P. "Noble would the news be, Socrates, were it true; yet it seems
to me beyond belief."

S. "Did we not prove just now concerning Zeus, that all mistakes
concerning him were certain to be mistakes of defect?"

P. "We did, indeed."

S. "How do you know, then, that you have not fallen into some such
error, and have suspected Zeus to be less condescending towards you
than he really is?"

P. "Would that it were so! But I fear it is too fair a hope."

S. "Do I seem to thee now, dear boy, more insolent and unfeeling
than Protagoras, when he tried to turn thee away from the search
after absolute truth, by saying sophistically that it was an attempt
of the Titans to scale heaven, and bade thee be content with
asserting shamelessly and brutishly thine own subjective opinions?
For I do not bid thee scale the throne of Zeus, into whose presence
none could arrive, as it seems to me, unless he himself willed it;
but to believe that he has given thee from thy childhood a glimpse
of his own excellence, that so thy heart, conjecturing, as in the
case of a veiled statue, from one part the beauty of the rest, might
become enamoured thereof, and long for that sight of him which is
the highest and only good, that so his splendour may give thee light
to see facts as they are."

P. "Oh Socrates! and how is this blessedness to be attained?"