Page:The works of Plato, A new and literal version, (vol 6) (Burges, 1854).djvu/36

24 dream, in an interpretation of a dream, or spoken by oracles and prophecies to some in hearing, healthy or sick, or being met with at the close of life, and opinions being present privately and publicly, from whence many sacred rites of many have taken place, and some will take place; of all these the legislator, who possesses even the smallest particle of mind, will never dare, by making innovations towards a god-worship, which does not possess something clear, to overturn his own state; nor will he, knowing nothing at all (himself), forbid any portion of what the law of his country has spoken, on the subject of the gods. For it is not possible for human nature to know any thing on points of this kind. And does not the same reason hold good, that those are the worst of men, who do not dare to speak to us of the gods really existing in a manifest form, and to make them manifest, by permitting the other gods to be without sacred rites, and not to receive the honours that are due to them? But now there happens a thing of this kind to take place, as if some one of us had seen the Sun and Moon existing and looking upon all of us; and, although able to speak, had not said that they remained still sharing in no honours; nor was he anxious for his part to bring them into a place of honour, nor to cause festivals and sacrifices to take place for them; nor, through the computed time, to distribute to each of them the seasons of fre-