s. 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 Euthyphro and his disciples will scorn this
derivation, and I must find another: shall we identify the soul with the
'ordering mind' of Anaxagoras, and say that psuche, quasi phuseche = e
phusin echei or ochei?--this might easily be refined into psyche. 'That
is a more artistic etymology.'

After psuche follows soma; this, by a slight permutation, may be either
= (1) the 'grave' of the soul, or (2) may mean 'that by which the soul
signifies (semainei) her wishes.' But more probably, the word is Orphic,
and simply denotes that the body is the place of ward in which the soul
suffers the penalty of sin,--en o sozetai. 'I should like to hear some
more explanations of the names of the Gods, like that excellent one
of Zeus.' The truest names of the Gods are those which they give
themselves; but these are unknown to us. Less true are those by which we
propitiate them, as men say in prayers, 'May he graciously receive any
name by which I call him.' And to avoid offence, I should like to let
them know beforehand that we are not presuming to enquire about them,
but only about the names which they usually bear. Let us begin with
Hestia. What did he mean who gave the name Hestia? 'That is a very
difficult qu