body

Socrates : Since, therefore, both of these are gains and gain-making affairs, we must now consider what it can be that leads you to call both of them gain : (230e) what is it that you see to be the same in both ? Suppose you were to ask me, in those instances that I gave just now, what it is that leads me to call both good food and evil food alike food, I should tell you — for this reason, because both are a dry sustenance of the BODY. For that, I am sure you would agree, is what food is, would you not ? HIPPARCHUS

Socrates : And so too about drink the answer would be on the same lines, that the wet sustenance of the BODY, (231a) whether it be wholesome or pernicious, has this name of drink ; and likewise with the rest. Try therefore on your part to imitate my method of answering. When you say that virtuous gain and wicked gain are both gain, what is it that you see to be the same in them, judging it to be the actual element of gain ? And if again you are yourself unable to answer, just let me put it for your consideration, whether you describe as gain every acquisition that one has acquired either with no expense, or as a profit over and above one’s expense. HIPPARCHUS

(134d) Then I went on and tried to compel him also to admit that everything else connected with the BODY when most beneficial, was the moderate thing, not the much or the little ; and he admitted that it was the moderate thing. LOVERS

Then whom should we be justified in asking what sort of exercise or food is moderate for the BODY ? LOVERS

So then, Socrates, when I hear you constantly making these speeches I admire you immensely and praise you to the skies. So too when you state the next point in your argument, that those who train their bodies but neglect their souls are guilty of another action of the same sort — neglecting the part that should rule, and attending to that which should be ruled. Also when you declare that whatsoever object a man knows not how to make use of, it is better for him to refrain from making use thereof ; thus, suppose a man knows not how to use his eyes or his ears or the whole of his BODY, it is better for such a man not to hear nor to see nor to employ his BODY for any other use rather than to use it in any way whatsoever. (408a) So too, likewise, with respect to art : it is surely plain that a man who does not know how to use his own lyre does not know either how to use his neighbor’s, and that one who does not know how to use the lyre of others does not know how to use his own either, — nor yet any other instrument or chattel. Moreover, the conclusion of this argument of yours is a fine one, — how that for every man<man who knows not how to make use of his soul it is better to have his soul at rest and not to live, than to live acting according to his own caprice ; but if it is necessary for him to live, (408b) it is better after all for such an one to spend his life as a slave rather than a free man, handing over the rudder of his will, as it were of a ship, to another man who has learnt the art of steering men — which is the name that you, Socrates, frequently give to politics, when you declare that this very same art is that of judging and justice. CLEITOPHON

Against these arguments and others of a like kind, exceedingly numerous and couched in exceedingly noble language, showing that virtue can be taught and that a man should care above all else for himself, I have hardly uttered a word up till now, nor do I suppose that I ever shall utter a word against them (408c) in the future, for I regard them as most valuable admonitions and most useful, literally capable of waking us up, as it were, out of our slumber. So I gave my attention with a view to hear what was to follow next, although I did not at first question you yourself, Socrates, but some of your contemporaries and fellow-students or companions — or whatever name one ought to give to the relation in which they stand towards you. Of these I questioned first those who are specially held in regard by yourself, (408d) asking them what was your next argument, and propounding the matter to them somewhat after your own fashion : “I ask you, my very good Sirs, in what sense do we now accept the exhortation to virtue which Socrates has given us. Are we to regard it as all there is, and suppose it to be impossible to pursue the object further and grasp it fully ; and is this to be our lifelong task, just to exhort those who have not as yet been exhorted, and that they in turn should exhort others ? Or, when we have agreed that this is exactly what a man should do, ought we to ask Socrates, and one another, (408e) the further question — “What is the next step ?” What do we say is the way in which we ought to begin the study of justice ? Just as if a man were exhorting us to devote care to our bodies, observing that we like children had as yet no notion of the existence of the arts of gymnastics and medicine ; and were then to reproach us and say that it is disgraceful to spend all one’s care on wheat and barley and vines and all the goods which we labor to acquire for the sake of the BODY, and yet make no effort to discover some art or device for securing that the BODY itself shall be in the best possible condition — and that in spite of the fact that such an art exists. Suppose then that we had put to the man who was thus exhorting us this further question — (409a) “What arts do you say these are ?” His answer, no doubt, would be — “Gymnastics and medicine.” So now, in the case before us, what do we say is the art which deals with the virtue of the soul ? Let it be stated.” CLEITOPHON

