Plato · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
CLINIAS: As for keeping our appointment, stranger, we've done it properly — the three of us here, myself and you and Megillus — to examine wisdom, and by what account we ought to explain what it is that, once thought through, makes the human condition as fine as a man can possibly make it with respect to wisdom. Everything else about lawgiving we've been through, as we say; but the greatest thing to discover and state — what a mortal man must learn to become wise — that we've neither stated nor discovered, and now we should try not to leave it out. We'd be leaving our whole undertaking unfinished if we don't make it plain from beginning to end. ATHENIAN: My dear Clinias, you're right to say so, but I think you're going to hear a strange account — and in a way, not strange at all. Many people who've had a rough time in life come out with the same claim, that the human race can never be blessed or happy. Follow along, then, and see whether you think I too am speaking well on this point, in agreement with them. I say it isn't possible for human beings to become blessed and happy, except for a few — I mean for as long as we're alive; but there's a fine hope of attaining, once we've died, everything for the sake of which one would be eager, while alive, to live as finely as possible, and, having died, to meet with just such a death. I'm not saying anything clever here, only what all of us, Greeks and non-Greeks alike, recognize in some fashion — that from the very start, coming into being is hard for every living thing: first there's a share in the condition of the unborn, then there's being born, and then there's being nourished and educated — all of this happens, as we all agree, through countless hardships.
ATHENIAN: And the time we get would be short indeed for reckoning — not the miserable part of it, but whatever anyone would judge the fair part. This seems to provide something like a breathing space around the middle of a human life; but old age, coming on quickly, would make anyone, once he reckoned up the life he'd lived, never wish to live it again — unless, that is, he happens to be full of childish notions. What's my evidence for this? That the very thing we're now seeking by argument is naturally so disposed. We're asking how we're to become wise, on the assumption that each of us has this capacity somehow; yet it runs away in flight whenever someone approaches some form of wisdom — one of the so-called arts, or bodies of practical knowledge, or other such things we take to be sciences — as though none of these deserved to be called by the name of wisdom where human affairs are concerned, while the soul is quite confident and divines that it does have some such capacity by nature, but can't quite discover what it is, or when, or how. Doesn't our perplexity and search concerning wisdom closely resemble this — turning out, for each of us capable of examining ourselves and others sensibly through every kind of argument stated in every way, to exceed our hope? Shall we agree that this is so, or something like it? CLINIAS: We'll agree, stranger, in the hope that in time, together with you, we may eventually form the truest opinion about it. ATHENIAN: Then we must first go through the other things that are called sciences but don't make wise the person who acquires and possesses them, so that, having set these aside, we can try to lay out those we need, and having laid them out, learn them. First, then, of the things a mortal race needs first, let's see that they are indeed the most necessary and, in a real sense, the first — yet the person who becomes expert in them, even if at the start he was thought wise, is now thought not wise at all, and gets more reproach than anything from that kind of knowledge.
ATHENIAN: We'll say what they are, and that pretty much every man who has any contest before him — over seeming to have turned out as fine a man as possible — flees them because of the possessions that come with intelligence and pursuit of it. Let there be, first, the eating of one animal by another — the myth tells us it turned some of us away from that altogether, and settled others into lawful eating. May our forebears be gracious to us, both then and now — whoever they were, let them be greeted first — but the making of barley-meal and flour, along with the nourishment it provides, however fine and good, will never make a man wise all the way through. That very thing, the name 'making,' would produce distaste in the things made. Nor, pretty much, does farming, over the whole land — for it's not by art but by nature, under god's ordering, that all of us are seen to have handled the earth. Nor again the whole business of weaving houses together, all building, and the manufacture of every kind of implement, metalwork and the equipment of carpentry and modeling and weaving and every other tool besides — useful to the people, but not spoken of with a view to virtue. Nor the whole art of hunting, though it has become extensive and skillful, does it grant grandeur together with wisdom. Nor does divination, nor interpretation at all — for these only know what is said, not whether it's true. Once we see that the acquisition of necessities is achieved through art, yet none of these makes anyone wise, what would be left after this is a kind of play — mostly imitative, and nowhere serious. For people imitate with many instruments, and with the postures of their own bodies, not always graceful imitations — in speech and in every form of the Muses' art, and whatever painting mothers forth, with many varied patterns worked out in many wet and dry materials. Of these, imitation offers not a single person who works at anything with the utmost seriousness and turns out wise. And once all these are done, what's left would be countless kinds of help for countless needs — the greatest, and useful for the most purposes, being what's called warfare, the general's art, most esteemed for its usefulness, needing the greatest luck, and given by nature more to courage than to wisdom.
