in; many of them have been lost in
the lapse of ages, or are repeated only in a disconnected form; but the
origin of them is what no one has told, and may as well be told now; for
the tale is suited to throw light on the nature of the king.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good; and I hope that you will give the whole
story, and leave out nothing.

STRANGER: Listen, then. There is a time when God himself guides and
helps to roll the world in its course; and there is a time, on the
completion of a certain cycle, when he lets go, and the world being a
living creature, and having originally received intelligence from its
author and creator, turns about and by an inherent necessity revolves in
the opposite direction.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Why is that?

STRANGER: Why, because only the most divine things of all remain ever
unchanged and the same, and body is not included in this class. Heaven
and the universe, as we have termed them, although they have been
endowed by the Creator with many glories, partake of a bodily nature,
and therefore cannot be entirely free from perturbation. But their
motion is, as far as possible, single and in the same place, and of the
same kind; and is therefore only subject to a reversal, which is the
least alteration possible. For the lord of all moving things is alone
able to move of himself; and to think that he moves them at one time in
one direction and at another time in another is blasphemy. Hence we must
not say that the world is either self-moved always, or all made to go
round by God in two opposite courses; or that two Gods, having opposite
purposes, make it move round. But as I have already said (and this is
the only remaining alternative) the world is guided at one time by an
external power which is divine and receives fresh life and immortality
from the renewing hand of the Creator, and again, when let go, moves
spontaneously, being set free at such a time as to have, during infinite
cycles of years, a reverse movement: this is due to its perfect balance,
to its vast size, and to the fact that it turns on the smallest pivot.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Your account of the world seems to be very reasonable
indeed.

STRANGER: Let us now reflect and try to gather from what has been said
the nature of the phenomenon which we affirmed to be the cause of all
these wonders. It is this.

YOUNG SOCRATES: What?

STRANGER: The reversal which takes place from time to time of the motion
of the universe.

YOUNG