Consequently, methinks I will betake myself, in my perplexity, to Thrasymachus and to everyone else I can. However, if you are really willing (410d) to refrain at last from addressing to me these hortatory discourses, and just as you would have followed up the hortatory discourse, suppose you had been exhorting me in respect of gymnastics that I should not neglect my BODY, by explaining the nature of the BODY and the nature of the treatment it requires — so let the same course be followed in the present case. Assume that Cleitophon agrees that it is ridiculous to expend care on everything else and to neglect the soul, for the sake of which all the other labour is incurred ; (410e) and suppose also that I have made all the other subsequent statements which I rehearsed just now. And I entreat you, as I speak, by no means to act otherwise, lest I should do, as I do now, praise you in part to Lysias and to the others, and also in part blame you. For I shall maintain, Socrates, that while you are of untold value to a man who has not been exhorted, to him who has been exhorted you are almost an actual hindrance in the way of his attaining the goal of virtue and becoming a happy man. CLEITOPHON

(318a) Socrates : He is the best man to pasture the human herd of the BODY ? MINOS

Socrates : Come then, in good friendship’s name : if someone should ask us what it is that the good lawgiver and apportioner for the BODY distributes to it when he makes it better, we should say, if we were to make a correct and brief answer, that it was food and labor ; the former to strengthen, and the latter to exercise and brace it. MINOS

Socrates : But indeed it is shameful for the soul of either of us to be found ignorant of those things within it on which its good and abject states depend, while it has studied those that pertain to the BODY and rest. MINOS

(364a) Socrates : You are in a state of blessedness, Hippias, if at every Olympiad you come to the sanctuary with fair hopes concerning your soul and its wisdom ; and I should be surprised if any of the physical athletes when he goes to that same place to take part in the contests, has such fearless confidence in his BODY as you have in your intellect. LESSER HIPPIAS

Socrates : Do you see, Hippias, that I speak the truth (372b) when I say that I am persistent in questioning wise men ? And this is probably the only good thing about me, as I am otherwise quite worthless ; for I am all wrong about facts, and do not know the truth about them. And it is to me sufficient proof of the truth of this, that when I come into contact with one of you who are famous for wisdom, and to whose wisdom all the Greeks bear witness, I am found to know nothing ; (372c) for there is hardly a single thing about which you and I have the same opinion ; and yet what greater proof of ignorance is there than when one disagrees with a wise man ? But I have this one remarkable good quality, which is my salvation ; for I am not afraid to learn, but I inquire and ask questions and am very grateful to him who answers, and I never failed in gratitude to anyone ; for when I have learned anything I have never denied it, pretending that the information was a discovery of my own ; but I praise the wisdom of him who instructed me and proclaim what I learned from him. And so now I do not agree with what you say, (372d) but disagree very strongly ; and I know very well that this is my own fault, because I am the sort of man I am — not to give myself any greater title. For my opinion, Hippias, is the exact opposite of what you say ; I think that those who injure people and do wrong and speak falsehood and cheat and err voluntarily, not involuntarily, are better than those who do so involuntarily. Sometimes, however, the opposite of this seems to me to be the case, and I am all astray about these matters, (372e) evidently because I am ignorant ; but now at the present moment a sort of paroxysm of my disease has come upon me, and those who err in respect to anything voluntarily appear to me better than those who err involuntarily. And I lay the blame for my present condition upon our previous argument, which causes those who do any of these things involuntarily to appear to me at this moment worse than those who do them voluntarily. So please do me a favour and do not refuse to cure my soul ; for you will be doing me much more good if you cure my soul of ignorance, than if you were to cure my BODY of disease. (373a) Now if you choose to deliver a long speech, I tell you beforehand that you would not cure me — for I could not follow you — but if you are willing to answer me, as you did just now, you will do me a great deal of good, and I think you yourself will not be injured, either. And I might fairly call upon you also, son of Apemantus, for help ; for you stirred me up to converse with Hippias ; so now, if Hippias is unwilling to answer me, ask him in my behalf to do so. LESSER HIPPIAS

Socrates : And how is it in every other bodily exercise ? Is not he who is the better man in respect to his BODY able to perform both kinds of acts, the strong and the weak, the disgraceful and the fine, (374b) so that whenever he performs bad acts of a bodily kind, he who is the better man in respect to his BODY does them voluntarily, but he who is worse does them involuntarily ? LESSER HIPPIAS

Socrates : And how about grace, Hippias ? Does not the better BODY take ugly and bad postures voluntarily, and the worse BODY involuntarily ? Or what is your opinion ? LESSER HIPPIAS