ATHENIAN: And the art they call medicine is likewise, in a sense, a kind of help — for all the ways in which the seasons plunder the nature of living things with untimely cold and heat and all such things. None of this is esteemed for the truest wisdom, for it proceeds by guesswork, without measure, forming conjectures. We'll call helpers, too, both the pilots and the sailors together, and let no one, trying to console us, report to us that any man among all of these is wise — for no one could know the wind's temper or its favor, which is dear to the whole art of piloting. Nor, again, all those who claim to become helpers in lawsuits through strength of speech, giving their minds over to memory and practiced habits of opinion, while missing the truth of what is really just, straying outside it. There remains still, in popular opinion, a strange sort of power that most people would call nature rather than wisdom — whenever someone is observed to learn easily whatever he learns, and to remember a great deal of it securely, and, when he calls to mind what is fitting for each occasion, what would be proper as it comes about, does this quickly. All of this some will call nature, others wisdom, others a natural quickness of mind, but no sensible person will ever be willing to call any of these truly wise. And yet some science must clearly be shown to exist, possessing which the person who is truly wise, and not merely reputed so, would become wise. Let's look, then. We're undertaking a difficult inquiry altogether — to find, apart from what's been mentioned, another thing which could truly and reasonably be called wisdom, and whose possessor will be neither a vulgar craftsman nor a fool, but through it will be a wise and good citizen, ruler and ruled alike, justly and harmoniously, at once. Let's look first, then, at this: what single science, out of human nature, if it were taken away or had never been present among those now available to us, would render the human animal the most senseless and mindless of all creatures. This, at least, isn't very hard to see. One thing above all others, one might say, would do this to the whole mortal race — the thing that gives it number. I believe it's a god, rather than any chance, who gave it to us for our preservation.
ATHENIAN: Which god I have in mind must be said, strange as it is — and yet in a way not strange at all. For how could we fail to hold that the cause of all good things for us is also the cause of the greatest good by far, wisdom? Which god, then, am I honoring and naming, Megillus and Clinias? Pretty much Uranus, Heaven, whom it is most just — as it is for all the other divine powers and gods together — to honor and pray to above all. That he has been the cause of all our other good things, we would all agree; and that he gave us number as well, we for our part truly say he did, and will go on giving it, if anyone is willing to follow along. For if one turns to a correct contemplation of him — whether one prefers to call him cosmos, or Olympus, or Heaven, let him call him what he pleases, but let him follow how, by adorning himself and turning the stars within himself, he provides all their circuits, the seasons, and nourishment for everything. And so too the rest of wisdom, we'd say, along with number entire, and all the other good things; and this is the greatest — if someone, having received his gift of numbers, goes on through the whole cycle. Let's go back a little in our argument and recall that we were quite right to think that if we removed number from human nature, we could never become wise in anything. For the soul of this creature could hardly attain any virtue at all, if it were deprived of reason; and a creature that does not recognize two and three, nor odd and even, but is wholly ignorant of number, could never give an account of the things of which it has only perceptions and memories — though nothing prevents it from having the rest of virtue, courage and self-control. But deprived of true reason, it could never become wise, and whoever lacks wisdom, the greatest part of all virtue, could never become fully good, and so could never become happy. Thus number must absolutely be assumed as a foundation; why this is necessary would take a still longer account than everything said so far. But this much can rightly be said now — that the things attributed to the other arts, which we've just gone through, granting them all to be arts, none of them holds up at all; everything is left utterly behind, once someone takes arithmetic away.
