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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: the original we may assume that words are akin to the matter which they
describe; when they relate to the lasting and permanent and intelligible,
they ought to be lasting and unalterable, and, as far as their nature
allows, irrefutable and immovable--nothing less. But when they express
only the copy or likeness and not the eternal things themselves, they need
only be likely and analogous to the real words. As being is to becoming,
so is truth to belief. If then, Socrates, amid the many opinions about the
gods and the generation of the universe, we are not able to give notions
which are altogether and in every respect exact and consistent with one
another, do not be surprised. Enough, if we adduce probabilities as likely
as any others; for we must remember that I who am the speaker, and you who
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