’Every man ought to follow God.’  What life, then, is pleasing to God?  There is an old saying that ‘like agrees with like, measure with measure,’ and God ought to be our measure in all things.  The temperate man is the friend of God because he is like Him, and the intemperate man is not His friend, because he is not like Him.  And the conclusion is, that the best of all things for a good man is to pray and sacrifice to the Gods; but the bad man has a polluted soul; and therefore his service is wasted upon the Gods, while the good are accepted of them.  I have told you the mark at which we ought to aim.  You will say, How, and with what weapons?  In the first place we affirm, that after the Olympian Gods and the Gods of the state, honour should be given to the Gods below, and to them should be offered everything in even numbers and of the second choice; the auspicious odd numbers and everything of the first choice are reserved for the Gods above.  Next demi-gods or spirits must be honoured, and then heroes, and after them family gods, who will be worshipped at their local seats according to law.  Further, the honour due to parents should not be forgotten; children owe all that they have to them, and the debt must be repaid by kindness and attention in old age.  No unbecoming word must be uttered before them; for there is an avenging angel who hears them when they are angry, and the child should consider that the parent when he has been wronged has a right to be angry.  After their death let them have a moderate funeral, such as their fathers have had before them; and there shall be an annual commemoration of them.  Living on this wise, we shall be accepted of the Gods, and shall pass our days in good hope.  The law will determine all our various duties towards relatives and friends and other citizens, and the whole state will be happy and prosperous.  But if the legislator would persuade as well as command, he will add prefaces to his laws which will predispose the citizens to virtue.  Even a little accomplished in the way of gaining the hearts of men is of great value.  For most men are in no particular haste to become good.  As Hesiod says: 

’Long and steep is the first half of the way to virtue, But when you have reached the top the rest is easy.’

‘Those are excellent words.’  Yes; but may I tell you the effect which the preceding discourse has had upon me?  I will express my meaning in an address to the lawgiver:—­O lawgiver, if you know what we ought to do and say, you can surely tell us;—­you are not like the poet, who, as you were just now saying, does not know the effect of his own words.  And the poet may reply, that when he sits down on the tripod of the Muses he is not in his right mind, and that being a mere imitator he may be allowed to say all sorts of opposite things, and cannot tell which of them is true.  But this licence cannot be allowed to the lawgiver.  For example, there are three kinds of funerals; one of