excellent meaning, though hard to be understood, because really a
sentence which is divided into two parts (Zeus, Dios). For he, being
the lord and king of all, is the author of our being, and in him all
live: this is implied in the double form, Dios, Zenos, which being put
together and interpreted is di on ze panta. There may, at first sight,
appear to be some irreverence in calling him the son of Cronos, who is
a proverb for stupidity; but the meaning is that Zeus himself is the
son of a mighty intellect; Kronos, quasi koros, not in the sense of a
youth, but quasi to katharon kai akeraton tou nou—the pure and
garnished mind, which in turn is begotten of Uranus, who is so called
apo tou oran ta ano, from looking upwards; which, as philosophers say,
is the way to have a pure mind. The earlier portion of Hesiod’s
genealogy has escaped my memory, or I would try more conclusions of the
same sort. “You talk like an oracle.” I caught the infection from
Euthyphro, who gave me a long lecture which began at dawn, and has not
only entered into my ears, but filled my soul, and my intention is to
yield to the inspiration to-day; and to-morrow I will be exorcised by
some priest or sophist. “Go on; I am anxious to hear the rest.” Now
that we have a general notion, how shall we proceed? What names will
afford the most crucial test of natural fitness? Those of heroes and
ordinary men are often deceptive, because they are patronymics or
expressions of a wish; let us try gods and demi-gods. Gods are so
called, apo tou thein, from the verb “to run;” because the sun, moon,
and stars run about the heaven; and they being the original gods of the
Hellenes, as they still are of the Barbarians, their name is given to
all Gods. The demons are the golden race of Hesiod, and by golden he
means not literally golden, but good; and they are called demons, quasi
daemones, which in old Attic was used for daimones—good men are well
said to become daimones when they die, because they are knowing. Eros
(with an epsilon) is the same word as eros (with an eta): “the sons of
God saw the daughters of men that they were fair;” or perhaps they were
a species of sophists or rhetoricians, and so called apo tou erotan, or
eirein, from their habit of spinning questions; for eirein is
equivalent to legein. I get all this from Euthyphro; and now a new and
ingenious idea comes into my mind, and, if I am not careful, I shall be
wiser than I ought to be by to-morrow’s dawn. My idea is, that we may
put in and pull out letters at pleasure and alter the accents (as, for
example, Dii philos may be turned into Diphilos), and we may make words
into sentences and sentences into words. The name anthrotos is a case
in point, for a letter has been omitted and the accent changed; the
original meaning being o anathron a opopen—he who looks up at what he
sees. Psuche may be thought to be the reviving, or refreshing, or
animating principle—e anapsuchousa to soma; but I am afraid that