your citizens. 'That is excellent, Critias, and very appropriate to a
Panathenaic festival; the truth of the story is a great advantage.' Then
now let me explain to you the order of our entertainment; first, Timaeus,
who is a natural philosopher, will speak of the origin of the world, going
down to the creation of man, and then I shall receive the men whom he has
created, and some of whom will have been educated by you, and introduce
them to you as the lost Athenian citizens of whom the Egyptian record
spoke. As the law of Solon prescribes, we will bring them into court and
acknowledge their claims to citizenship. 'I see,' replied Socrates, 'that
I shall be well entertained; and do you, Timaeus, offer up a prayer and
begin.'

TIMAEUS: All men who have any right feeling, at the beginning of any
enterprise, call upon the Gods; and he who is about to speak of the origin
of the universe has a special need of their aid. May my words be
acceptable to them, and may I speak in the manner which will be most
intelligible to you and will best express my own meaning!

First, I must distinguish between that which always is and never becomes
and which is apprehended by reason and reflection, and that which always
becomes and never is and is conceived by opinion with the help of sense.
All that becomes and is created is the work of a cause, and that is fair
which the artificer makes after an eternal pattern, but whatever is
fashioned after a created pattern is not fair. Is the world created or
uncreated?--that is the first question. Created, I reply, being visible
and tangible and having a body, and therefore sensible; and if sensible,
then created; and if created, made by a cause, and the cause is the
ineffable father of all things, who had before him an eternal archetype.
For to imagine that the archetype was created would be blasphemy, seeing
that the world is the noblest of creations, and God is the best of causes.