But, rejoined Socrates, you will have to think differently, my Theban friend, if you still maintain that harmony is a compound, and that the soul is a harmony which is made out of strings set in the frame of the body ; for you will surely never allow yourself to say that a harmony is prior to the elements which compose the harmony.
No, Socrates, that is impossible.
But do you not see that you are saying this when you say that the soul existed before she took the form and body of man, and was made up of elements which as yet had no existence ? For harmony is not a sort of thing like the soul, as you suppose ; but first the lyre, and the strings, and the sounds exist in a state of discord, and then harmony is made last of all, and perishes first. And how can such a notion of the soul as this agree with the other ?
Not at all, replied Simmias.
And yet, he said, there surely ought to be harmony when harmony is the theme of discourse.
There ought, replied Simmias.
But there is no harmony, he said, in the two propositions that knowledge is recollection, and that the soul is a harmony. Which of them, then, will you retain ?
I think, he replied, that I have a much stronger faith, Socrates, in the first of the two, which has been fully demonstrated to me, than in the latter, which has not been demonstrated at all, but rests only on probable and plausible grounds ; and I know too well that these arguments from probabilities are impostors, and unless great caution is observed in the use of them they are apt to be deceptive — in geometry, and in other things too. But the doctrine of knowledge and recollection has been proven to me on trustworthy grounds ; and the proof was that the soul must have existed before she came into the body, because to her belongs the essence of which the very name implies existence. Having, as I am convinced, rightly accepted this conclusion, and on sufficient grounds, I must, as I suppose, cease to argue or allow others to argue that the soul is a harmony.
Let me put the matter, Simmias, he said, in another point of view : Do you imagine that a harmony or any other composition can be in a state other than that of the elements out of which it is compounded ?
Certainly not.
Or do or suffer anything other than they do or suffer ?
He agreed.
Then a harmony does not lead the parts or elements which make up the harmony, but only follows them.
He assented.
For harmony cannot possibly have any motion, or sound, or other quality which is opposed to the parts.
That would be impossible, he replied.
And does not every harmony depend upon the manner in which the elements are harmonized ?
I do not understand you, he said.
I mean to say that a harmony admits of degrees, and is more of a harmony, and more completely a harmony, when more completely harmonized, if that be possible ; and less of a harmony, and less completely a harmony, when less harmonized.
True.
But does the soul admit of degrees ? or is one soul in the very least degree more or less, or more or less completely, a soul than another ?
Not in the least.
Yet surely one soul is said to have intelligence and virtue, and to be good, and another soul is said to have folly and vice, and to be an evil soul : and this is said truly ?
Yes, truly.
But what will those who maintain the soul to be a harmony say of this presence of virtue and vice in the soul ? — Will they say that there is another harmony, and another discord, and that the virtuous soul is harmonized, and herself being a harmony has another harmony within her, and that the vicious soul is inharmonical and has no harmony within her ?
I cannot say, replied Simmias ; but I suppose that something of that kind would be asserted by those who take this view.
And the admission is already made that no soul is more a soul than another ; and this is equivalent to admitting that harmony is not more or less harmony, or more or less completely a harmony ?
Quite true.
And that which is not more or less a harmony is not more or less harmonized ?
True.
And that which is not more or less harmonized cannot have more or less of harmony, but only an equal harmony ?
Yes, an equal harmony.
Then one soul not being more or less absolutely a soul than another, is not more or less harmonized ?
Exactly.
And therefore has neither more nor less of harmony or of discord ?
She has not.
And having neither more nor less of harmony or of discord, one soul has no more vice or virtue than another, if vice be discord and virtue harmony ?
Not at all more.
Or speaking more correctly, Simmias, the soul, if she is a harmony, will never have any vice ; because a harmony, being absolutely a harmony, has no part in the inharmonical ?
No.
And therefore a soul which is absolutely a soul has no vice ?
How can she have, consistently with the preceding argument ?
Then, according to this, if the souls of all animals are equally and absolutely souls, they will be equally good ?
I agree with you, Socrates, he said.
And can all this be true, think you ? he said ; and are all these consequences admissible — which nevertheless seem to follow from the assumption that the soul is a harmony ?
Certainly not, he said.
Once more, he said, what ruling principle is there of human things other than the soul, and especially the wise soul ? Do you know of any ?
Indeed, I do not.
And is the soul in agreement with the affections of the body ? or is she at variance with them ? For example, when the body is hot and thirsty, does not the soul incline us against drinking ? and when the body is hungry, against eating ? And this is only one instance out of ten thousand of the opposition of the soul to the things of the body.
Very true.
But we have already acknowledged that the soul, being a harmony, can never utter a note at variance with the tensions and relaxations and vibrations and other affections of the strings out of which she is composed ; she can only follow, she cannot lead them ?
Yes, he said, we acknowledged that, certainly.
And yet do we not now discover the soul to be doing the exact opposite — leading the elements of which she is believed to be composed ; almost always opposing and coercing them in all sorts of ways throughout life, sometimes more violently with the pains of medicine and gymnastic ; then again more gently ; threatening and also reprimanding the desires, passions, fears, as if talking to a thing which is not herself, as Homer in the “Odyssey” represents Odysseus doing in the words,
“He beat his breast, and thus reproached his heart :
Endure, my heart ; far worse hast thou endured !”
Do you think that Homer could have written this under the idea that the soul is a harmony capable of being led by the affections of the body, and not rather of a nature which leads and masters them ; and herself a far diviner thing than any harmony ?
Yes, Socrates, I quite agree to that.
Then, my friend, we can never be right in saying that the soul is a harmony, for that would clearly contradict the divine Homer as well as ourselves.
True, he said.