Damis And when would they have leisure for
my case if, as you say, they are full of cares,
managing the universe, infinite as it is? That is
the reason they have not yet even punished you
for your continual perjuries and your other crimes,
which I will not specify lest I should be driven
to use abusive language myself, contrary to our
agreement. And yet I do not see how they could
produce better proof of their own providence than
by bringing your bad life to a bad end. But
clearly they have gone abroad, across the ocean,
perchance to visit the "blameless Ethiopians."
At least it is their habit to go constantly to dine
with them, and sometimes on their own invitation.


 Timokles What shall I say in reply to such
shameless effrontery? Damis What I have been yearning to hear
from you this long time: how you came to believe
in the providence of the gods. Timokles I was convinced of it first by the
order of natural events: the sun who always travels the same road and the moon similarly, and
the recurring seasons, and the growth of plants,
and the birth of animals, and these animals themselves so ingeniously contrived that they feed
themselves and reason, and move about and walk,
and build houses and make shoes, and all the
rest of it. Do not these seem to you the works
of providence? Damis Why, Timokles, you have assumed the
very question in dispute, for it remains to be seen.
whether each of these is accomplished by providence. That natural events are such as you describe I, too, admit, but it does not follow of
necessity that they owe their existence to any intelligent foresight. For it is possible that they
had some other origin, and yet have now a consistent and methodical existence. But this forced
action of theirs you call 'order,' and then, forsooth, you fly into a rage if some one rejects your
argument when, after recounting and praising the
nature of objects, you go on to believe that this
is a proof that each of them is also put in its


 


place by providence. Wherefore, in the words
of the comic poet,
 This is too feeble, tell me something else.