ATHENIAN: One might perhaps suppose that the human race needs number for only a few purposes, looking to the arts — and yet that alone would be a great thing. But if one were to see the divine and the mortal in coming-into-being, in which reverence for the divine and true number will both be recognized, one would no longer fail to see how great a power number, once it joins with us, is the cause of for us in every respect — since it's plain that even in the whole art of music, motion and pitch must be counted through — and, greatest of all, that it's the cause of all good things, and of no evil, this must be well understood, and it could soon be so. But whatever motion is more or less irrational and disordered, unshapely and without rhythm and unharmonious, and everything that has a share in any evil, is lacking in number entirely, and this is how the man who means to end his life happily must think of it. And no one who doesn't know the just and the good and the beautiful and all such things, even if he has grasped a true opinion of them, will ever be able to reckon them out so as to persuade himself or another of it altogether. Let's go on, then, and consider this very point — how did we learn to count? Come now: whence did the one and the two come to us, so that we could conceive of them, given the nature we have from the whole, such as to be capable of understanding? Many other living creatures, in turn, have not even been endowed by nature with this much, so as to be capable of learning to count from their parent, whereas in us this very thing god settled first of all, so that we'd be capable, when shown, of grasping it — and then he showed it, and goes on showing it. Of these things, what could one behold more beautiful, one against one, than the class of day — and then, going into the portion of night, having sight, from which everything else would appear to him as different? And by revolving these same things without ever stopping, many nights and many days, which Heaven turns, he never stops teaching human beings one and two, until even the slowest learner learns to count adequately — for as with three and four and many, each of us would come to understand it by watching these. And out of these god fashioned and made the moon one thing, which, appearing now larger, now smaller, passed through, each time showing a different day, up to fifteen days and nights; and this is a cycle, if one wants to reckon the whole circuit as one — so that, so to speak, even the slowest-learning creature could learn, to whom god gave a nature capable of learning.
ATHENIAN: And up to this point, and in these matters, every animal capable of it has become quite good at counting, so far as counting each thing by itself goes. But to reckon number in relation to number, everywhere and always — that, I think, is for something greater, and it was for this purpose, as we said, that god made the moon wax and wane, and so put together months to make up a year, and every kind began to see number in relation to number, by a happy stroke of luck. Because of this we have crops and a pregnant earth, so that there is food for all living things, with winds and rains coming that are not excessive or immoderate. But if anything besides this turns out badly, we should blame not divine nature but human nature, for failing to distribute its own life justly. Well, as we have been inquiring about laws, it seemed to us, roughly, that the other things are easy to know — the best things for human beings — and anyone would be capable of understanding and doing what is said, if he knew what is likely to be beneficial and what is not. And it seemed then, and still seems now, that all the other pursuits are not especially difficult, but how people are to become good — that is entirely difficult. And again, all the other good things are easy to acquire, as the saying goes, both possible and not hard — as much property as one needs and no more, and a body of the right sort and no other. But that the soul must be good, everyone agrees with everyone; yet as to how it is to be good — that it must be just, moderate, and courageous, people agree to that much too — but that it must be wise, everyone says it must, yet as to what sort of wisdom, as we have just gone through, no one any longer agrees with anyone else on that point, among the many. Now then, alongside all the previous forms of wisdom, we are discovering one that is no small thing, precisely in this respect: that the one who has learned what we have gone through is held to be wise. But whether the one who has knowledge of these things is truly wise and good — of that we must give an account. CLEINIAS: Stranger, how fitting it was of you to say that you are attempting to speak greatly about great matters. ATHENIAN: Yes, for they are not small matters, Cleinias — and what is harder still is that they are altogether and in every way true. CLEINIAS: Very much so, stranger. But all the same, do not grow weary of saying what you mean to say. ATHENIAN: Yes — and you two must not grow weary of listening either. CLEINIAS: That will be so. I speak for both of us.
ATHENIAN: Well said. From the beginning, then, it seems we must first say, if we possibly can grasp it in a single name, what this wisdom is that we believe it to be; and if we are quite unable to do that, then second, what the various kinds of it are, and how many, such that a person who has grasped them would be wise, according to our account. CLEINIAS: Do go on. ATHENIAN: What comes next, then, is something the lawgiver may say without blame — namely, to speak, better and more fittingly than what has been said before about the gods, in the manner of one engaging in noble play and honoring the gods, passing his own life in hymns and in happiness. CLEINIAS: Well said indeed, stranger. If this were the goal of your laws — to play before the gods and pass one's life more purely — one would meet the best and finest end at the same time. ATHENIAN: How then, Cleinias, shall we put it? Do we think that in hymning the gods we honor them greatly, praying that the finest and best things about them come to us as we speak of them? Is that how you would put it, or how? CLEINIAS: Wonderfully put, just so. But, my good man, trusting in the gods, pray and speak the account that comes to you concerning the beautiful things about the gods and goddesses. ATHENIAN: So it shall be, if the god himself guides us. Only join me in prayer. CLEINIAS: Go on to what comes next. ATHENIAN: We must, it seems, first give a better account of the birth of the gods and of living creatures than those who came before us gave — since they pictured it badly — taking up again what I attempted to say against the impious, declaring that there are gods who care for all things, small and great alike, and are all but inexorable concerning matters of justice — if indeed you remember, Cleinias; for you were given reminders of it too — for what was said then was quite true. And the greatest point of it was this: that soul, every soul, is older than body, every body. Do you remember? Or is this at any rate certain? For what is better, older, and more godlike is likely to be prior to what is younger and newer and less honorable, and what rules is everywhere older than what is ruled, and what leads is older than what is led in every way. Let us take this, then, as settled: that soul is older than body.