Socrates : Then ungracefulness when voluntary is associated with excellence of the BODY, (374c) but when involuntary with faultiness. LESSER HIPPIAS

Socrates : Then, too, in the same way we say that the whole BODY is beautiful, part of it for running, part for wrestling ; (295d) and again all the animals, a beautiful horse or cock or quail and all utensils and land vehicles, and on the sea freight-ships and ships of war ; and all instruments in music and in the other arts, and, if you like, customs and laws also — pretty well all these we call beautiful in the same way looking at each of them — how it is formed by nature, how it is wrought, how it has been enacted — the useful we call beautiful, and beautiful in the way in which it is useful, and for the purpose for which it is useful, and at the time when it is useful ; (295e) and that which is in all these aspects useless we say is ugly. Now is not this your opinion also, Hippias ? GREATER HIPPIAS

Hippias : But now, Socrates, what do you think all this amounts to ? It is mere scrapings and shavings of discourse, as I said a while ago, divided into bits ; but that other ability is beautiful and of great worth, the ability to produce a discourse well and beautifully in a court of law or a council-house or before any other public BODY before which the discourse may be delivered, (304b) to convince the audience and to carry off, not the smallest, but the greatest of prizes, the salvation of oneself, one’s property, and one’s friends. For these things, therefore, one must strive, renouncing these petty arguments, that one may not, by busying oneself, as at present, with mere talk and nonsense, appear to be a fool. GREATER HIPPIAS

Then I proceeded to say : Well, but are you aware of the danger which you are incurring ? If you were going to commit your BODY to some one, who might do good or harm to it, would you not carefully consider and ask the opinion of your friends and kindred, and deliberate many days as to whether you should give him the care of your BODY ? But when the soul is in question, which you hold to be of far more value than the BODY, and upon the good or evil of which depends the well-being of your all, — about this never consulted either with your father or with your brother or with any one of us who are your companions. But no sooner does this foreigner appear, than you instantly commit your soul to his keeping. In the evening, as you say, you hear of him, and in the morning you go to him, never deliberating or taking the opinion of any one as to whether you ought to intrust yourself to him or not ; — you have quite made up your mind that you will at all hazards be a pupil of Protagoras, and are prepared to expend all the property of yourself and of your friends in carrying out at any price this determination, although, as you admit, you do not know him, and have never spoken with him : and you call him a Sophist, but are manifestly ignorant of what a Sophist is ; and yet you are going to commit yourself to his keeping. PROTAGORAS

Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul ; and we must take care, my friend, that the Sophist does not deceive us when he praises what he sells, like the dealers wholesale or retail who sell the food of the BODY ; for they praise indiscriminately all their goods, without knowing what are really beneficial or hurtful : neither do their customers know, with the exception of any trainer or physician who may happen to buy of them. In like manner those who carry about the wares of knowledge, and make the round of the cities, and sell or retail them to any customer who is in want of them, praise them all alike ; though I should not wonder, O my friend, if many of them were really ignorant of their effect upon the soul ; and their customers equally ignorant, unless he who buys of them happens to be a physician of the soul. If, therefore, you have understanding of what is good and evil, you may safely buy knowledge of Protagoras or of any one ; but if not, then, O my friend, pause, and do not hazard your dearest interests at a game of chance. For there is far greater peril in buying knowledge than in buying meat and drink : the one you purchase of the wholesale or retail dealer, and carry them away in other vessels, and before you receive them into the BODY as food, you may deposit them at home and call in any experienced friend who knows what is good to be eaten or drunken, and what not, and how much, and when ; and then the danger of purchasing them is not so great. But you cannot buy the wares of knowledge and carry them away in another vessel ; when you have paid for them you must receive them into the soul and go your way, either greatly harmed or greatly benefited ; and therefore we should deliberate and take counsel with our elders ; for we are still young — too young to determine such a matter. And now let us go, as we were intending, and hear Protagoras ; and when we have heard what he has to say, we may take counsel of others ; for not only is Protagoras at the house of Callias, but there is Hippias of Elis, and, if I am not mistaken, Prodicus of Ceos, and several other wise men. PROTAGORAS

