try. Finally, Plato gives the above-mentioned
definitions of impiety and fixes the severest punishment for it--for
downright denial of the gods, when all attempts at conversion have failed,
the penalty of death.

On this evidence we are tempted to take the view that Plato in his earlier
years took up a critical attitude in regard to the gods of popular belief,
perhaps even denied them altogether, that he gradually grew more
conservative, and ended by being a confirmed bigot. And we might look for
a corroboration of this in a peculiar observation in the _Laws_. Plato
opens his admonition to the young against atheism by reminding them that
they are young, and that false opinion concerning the gods is a common
disease among the young, but that utter denial of their existence is not
wont to endure to old age. In this we might see an expression of personal
religious experience.

Nevertheless I do not think such a construction of Plato's religious
development feasible. A decisive objection is his exposition of the
Socratic point of view in so early a work as the _Apology_. I at any rate
regard it as psychologically impossible that a downright atheist, be he
ever so great a poet, should be able to draw such a picture of a deeply
religious personality, and draw it with so much sympathy and such
convincing force. Add to this other facts of secondary moment. Even the
close criticism to which Plato subjects the popular notions of the gods in
his _Republic_ does not indicate denial of the gods as such; moreover, it
is built on a positive foundation, on the idea of the goodness of the gods
and their truth (which for Plato manifests itself in immutability).
Finally, Plato at all times vigorously advocated the belief in providence.
In the _Laws_ he stamps unbelief in divine providence as impiety; in the
_Republic_ he insists in a prominent passage that the gods love the just
man and order everything for him in the best way. And he puts the same
thought into Socrates's mouth in the _Apology_, though it is hardly
Socratic in the strict sense of the word, _i.e._ as a main point in
Socrates's conception of existence. All this should warn us not to
exaggerate the significance of the difference which may be pointed out
between the religious standpoints of the younger and the older Plato. But
the difference itself cannot, I think, be denied; there can hardly be any
doubt that Plato was much more critical of popular belief in his youth and
p