ATHENIAN: If this is so, then the first thing about the first stage of coming-to-be would, I think, already have been established more plausibly for us. And let us take it that the beginning of the beginning has been handled more fittingly, and that we are stepping most correctly onto the greatest matters concerning the wisdom of the birth of the gods. CLEINIAS: Let it stand as said, as far as we are able. ATHENIAN: Come then — shall we say that this is what is truly said, in accordance with nature, to be a living creature: when a single combined union of soul and body brings forth a single form? CLEINIAS: Correctly said. ATHENIAN: And such a thing is most rightly called a living creature? CLEINIAS: Yes. ATHENIAN: And solid bodies, according to the likely account, must be said to be five in number, from which one might fashion the finest and best things, while every other kind has but a single form; for there is nothing bodiless that could come to be otherwise, nor anything that has any color at all — except the truly most divine kind, that of soul. And this is, in a sense, the only thing to which it belongs to fashion and create, while body, as we call it, is that which is fashioned and comes to be and is seen; and the other — let us say it again, for it must not be said only once — is invisible, and knows and is known by thought, partaking of memory and calculation amid changes both odd and even together. There being five bodies, then, we must say there are fire, water, and third air, fourth earth, and fifth aether, and that out of the dominance of each of these, in turn, many and varied kinds of living creatures are produced. We must learn this one by one, in this way. Let us set down as our first single kind the earthy: all human beings, and everything with many feet or no feet, and everything that moves about or stays fixed, held apart by roots. But we must think of this as its unity — that all these things come from all these kinds together, though the greater part of it is of earth and of a solid nature. We must set down a second kind of living creature, one that comes to be at the same time and is also capable of being seen; for it has the most of fire in it, yet it also has some earth and air, and small portions of all the others too, so that varied living creatures must be said to arise from them and to be visible. And again we must think of the kinds of living things throughout the heavens — the whole divine kind of the stars, we must say, has come to be with, perhaps, the fairest of bodies, and the happiest and best of souls. Of two lots, we should grant them a share in roughly one or the other: either each of them is, by every necessity, imperishable and immortal and wholly divine, or each has some long-lived life, sufficient for each of them, such that it would never need anything more.
ATHENIAN: Let us then first think through what we mean — that these are two such kinds of living creature, both visible — let us say it again — the one made wholly, it would seem, of fire, the other of earth; and the earthy one moves in disorder, while the fiery one moves in complete order. Now we should reckon the one that moves in disorder to be mindless — which is what the creature around us mostly does — while the one that moves in order and has its course fixed in the heavens should be taken as strong evidence of being intelligent; for a thing that always travels in the same way and along the same path, both acting and being acted upon, would give sufficient evidence of living intelligently. And the necessity belonging to a soul possessed of mind would be by far the greatest of all necessities — for it rules rather than being ruled, and so it legislates — and when a soul, deliberating in accordance with the best mind, resolves upon what is best, the result that actually follows is perfect in accordance with mind, and not even adamant could ever be stronger than this or less able to be turned aside; rather, in truth three Fates hold fast and guard as perfect whatever has been resolved by the best counsel for each of the gods. For human beings, the stars and this whole circuit of theirs ought to be evidence of possessing mind, in that they always do the same things, because they have long ago resolved to do them for some marvelous stretch of time, and do not keep changing their resolve, now this way, now that, acting differently at different times, wandering and shifting their course. But most of us have come to think the very opposite of this: that because they do the same things in the same way, they have no soul. So the multitude has followed after the mindless in thinking that the human, because it moves about, should be taken as intelligent and alive, while the divine, because it remains in the same courses, is mindless. Yet a man could take hold of the finer and better and more welcome view — that precisely because a thing acts always in the same way, the same manner, and for the same reasons, it must for that very reason be reckoned intelligent, and that this is the nature of the stars, fairest to behold, and performing, in the finest and most magnificent dance of all dances, what is fitting for all living things.
