Cleinias: Certainly.
Athenian: And there are other things akin to these, in which there spring up other errors of the same family.
Cleinias: What are they?
Athenian: The natures of commensurable and incommensurable quantities in their relation to one another. A man who is good for anything ought to be able, when he thinks, to distinguish them; and different persons should compete with one another in asking questions, which will be a far 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 anyone 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 anyone 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 they do.
Athenian: Just so, Megillus and Cleinias; and I maintain that our citizens and our youth ought to learn about the nature of the Gods in heaven, so far as to be able to offer sacrifices and pray to them in pious language, and not to blaspheme about them.
Cleinias: There you are right, if such a knowledge be only attainable; and if we are wrong in our mode of speaking now, and can be better instructed and learn to use better language, then I quite agree with you that such a degree of knowledge as will enable us to speak rightly should be acquired by us. And now do you try to explain to us your whole meaning, and we, on our part, will endeavour to understand you.