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animals. Did they not make the tongue also ? which belongs indeed alike to man and beast, but in man they fashioned it so as to play on different parts of the mouth at different times, whereby we can produce articulate speech, and have a code of signals to express our every want to one another. Nor did it content the Godhead merely to watch over the interests of man's body. What is of far higher import. He im- planted in man the noblest and most excellent type of soul. For what other creature, to begin with, has a soul to appreciate the existence of the Gods who have arranged this grand and beauteous universe ? What other tribe of animals save man can render serace to the gods ? How apt is the spirit of man to take pre- cautions against hunger and thirst, cold and heat, to alleviate disease and foster strength I how suited to labor with a view to learning ! how capable of garner- ing in the storehouse of his memory all that he has heard or seen or understood ! Is it not most evident to you that by the side of other animals men live and move a race of gods — by nature excellent, in beauty of body and of soul supreme ? For, mark you, had a creature of man's wit been encased in the body of an ox, he would have been powerless to carry out his wishes, just as the possession of hands divorced from human wit is profitless. And then you come, you who have obtained these two most precious attributes, and give it as your opinion that the gods take no thought or care for you. Why, what will you have them to do, that you may believe and be persuaded that you too are in their thoughts ?
Aristodemus. When they treat me as you tell us they treat you, and send me counsellors to warn me what I am to do and what abstain from doing, I will believe.