ATHENIAN: And indeed, that we rightly call them ensouled, let us first consider their size. For they are not, as they appear, small; each of them is truly immense in bulk — and this is worth believing, for it is grasped by sufficient demonstrations — for it is possible to think correctly that the sun as a whole is greater than the whole earth, and all the moving stars have some marvelous magnitude. Let us then grasp what manner it could be for some nature to carry around so great a bulk for the very same length of time it is now carried around. I say that god is the cause, and that it cannot possibly be otherwise; for a thing could never become ensouled by any other means than through a god, as we have declared. And since god is capable of this, it has been entirely easy for him, first, to make the whole body and mass of each creature come to be, and then to move it in whatever way he judges best. Now, concerning all these things, let us state one true account: it is not possible for earth and heaven and all the stars, and the masses composed of these, to make their way with such precision through the year, month by month and day by day, and for everything that happens to turn out good for all of us, unless soul has come to be present in each and every one, or within each — and yet, however inferior a human being may be, he ought to appear speaking clearly, at least, and not talking nonsense. If someone speaks of certain causes as mere currents of bodies, or natures, or something of the sort, he will say nothing clear. But what has been said by us must be firmly grasped again — whether our account holds together or fails altogether — namely, first, that the things that exist are two, soul and body, and many of each, and all of them different from one another, each from each, and there is nothing else, a third thing, common to any of them, and that soul differs from body: the one we shall posit as intelligent, the other as mindless; the one as ruling, the other as ruled; and the one as cause of all things, the other as not itself the cause of anything it undergoes. So that to say the things in the heavens have come to be by some other means, and are not thus the offspring of soul and body, would be great folly and unreason. If, then, the accounts about all such matters must prevail, and these things must be shown convincingly to have come to be divine, throughout, one of two things must be laid down concerning them:
ATHENIAN: Either we must hymn these things as gods themselves in the truest sense, or we must take them to be images of gods, set up like statues, made by the gods themselves — for they are not senseless things, nor worth little, but rather, as we have said, we must posit one or the other of these alternatives, and whichever we posit must be honored beyond all other statues. Never will there appear statues more beautiful and more universally shared by all mankind, set up in more varied places, surpassing in purity and majesty and in the whole of their life, than these, since they have come to be exactly as they are in every respect. So now let us undertake this much concerning the gods: having observed the two living beings visible to us — one of which we say is immortal, while everything earthly has come to be mortal — let us try to speak of the three middle kinds among the five, which fall between these, according to the most reasonable opinion we can form. Let us set aether just after fire, and hold that soul molds living beings out of it, having the power to do so, as with the other kinds — the greater part of its own nature, but smaller portions drawn from the other kinds for the sake of binding together. And after aether, let us hold that soul molds out of air a second kind of living being, and a third out of water. Once it has fashioned all of these, it stands to reason that soul fills the whole heaven with living beings, making use of every kind according to its power, all of them having come to share in life; and these run in second, third, fourth, and fifth ranks, beginning from the visible gods and ending, at last, in us human beings. As for the gods — Zeus and Hera and all the rest — let each person, however he wishes, hold to the same law regarding them, and let this account stand firm. But the visible gods, the greatest and most honored, seeing most keenly in every direction, we must call the first — the nature of the stars — and whatever else we perceive to have come into being along with them; and after these, and beneath them, in due order, the daemons, an airy race, holding the third and middle seat, the cause of interpretation between us and the gods — these it is very much needful to honor with prayers, for the sake of a safe and reverent passage through life.
ATHENIAN: Of these two kinds of living beings — the one made of aether, and next the one made of air, each being seen in its entirety when close at hand, though not clearly visible to us at present — sharing as they do in a wondrous intelligence, being of a race quick to learn and retentive of memory, let us say that they know the whole of our thinking, and that they embrace with wondrous warmth whoever among us is good and noble, and hate whoever is thoroughly wicked, since they already share in pain — for god, who possesses the perfection of the divine portion, stands outside of these things, outside pain and pleasure, though he shares fully in thought and knowledge. And since the heaven has thus become full of living beings, they interpret to one another, and to all the highest gods, all things and everyone, since these middle beings move both toward earth and through the whole heaven, borne along with a light rushing motion. As for the fifth kind, that of water, one would rightly guess it to be a kind of demigod, sometimes visible, sometimes hidden from sight and becoming unclear, presenting a marvel glimpsed but dimly. Now as for these five kinds of beings that truly exist, however anyone among us has encountered them — whether meeting them in a dream during sleep, or through reports and oracles told to some in their waking hours, whether healthy or sick, or to those who have come near the end of life — and from these encounters, opinions have arisen, privately and publicly, from which many sacred rites have come into being for many people, and others will come to be — concerning all of this, any lawgiver possessing even the least intelligence will never dare to introduce innovations regarding reverence for the gods when it lacks clear grounding, in a way that might unsettle his own city. Nor indeed will he forbid the sacrifices that ancestral law has prescribed, since he knows absolutely nothing about them — nor could mortal nature possibly know anything about such matters. And is it not the very same reasoning that holds that the gods truly manifest to us are treated most disgracefully by those who do not dare to speak of, and make plain to us, other gods who go without their rites and do not receive the honors owed to them? But in fact, this very thing is happening right now.
