Seite - 1557 - in The Complete Plato

Athenian. Then not from inactivity and carelessness is any God ever negligent; for there is no cowardice in them. Cleinias. That is very true. Athenian. Then the alternative which remains is, that if the Gods neglect the lighter and lesser concerns of the universe, they neglect them because they know that they ought not to care about such matters—what other alternative is there but the opposite of their knowing? Cleinias. There is none. Athenian. And, O most excellent and best of men, do I understand you to mean that they are careless because they are ignorant, and do not know that they ought to take care, or that they know, and yet like the meanest sort of men, knowing the better, choose the worse because they are overcome by pleasures and pains? Cleinias. Impossible. Athenian. Do not all human things partake of the nature of soul? And is not man the most religious of all animals? Cleinias. That is not to be denied. Athenian. And we acknowledge that all mortal creatures are the property of the Gods, to whom also the whole of heaven belongs? Cleinias. Certainly. Athenian. And, therefore, whether a person says that these things are to the Gods great or small—in either case it would not be natural for the Gods who own us, and who are the most careful and the best of owners to neglect us.— There is also a further consideration. Cleinias. What is it? Athenian. Sensation and power are in an inverse ratio to each other in respect to their case and difficulty. Cleinias. What do you mean? Athenian. I mean that there is greater difficulty in seeing and hearing the small than the great, but more facility in moving and controlling and taking care of and unimportant things than of their opposites. Cleinias. Far more. Athenian. Suppose the case of a physician who is willing and able to cure some living thing as a whole—how will the whole fare at his hands if he takes care only of the greater and neglects the parts which are lesser? 1557