So, too, in the Platonic Epinomis, attached as an appendix to the Treatise De Legibus, we find (p. 984) Plato--after arranging his quintuple scale of elemental animals (fire, æther, air, water, earth), the highest and most divine being the stars or visible Gods, the lowest being man, and the three others intermediate between the two; after having thus laid out the scale, he leaves to others to determine, [Greek: o(pê=| tis e)the/lei], in which place Zeus, Hêrê, and the other Gods, are to be considered as lodged. He will not contradict any one's feeling on that point; he strongly protests (p. 985 D) against all attempts on the part of the lawgiver to innovate ([Greek: kainotomei=n]) in contravention of ancient religious tradition--this is what Aristophanes in the Nubes, and Melêtus before the Dikasts, accuse Sokrates of doing--but he denounces harshly all who will not acknowledge with worship and sacrifice the sublime divinity of the Sun, Moon, Stars, and Planets. The Platonic declaration given here--[Greek: e)pome/nous tô=| no/mô| pisteute/on]--is illustrated in the lines of Euripides, Bacchæ, 202-- [Greek: ou)de\n sophizo/mestha toi=si dai/mosin; patri/ous paradocha/s, a(/s th' o(mê/likas chro/nô| kektê/meth', ou)dei\s au)ta\ katabalei= lo/gos, ou)d' ê)\n di' a)krô=n to\ sopho\n eu(/rêtai phrenô=n.]] [Footnote 46: Plato, Timæ. p. 41 A. [Greek: e)pei\ d' ou)=n pa/ntes o(/soi te peripolou=si phanerô=s, kai\ o(/soi phai/nontai kath' o(/son a)\n e)the/lôsi, theoi\ ge/nesin e)/schon.]] [Side-note: Remarks on Plato's Canon of Belief.] The passage above cited serves to illustrate both Plato's own canon of belief, and his position in regard to his countrymen. The question here is, about the Gods of tradition and of the popular faith: with the paternity and filiation ascribed to them, by Hesiod and the other poets, from whom Greeks of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. learnt their Theogony.[47] Plato was a man both competent and willing to strike out a physical theology of his own, but not to follow passively in the track of orthodox tradition. I have stated briefly what he has affirmed about the cosmical Gods (Earth, Stars, Sun, Planets) generated or constructed by the Demiurgus as portions or members of the Kosmos: their bodies, out of fire and other elements,--their souls out of the Forms or abstractions called Identity and Diversity; while the entire Kosmos is put together after the model of the Generic Idea or Form of Animal. All this, combined with supposed purposes, and fancies of arithmetical proportion dictating the proceedings of the Demiurgus, Plato does not hesitate to proclaim on his own authority and as his own belief--though he does not carry it farther than probability. [Footnote 47: Herodot. ii. 53.]