ATHENIAN: For imagine, for instance, if one of us had once seen the sun or moon coming into being, and watched them observing us all, and did not speak of it, being somehow unable to say anything, though he saw them lacking honor — and did not, for his own part, do his best to bring them into an honored position where they might be plainly seen, and to establish festivals and sacrifices for them, and, apportioning time to each, to allot the seasons of the years in greater or lesser measure, again and again — would not such a person, rightly speaking, be judged wicked both to himself and to anyone else who understood the matter? CLINIAS: How could it be otherwise, stranger? Utterly wicked. ATHENIAN: Well then, dear Clinias, know that this very thing is now plainly happening in my own case. CLINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: You know there are eight powers moving throughout the whole heaven, sisters to one another, which I myself have observed — and I have accomplished nothing great in this, for it is easy for anyone else to do the same — three of these are the sun, the moon, and the wandering stars we mentioned a little before, and there are five others besides. Let none of us ever suppose otherwise about all of these and about the beings within them, whether they move on their own or are carried along in vehicles as they travel their course — let none of us think that some of them are gods while others are not, nor that some are legitimate while others are of some sort that none of us may rightly even name — rather, let us all say and declare that all of them are brothers, sharing brotherly portions, and let us render honors without assigning a year to one, a month to another, and to others neither any portion nor any span of time in which each completes its own circuit, jointly bringing to completion that visible order which the most divine of all accounts has arranged. This order the fortunate man first marvels at, and then conceives a passionate longing to learn all that mortal nature is capable of learning, believing that in this way he will live out his life best and most happily, and that when he dies he will arrive at places befitting virtue, and having been truly and genuinely initiated, and having come to share in understanding, being one who has become one with the one, he will spend the time remaining to him as a beholder of the most beautiful things that can be seen. Now after this it remains for us to say how many these beings are, and what they are — for we must never appear to speak falsely. This much, then, I firmly maintain: I say again that there are eight, and of the eight, three have been named, and five still remain. The fourth motion and course — and likewise the fifth — is nearly equal in speed to the sun, and is on the whole neither slower nor faster. Given that these are three, one must have sufficient intelligence to grasp them as guides. Let us say that these belong to the sun, to the morning star, and to a third — one which we cannot name, since it is not commonly known, and the reason for this is that the first man to observe these things was a foreigner.
ATHENIAN: For it was an ancient custom that nourished the first people who conceived these things, on account of the beauty of the summer season, which Egypt and Syria possess in full measure, always seeing the stars, so to speak, plainly and altogether, since their sky is always free from clouds and rain — and from there this knowledge has spread everywhere, including here, tested over countless years, over boundless time. Therefore we should confidently set these matters into our laws — for to hold that some divine things are worthy of honor and others not clearly shows a lack of sense — but as for why they have not received names, this is the reason that must be given. Yet in fact they have received names taken from the gods: the morning star, being the same as the evening star, is reasonably identified with Aphrodite — and this fits well with a Syrian lawgiver — while the one that runs together with the sun and with this one belongs, more or less, to Hermes. Let us name three further courses of those traveling to the right along with the moon and the sun. And there is one more, the eighth, which one might most properly call the order of the universe, which travels opposite to all those others, not leading the rest, as it would appear to people who know little of these matters. Whatever we know sufficiently, we must state, and we do state it — for true wisdom appears in just this way, to whoever has even a small share of right and divine understanding. There remain three stars, of which one is distinguished by its slowness, and some call it by the name of Cronus; the next after it in slowness we must call the star of Zeus; and the one after that, of Ares, which of all of them has the most reddish color. None of this is difficult for anyone to grasp once someone explains it, but having learned it, as we say, one must follow along with understanding. Yet this much every Greek man must bear in mind: that we Greeks hold about the best position with respect to virtue among nearly all peoples; and what is praiseworthy about it must be said to be this — that it lies midway between winter and the nature of summer, whereas the nature of that other region, which lags behind us in summer heat, as we have said, has, later on, handed down to its people this understanding of the order of these gods of the universe. Let us take it, then, that whatever the Greeks receive from foreigners, they bring to a finer completion in the end.
