Greek Texts & Translations

Our statement thus far, Stranger, is most excellent.

Very true, O Megillus and Clinias; but we have plunged unawares into a wondrous argument.

What is it you mean? 888e

That which most people account to be the most scientific of all arguments.

Explain more clearly.

It is stated by some that all things which are coming into existence, or have or will come into existence, do so partly by nature, partly by art, and partly owing to chance.

Is it not a right statement?

It is likely, to be sure, that what men of science say is true. Anyhow, let us follow them up, and consider 889awhat it is that the people in their camp really intend.

By all means let us do so.

It is evident, they assert, that the greatest and most beautiful things are the work of nature and of chance, and the lesser things that of art,—for art receives from nature the great and primary products as existing, and itself molds and shapes all the smaller ones, which we commonly call “artificial.”

How do you mean? 889b

I will explain it more clearly. Fire and water and earth and air, they say, all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art; and by means of these, which are wholly inanimate, the bodies which come next—those, namely, of the earth, sun, moon and stars—have been brought into existence. It is by chance all these elements move, by the interplay of their respective forces, and according as they meet together and combine fittingly,—hot with cold, dry with moist, 889csoft with hard, and all such necessary mixtures as result from the chance combination of these opposites,—in this way and by those means they have brought into being the whole Heaven and all that is in the Heaven, and all animals, too, and plants—after that all the seasons had arisen from these elements; and all this, as they assert, not owing to reason, nor to any god or art, but owing, as we have said, to nature and chance. ^note As a later product of these, art comes later; and it, being mortal itself and of mortal birth, begets later playthings 889dwhich share but little in truth, being images of a sort akin to the arts themselves—images such as painting begets, and music, and the arts which accompany these. Those arts which really produce something serious are such as share their effect with nature,—like medicine, agriculture, and gymnastic. Politics too, as they say, shares to a small extent in nature, but mostly in art; and in like manner all legislation which is 889ebased on untrue assumptions is due, not to nature, but to art.

What do you mean?

The first statement, my dear sir, which these people make about the gods is that they exist by art and not by nature,—by certain legal conventions ^note which differ from place to place, according as each tribe agreed when forming their laws. They assert, moreover, that there is one class of things beautiful by nature, and another class beautiful by convention ^note; while as to things just, they do not exist at all by nature, but men are constantly in dispute about them and continually altering them, and whatever alteration they make at any time 890ais at that time authoritative, though it owes its existence to art and the laws, and not in any way to nature. All these, my friends, are views which young people imbibe from men of science, both prose-writers and poets, who maintain that the height of justice is to succeed by force; whence it comes that the young people are afflicted with a plague of impiety, as though the gods were not such as the law commands us to conceive them; and, because of this, factions also arise, when these teachers attract them towards the life that is right “according to nature,” which consists in being master over the rest in reality, instead of being a slave to others according to legal convention. ^note 890b

What a horrible statement you have described, Stranger! And what widespread corruption of the young in private families as well as publicly in the States!

That is indeed true, Clinias. What, then, do you think the lawgiver ought to do, seeing that these people have been armed in this way for a long time past? Should he merely stand up in the city and threaten all the people that unless they affirm that the gods exist and conceive them in their minds to be such as the law maintains ^note and so likewise with regard to the beautiful and the just and all the greatest things,