger, would be bad enough, and youimply that there are many of them, which is worse. Ath. Well, then。 and that they say of usHowdreadful that you should legislate on the supposition that there areGods! Shall we ma ke a defence of ourselves? or shall we leave them andreturn to our laws, lest the prelude should be e longer than thelaw? For the discourse will certainly extend to great length, if weare to treat the impiously disposed as they desire, partlydemonstrating to them at some length the things of which they demandan explanation, partly making them afraid or dissatisfied, and thenproceed to the requisite enactments. 25 Cle. Yes, Stranger。 w ho is at our heels?as the saying goes, and itwould be paltry and ridiculous to prefer the shorter to the better. Itis a matter of no small consequence, in some way or other to provethat there are Gods, and that they are good, and regard justice morethan men do. The demonstration of this would be the best and noblestprelude of all our laws. And therefore, without impatience, andwithout hurry, let us unreservedly consider the whole matter,summoning up all the power of persuasion which we possess. Ath. Seeing you thus in earnest, I would fain offer up a prayer thatI may succeed:but I must proceed at once. Who can be calm when heis called upon to prove the existence of the Gods? Who can avoidhating and abhorring the men who are and have been the cause of thisargument。 who likewise see and hear the prostrations andinvocations which are made by Hellenes and barbarians at the r isingand setting of the sun and moon, in all the vicissitudes of life,not as if they thought that there were no Gods, but as if therecould be no doubt of their existence, and no suspicion of theirnonexistence。 for it would be unseemly thatone half of mankind should go mad in their lust of pleasure, and theother half in their indignation at such persons. Our address tothese lost and perverted natures should not be spoken in passion。 and that is the highest ofwhich you now think nothingto know the Gods rightly and to liveaccordingly. And in the first place let me indicate to you one pointwhich is of great importance, and about which I cannot bedeceived:You and your friends are not the first who have held thisopinion about the Gods. There have always been persons more or lessnumerous w ho have had the same disorder. I have known many of them,and can tell you, that no one who had ta ken up in youth thisopinion, that the G ods do not exist, ever continued in the sameuntil he was old。 the notion, I mean, that the Godsexist, but ta ke no heed of human things, and the other notion thatthey do ta ke heed of them, but are easily propitiated withsacrifices and prayers. As to the opinion about the Gods which maysome day bee clear to you, I advise you go wait and consider ifit be true or n