ATHENIAN: And indeed concerning what is now being said, we must think this very same thing — that it is difficult to discover all such matters beyond dispute, yet there is much good hope that the Greeks will come to care for all these gods, in a way truly more beautiful and more just than the report and worship that has come from foreign peoples, making use of education and of the oracles from Delphi and of every form of worship prescribed by law. But let none of the Greeks ever fear this — that mortals ought never to concern themselves with divine matters — rather let everyone think the complete opposite: that the divine is never without understanding, nor is it ignorant of human nature in any way, but knows that when it teaches, humanity will follow along and learn what is taught. And that it teaches us this very thing — number, and how to count — surely it knows this too. For it would be the most senseless of all beings were it ignorant of this — for then, as the saying goes, it would truly be ignorant of itself, growing angry at one capable of learning, rather than rejoicing without envy when, through the god, someone comes to a good state. There is indeed a long and fine account to be given here — at the time when the first thoughts about the gods arose among men, of how they came to be and what they became, and what sort of deeds one of them undertook — an account not in keeping with sound minds, nor a friendly one, nor like that of those who came second, among whom the oldest things spoken of were fire and water and the other bodies, and only later the things of the wondrous soul, and the motion belonging to it, greater and more honorable, which body was allotted to carry by heating and cooling and all such means, rather than soul carrying both body and itself. But now, when we say that soul, whenever it comes to be within a body, moves and carries this body and itself around, it is no wonder, nor does soul distrust us on any reasonable ground, as though it were incapable of carrying any weight at all. Therefore now too, when we hold that soul is the cause of the whole, and that all good things are of one such sort, and bad things again of another sort like it, it is no wonder that soul is the cause of all motion and movement, and that the motion and movement toward the good belongs to the best soul, while that toward the opposite is its opposite — and that the good things must have prevailed, and must prevail, over those that are not such.
ATHENIAN: We have now said everything about the punishment that overtakes the impious. As for what we set out to establish, we cannot doubt that the good man must be wise, and that this wisdom, which we have long been seeking, we ought to see clearly, whenever we manage to conceive it, whether by education or by some skill — the wisdom whose lack leaves us ignorant of what is just, and, being such, unreasonable. I think we can see it, and it should be stated: for by searching high and low, wherever it has become clear to me, I will try to make it plain to you as well. The greatest part of virtue, when not practiced rightly, has, I think, been the cause of our trouble — as what has just been said strongly suggests to me. Let no one ever persuade us that anything is greater for mortal beings than reverence toward the divine; and we must say that this has failed to arise in the best natures because of the greatest ignorance. The best natures are those hardest to produce, yet of the greatest benefit when they do arise: for a soul that accepts what is slow and what is its opposite with moderation and gentleness would be easygoing, admiring courage, obedient toward self-control, and — most important — capable of learning within these very natures and retentive in memory, so that it could take real delight in these things and thereby become a lover of learning. Such natures are not easy to produce, and even when they are produced and receive the nurture and education they need, most of them, even the inferior ones among them, could be brought, through right thought, action, and speech concerning the gods, to do and say each thing as one should and when one should regarding sacrifices and purifications owed to gods and to men — not contriving through outward show, but honoring virtue in truth, which is indeed the greatest thing of all for the whole city. This, then, we say, is by nature the most authoritative part, and capable, if someone should teach it, of being learned as finely and as well as possible. But no one could teach it unless a god were guiding the way; and if someone does teach it, but does not do so in the proper manner, it is better not to learn it at all. Yet from what has now been said, it is necessary that I too learn to describe such a nature, and indeed the best one. Let us try, then, to go through in speech what these things are, of what sort, and how they must be learned, according to my ability as the speaker and the ability of those able to listen — by what manner one will learn true reverence toward the divine, and what it consists in.
