'And is this cycle, of which you are speaking, the reign of Cronos,
or our present state of existence?' No, Socrates, that blessed and
spontaneous life belongs not to this, but to the previous state, in
which God was the governor of the whole world, and other gods subject
to him ruled over parts of the world, as is still the case in certain
places. They were shepherds of men and animals, each of them sufficing
for those of whom he had the care. And there was no violence among them,
or war, or devouring of one another. Their life was spontaneous, because
in those days God ruled over man; and he was to man what man is now
to the animals. Under his government there were no estates, or private
possessions, or families; but the earth produced a sufficiency of all
things, and men were born out of the earth, having no traditions of
the past; and as the temperature of the seasons was mild, they took no
thought for raiment, and had no beds, but lived and dwelt in the open
air.
Such was the age of Cronos, and the age of Zeus is our own. Tell me,
which is the happier of the two? Or rather, shall I tell you that the
happiness of these children of Cronos must have depended on how
they used their time? If having boundless leisure, and the power of
discoursing not only with one another but with the animals, they had
employed these advantages with a view to philosophy, gathering from
every nature some addition to their store of knowledge;--or again, if
they had merely eaten and drunk, and told stories to one another, and
to the beasts;--in either case, I say, there would be no difficulty in
answering the question. But as nobody knows which they did, the question
must remain unanswered. And here is the point of my tale. In the fulness
of time, when the earthborn men had all passed away, the ruler of
the universe let go the helm, and became a spectator; and destiny and
natural impulse swayed the world. At the same instant all the inferior
deities gave up their hold; the whole universe rebounded, and there was
a great earthquake, and utter ruin of all manner of animals. After a
while the tumult ceased, and the universal creature settled down in
his accustomed course, having authority over all other creatures,
and following the instructions of his God and Father, at first more
precisely, afterwards with less exactness. The reason of the falling off
was the disengagement of a former chaos; 'a muddy vesture of decay'
was a part of his original nature, out of which he was brought by his
Creator, under whose immediate guidance, while he remained in that
former cycle, the evil was minimized and the good increased to the
utmost. And in the beginning of the new cycle all was well enough, but
as time went on, discord entered in; at length the good was minimized
and the evil everywhere diffused, and there was a danger of universal
ruin. Then the Creator, seeing the world in great straits, and fearing
that chaos and infinity would come again, in his tender care again