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 Himself hates? he who dares to say this sort of thing must not be tolerated for a moment.

Cleinias:  Of course not.  How could he have?

Athenian:  Should we not on any principle be entirely mistaken in praising any one who has some special business entrusted to him, if he have a mind which takes care of great matters and no care of small ones?  Reflect; he who acts in this way, whether he be God or man, must act from one of two principles.

Cleinias:  What are they?

Athenian:  Either he must think that the neglect of the small matters is of no consequence to the whole, or if he knows that they are of consequence, and he neglects them, his neglect must be attributed to carelessness and indolence.  Is there any other way in which his neglect can be explained?  For surely, when it is impossible for him to take care of all, he is not negligent if he fails to attend to these things great or small, which a God or some inferior being might be wanting in strength or capacity to manage?