ATHENIAN: It is perhaps a strange thing to hear, though we do name it ourselves — something no one would ever expect, out of unfamiliarity with the subject: astronomy. Whoever is ignorant of it does not realize that the true astronomer must be the wisest of men — not the one who does astronomy in Hesiod's fashion and like all such people, merely observing settings and risings, but the one who studies the seven circuits within the eight orbits, each one traveling its own circle in a way that no nature could easily come to observe unless it shared in a wonder beyond the ordinary. What we have just mentioned we shall also explain — as we say — in what way and how one must learn it. Let this be said first: the moon completes its own circuit fastest, marking out the month and the first full moon. Second, one must understand the sun, which completes its turnings throughout its whole circuit, and along with it those bodies that travel with it. And so that we do not repeat ourselves many times about the same things, the other paths we went through earlier are not easy to grasp; and in preparing natures capable of grasping them, one must, through much prior teaching and habituation, work at it constantly from childhood into youth. Hence there is need of certain studies. The greatest and first of these concerns numbers themselves — not numbers attached to bodies, but the whole generation and power of the odd and the even, and how much these contribute to the nature of things that exist. After learning these, next in order comes what people call by the quite ridiculous name of geometry — the likening, through numbers that are not naturally alike to one another, of the domain of plane figures, made evident; a wonder not human but manifestly divine to anyone able to grasp it. After this comes the study of numbers raised three times over and made like solid nature; and the further study that likens numbers which have become unlike one another, by another art, the one people who happened upon it called solid geometry — a thing divine and wonderful to those who look closely and reflect on how, as the power revolving always around the double, and its opposite counterpart, according to each proportion, shapes and forms the whole of nature.
ATHENIAN: The first proportion of the double, moving by ratio in numbers as one to two, while that expressed by power is the double of that; and the one extending into the solid and tangible is again double, proceeding from one to eight; while the mean between the double — equally exceeding the lesser and being exceeded by the greater, the one term exceeding and being exceeded by the same fraction of the extremes (and midway between six and twelve there occur the ratios of one-and-a-half and one-and-a-third) — this mean, turning in both directions between these very terms, has granted to humankind a use that is harmonious and well-proportioned, for the sake of play, rhythm, and harmony, given for the joyful dance of the Muses. Let all this, then, come about and stand as it is in this way. But beyond these things, the goal that follows is that we must proceed to the divine coming-into-being and to the fairest and most divine nature of visible things — as much as god has granted to men to behold; which nature no one, without having grasped what has just been set out, should ever hope to lay hold of easily. Beyond this, one must apply, in every gathering, the one alongside the many kinds, questioning and testing whatever has not been well said; for this becomes, in every way, the finest and truest touchstone for human beings, whereas all the labor of those who claim to test without truly doing so is the most futile of all. Further, we must grasp the precision of time, how precisely it brings to completion everything that happens in the heavens, so that one who has come to believe that this account is true — that the soul is both older and more divine than the body — may judge it altogether finely and adequately said that all things are full of gods, and that we are never overlooked through forgetfulness or neglect by the higher powers. And concerning all such matters one must understand this: that if one grasps each of them rightly, great benefit comes to the one who takes them up properly; but if not, it is always better to call upon god. And the manner is this — for this much at least must be stated — every diagram of number, every system of harmony, and the whole agreement of the revolution of the stars must be shown to be one single thing to the one who learns it in the proper way; and it will be shown, if, as we say, one learns rightly by looking to that one thing—
ATHENIAN: — for a single bond, naturally binding all these things together, will become apparent to those who reflect on it. But if anyone handles these matters in some other way, one must call it chance, as indeed we do say. For without these studies, no nature could ever become happy within cities; rather, this is the manner, this the nurture, these the studies — whether difficult or easy, this is the path one must travel. It is not permitted to neglect the gods, once the report concerning all of them, rightly told, has become plain and fortunate. The one who has grasped all these things in this way, him I call the truly wisest — of whom I insist, half in play and half in earnest, that when such a person fulfills his own portion by death, if indeed he still is once he has died, he will no longer share in the many perceptions he has now, but having partaken of a single portion only and having become one out of many, he will be happy and wisest and blessed all at once — whether he lives blessed on the mainland or on the islands — and he will forever share in such fortune, whether he pursues these things in public life or lives out his life privately; the same things, in the same way, he will receive from the gods. And what we said at the beginning still holds true now — that it is not possible for human beings to become completely blessed and happy except for a few — this has been rightly said. For as many as are divine and self-controlled, sharing by nature in the rest of virtue as well, and beyond this have grasped all that belongs to blessed learning — and we have said what that is — to these alone has everything belonging to the divine been sufficiently allotted and is possessed. To those, then, who have worked through these things in this way, we say, both privately and publicly we lay down by law, that when they reach the end of old age they must be handed the greatest offices; and that the rest, following along with them, should speak well of all the gods and goddesses together, and that the nocturnal council, having come to know and test this wisdom sufficiently, should rightly summon us all to it.