teeth of all animals fitted to cut off proper portions
of food, and their grinders to reduce it to a convenient
smallness? The mouth, by which we take in the
food we like, is fitly placed just beneath the nose
and eyes, the judges of its goodness; and what is
offensive and disagreeable to our senses is, for that
reason, placed at a proper distance from them.
In short, these things being disposed in such order,
and with so much care, can you hesitate one moment
to determine whether it be an effect of providence
or of chance?” “I doubt not of it in
the least,” replied Aristodemus, “and
the more I fix my thoughts on the contemplation of
these things the more I am persuaded that all this
is the masterpiece of a great workman, who bears an
extreme love to men.” “What say you,”
continued Socrates, “to this, that he gives
all animals a desire to engender and propagate their
kind; that he inspires the mothers with tenderness
and affection to bring up their young; and that, from
the very hour of their birth, he infuses into them
this great love of life and this mighty aversion to
death?” “I say,” replied Aristodemus,
“that it is an effect of his great care for
their preservation.” “This is not
all,” said Socrates, “answer me yet farther;
perhaps you would rather interrogate me. You
are not, I persuade myself, ignorant that you are
endowed with understanding; do you then think that
there is not elsewhere an intelligent being?
Particularly, if you consider that your body is only
a little earth taken from that great mass which you
behold. The moist that composes you is only
a small drop of that immense heap of water that makes
the sea; in a word, your body contains only a small
part of all the elements, which are elsewhere in great
quantity. There is nothing then but your understanding
alone, which, by a wonderful piece of good fortune,
must have come to you from I know not whence, if there
were none in another place; and can it then be said
that all this universe and all these so vast and numerous
bodies have been disposed in so much order, without
the help of an intelligent Being, and by mere chance?”
“I find it very difficult to understand it
otherwise,” answered Aristodemus, “because
I see not the gods, who, you say, make and govern
all things, as I see the artificers who do any piece
of work amongst us.” “Nor do you
see your soul neither,” answered Socrates, “which
governs your body; but, because you do not see it,
will you from thence infer you do nothing at all by
its direction, but that everything you do is by mere
chance?” Aristodemus now wavering said, “I
do not despise the Deity, but I conceive such an idea
of his magnificence and self-sufficiency, that I imagine
him to have no need of me or my services.”
“You are quite wrong,” said Socrates,
“for by how much the gods, who are so magnificent,
vouchsafe to regard you, by so much you are bound
to praise and adore them.” “It is
needless for me to tell you,” answered Aristodemus,