every genus under this for the sake of amatory mania; the manner in which
the reminiscence of souls takes place; and the passage to these from
hence. Every where, however, the leading end, as I may say, is either
physical or political, while the conceptions about divine natures are
introduced either for the sake of invention or perfection. How, therefore,
can such a theory as yours be any longer venerable and supernatural, and
worthy to be studied beyond every thing, when it is neither able to
evince the whole in itself, nor the perfect, nor that which is
precedaneous in the writings of Plato, but is destitute of all these, is
violent and not spontaneous, and does not possess a genuine, but an
adventitious order, as in a drama? And such are the particulars which may
be urged against our design.

"To this objection I shall make a just and perspicuous reply. I say then
that Plato every where discourses about the gods agreeably to ancient
opinions and the nature of things. And sometimes indeed, for the sake of
the cause of the things proposed, he reduces them to the principles of
the dogmas, and thence, as from an exalted place of survey, contemplates
the nature of the thing proposed. But some times he establishes the
theological science as the leading end. For in the Phaedrus, his subject
respects intelligible beauty, and the participation of beauty pervading
thence through all things; and in the Banquet it respects the amatory
order.

"But if it be necessary to consider, in one Platonic dialogue, the
all-perfect, whole and connected, extending as far as to the complete
number of theology, I shall perhaps assert a paradox, and which will
alone be apparent to our familiars. We ought however to dare, since we
have begun the assertion, and affirm against our opponents, that the
Parmenides, and the mystic conceptions of this dialogue, will accomplish