Page - 1555 - in The Complete Plato

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. Athenian. Surely God must not be supposed to have a nature which he 1555