Cleinias: No one, Stranger, would be such a madman.
Athenian: And now, Megillus and Cleinias, let us offer terms to him who has hitherto denied the existence of the Gods, and leave him.
Cleinias: What terms?
Athenian: Either he shall teach us that we were wrong in saying that the soul is the original of all things, and arguing accordingly; or, if he be not able to say anything better, then he must yield to us and live for the remainder of his life in the belief that there are Gods. Let us see, then, whether we have said enough or not enough to those who deny that there are Gods.
Cleinias: Certainly, quite enough, Stranger.
Athenian: Then to them we will say no more. And now we are to address him who, believing that there are Gods, believes also that they take no heed of human affairs: To him we say—O thou best of men, in believing that there are Gods you are led by some affinity to them, which attracts you towards your kindred and makes you honour and believe in them. But the fortunes of evil and unrighteous men in private as well as public life, which, though not really happy, are wrongly counted happy in the judgment of men, and are celebrated both by poets and prose writers—these draw you aside from your natural piety. Perhaps you have seen impious men growing old and leaving their children’s children in high offices, and their prosperity shakes your faith—you have known or heard or been yourself an eyewitness of many monstrous impieties, and have beheld men by such criminal means from small beginnings attaining to sovereignty and the pinnacle of greatness; and considering all these things you do not like to accuse the Gods of them, because they are your relatives; and so from some want of reasoning power, and also from an unwillingness to find fault with them, you have come to believe that they exist indeed, but have no thought or care of human things. Now, that your present evil opinion may not grow to still greater impiety, and that we may if possible use arguments which may conjure away the evil before it arrives, we will add another argument to that originally addressed to him who utterly denied the existence of the Gods. And do you, Megillus and Cleinias, answer for the young man as you did before; and if any impediment comes in our way, I will take the word out of your mouths, and carry you over the river as I did just now.
Cleinias: Very good; do as you say, and we will help you as well as we can.
Athenian: There will probably be no difficulty in proving to him that the Gods care about the small as well as about the great. For he was present and heard what was said, that they are perfectly good, and that the care of all things is most entirely natural to them.
Cleinias: No doubt he heard that.
Athenian: Let us consider together in the next place what we mean by this virtue which we ascribe to them. Surely we should say that to be temperate and to possess mind belongs to virtue, and the contrary to vice?
Cleinias: Certainly.
Athenian: Yes; and courage is a part of virtue, and cowardice of vice?
Cleinias: True.
Athenian: And the one is honourable, and the other dishonourable?
Cleinias: To be sure.
Athenian: And the one, like other meaner things, is a human quality, but the Gods have no part in anything of the sort?
Cleinias: That again is what everybody will admit.
Athenian: But do we imagine carelessness and idleness and luxury to be virtues? What do you think?
Cleinias: Decidedly not.
Athenian: They rank under the opposite class?
Cleinias: Yes.
Athenian: And their opposites, therefore, would fall under the opposite class?
Cleinias: Yes.
Athenian: But are we to suppose that one who possesses all these good qualities will be luxurious and heedless and idle, like those whom the poet compares to stingless drones?
Cleinias: And the comparison is a most just one.