Certainly not the last, he replied ; for I know of many things-meats, drinks, medicines, and ten thousand other things, which are inexpedient for man, and some which are expedient ; and some which are neither expedient nor inexpedient for man, but only for horses ; and some for oxen only, and some for dogs ; and some for no animals, but only for trees ; and some for the roots of trees and not for their branches, as for example, manure, which is a good thing when laid about the roots of a tree, but utterly destructive if thrown upon the shoots and young branches ; or I may instance olive oil, which is mischievous to all plants, and generally most injurious to the hair of every animal with the exception of man, but beneficial to human hair and to the human BODY generally ; and even in this application (so various and changeable is the nature of the benefit), that which is the greatest good to the outward parts of a man, is a very great evil to his inward parts : and for this reason physicians always forbid their patients the use of oil in their food, except in very small quantities, just enough to extinguish the disagreeable sensation of smell in meats and sauces. PROTAGORAS

Prodicus added : That, Critias, seems to me to be well said, for those who are present at such discussions ought to be impartial hearers of both the speakers ; remembering, however, that impartiality is not the same as equality, for both sides should be impartially heard, and yet an equal meed should not be assigned to both of them ; but to the wiser a higher meed should be given, and a lower to the less wise. And I as well as Critias would beg you, Protagoras and Socrates, to grant our request, which is, that you will argue with one another and not wrangle ; for friends argue with friends out of goodwill, but only adversaries and enemies wrangle. And then our meeting will be delightful ; for in this way you, who are the speakers, will be most likely to win esteem, and not praise only, among us who are your audience ; for esteem is a sincere conviction of the hearers’ souls, but praise is often an insincere expression of men uttering falsehoods contrary to their conviction. And thus we who are the hearers will be gratified and not pleased ; for gratification is of the mind when receiving wisdom and knowledge, but pleasure is of the BODY when eating or experiencing some other bodily delight. Thus spoke Prodicus, and many of the company applauded his words. PROTAGORAS

Nay, Socrates, he replied, you are mistaken in your remembrance of what was said by me. When you asked me, I certainly did say that the courageous are the confident ; but I was never asked whether the confident are the courageous ; if you had asked me, I should have answered “Not all of them” : and what I did answer you have not proved to be false, although you proceeded to show that those who have knowledge are more courageous than they were before they had knowledge, and more courageous than others who have no knowledge, and were then led on to think that courage is the same as wisdom. But in this way of arguing you might come to imagine that strength is wisdom. You might begin by asking whether the strong are able, and I should say “Yes” ; and then whether those who know how to wrestle are not more able to wrestle than those who do not know how to wrestle, and more able after than before they had learned, and I should assent. And when I had admitted this, you might use my admissions in such a way as to prove that upon my view wisdom is strength ; whereas in that case I should not have admitted, any more than in the other, that the able are strong, although I have admitted that the strong are able. For there is a difference between ability and strength ; the former is given by knowledge as well as by madness or rage, but strength comes from nature and a healthy state of the BODY. And in like manner I say of confidence and courage, that they are not the same ; and I argue that the courageous are confident, but not all the confident courageous. For confidence may be given to men by art, and also, like ability, by madness and rage ; but courage comes to them from nature and the healthy state of the soul. PROTAGORAS

And first, I have to reply to the older charges and to my first accusers, and then I will go to the later ones. For I have had many accusers, who accused me of old, and their false charges have continued during many years ; and I am more afraid of them than of Anytus and his associates, who are dangerous, too, in their own way. But far more dangerous are these, who began when you were children, and took possession of your minds with their falsehoods, telling of one Socrates, a wise man, who speculated about the heaven above, and searched into the earth beneath, and made the worse appear the better cause. These are the accusers whom I dread ; for they are the circulators of this rumor, and their hearers are too apt to fancy that speculators of this sort do not believe in the gods. And they are many, and their charges against me are of ancient date, and they made them in days when you were impressible — in childhood, or perhaps in youth — and the cause when heard went by default, for there was none to answer. And, hardest of all, their names I do not know and cannot tell ; unless in the chance of a comic poet. But the main BODY of these slanderers who from envy and malice have wrought upon you — and there are some of them who are convinced themselves, and impart their convictions to others — all these, I say, are most difficult to deal with ; for I cannot have them up here, and examine them, and therefore I must simply fight with shadows in my own defence, and examine when there is no one who answers. I will ask you then to assume with me, as I was saying, that my opponents are of two kinds — one recent, the other ancient ; and I hope that you will see the propriety of my answering the latter first, for these accusations you heard long before the others, and much oftener. APOLOGY

Cr. Clearly, affecting the BODY ; that is what is destroyed by the evil. CRITO

Soc. Take a parallel instance : if, acting under the advice of men who have no understanding, we destroy that which is improvable by health and deteriorated by disease — when that has been destroyed, I say, would life be worth having ? And that is — the BODY ? CRITO

