Page:The works of Plato, A new and literal version, (vol 6) (Burges, 1854).djvu/33

c. 7] heaven were generated by something else, and that the productions of soul and body do not exist in this way, is a great folly and a want of reason. If then it is requisite for the reasons, relating to all such matters, to be victorious, and for all things of this kind to seem confidently to be divine, we must lay down one or the other of these two points; we must either hymn those things most correctly, as being gods themselves, or (we must) consider them, like images, to be resemblances of the gods, the gods themselves having manufactured them. For they (are the works of artificers) neither senseless nor of little worth. But, as we have said, we must lay down one or the other of these points. And what is laid down, we must honour pre-eminently before all statues. For never will there be seen statues more beautiful and more common of all men, or put up in pre-eminent places, and excelling for their purity, and solemnity, and the whole of life, than are these, how they have been generated altogether in this way. Let us then endeavour (to prove) so much, at least, relating to the gods, by perceiving that these are the two visible ani-