Soc. Could we live, having an evil and corrupted BODY ? CRITO

Soc. And will life be worth having, if that higher part of man be depraved, which is improved by justice and deteriorated by injustice ? Do we suppose that principle, whatever it may be in man, which has to do with justice and injustice, to be inferior to the BODY ? Cr. Certainly not. CRITO

(103a) Socrates : Son of Cleinias, I think it must surprise you that I, the first of all your lovers, am the only one of them who has not given up his suit and thrown you over, and whereas they have all pestered you with their conversation I have not spoken one word to you for so many years. The cause of this has been nothing human, but a certain spiritual opposition, of whose power you shall be informed at some later time. However, it now opposes me no longer, (103b) so I have accordingly come to you ; and I am in good hopes that it will not oppose me again in the future. Now I have been observing you all this time, and have formed a pretty good notion of your behavior to your lovers : for although they were many and high-spirited, everyone of them has found your spirit too strong for him and has run away. (104a) Let me explain the reason of your spirit being too much for them. You say you have no need of any man in any matter ; for your resources are so great, beginning with the BODY and ending with the soul, that you lack nothing. You think, in the first place, that you are foremost in beauty and stature — and you are not mistaken in this, as is plain for all to see — and in the second place, that you are of the most gallant family in your city, the greatest city in Greece, and (104b) that there you have, through your father, very many of the best people as your friends and kinsmen, who would assist you in case of need, and other connections also, through your mother, who are not a whit inferior to these, nor fewer. And you reckon upon a stronger power than all those that I have mentioned, in Pericles, son of Xanthippus, whom your father left as guardian of you and your brother when he died, and who is able to do whatever he likes not only in this city but all over Greece and among many great nations of the barbarians. (104c) And I will add besides the wealth of your house : but on this, I observe, you presume least of all. Well, you puff yourself up on all these advantages, and have overcome your lovers, while they in their inferiority have yielded to your might, and all this has not escaped you ; so I am very sure that you wonder what on earth I mean by not getting rid of my passion, and what can be my hope in remaining when the rest have fled. ALCIBIADES I

Socrates : And what is it that becomes present or absent when we get this better management and preservation ? If, for example, you should ask me, “What is it that becomes present or absent when the BODY is better managed and preserved ?” — I should reply, “Health becomes present, and disease absent.” Do not you think so too ? ALCIBIADES I

Socrates : And likewise clothes and coverlets belong to the whole BODY ? ALCIBIADES I

Socrates : And is it not the same one for making our feet as for making the whole BODY better ? ALCIBIADES I

Socrates : And by gymnastic over the BODY, but by weaving (128d) and the rest over what belongs to the BODY ? ALCIBIADES I

Socrates : And man uses his whole BODY too ? ALCIBIADES I

Socrates : So man is different from his own BODY ? ALCIBIADES I

Socrates : Oh, but you can — that he is the user of the BODY. ALCIBIADES I

Socrates : Soul, BODY, or both together as one whole. ALCIBIADES I

Socrates : But yet we have admitted that what actually rules the BODY is man ? ALCIBIADES I

Socrates : And does the BODY rule itself ? ALCIBIADES I

Socrates : Well then, does the combination of the two rule the BODY, so that we are to regard this as man ? ALCIBIADES I

(130c) Socrates : But since neither the BODY nor the combination of the two is man, we are reduced, I suppose, to this : either man is nothing at all, or if something, he turns out to be nothing else than soul. ALCIBIADES I

Socrates : And anyone who gets to know something belonging to the BODY knows the things that are his, but not himself. ALCIBIADES I

Socrates : And farmers, and craftsmen generally, are far from knowing themselves. For these people, it would seem, do not even know their own things, but only things still more remote than their own things, in respect of the arts which they follow ; since they know (131b) but the things of the BODY, with which it is tended. ALCIBIADES I

Socrates : Then once again, whoever tends his BODY tends his own things, but not himself ? ALCIBIADES I

Socrates : And if anyone is found to be a lover of Alcibiades’ BODY, he has fallen in love, not with Alcibiades, but with something belonging to Alcibiades ? ALCIBIADES I

Socrates : And he who loves your BODY quits you, and is gone, as soon as its bloom is over ? ALCIBIADES I

Then, before we see his BODY, should we not ask him to show us his soul, naked and undisguised ? he is just of an age at which he will like to talk. CHARMIDES

I am glad to find that you remember me, I said ; for I shall now be more at home with you and shall be better able to explain the nature of the charm, about which I felt a difficulty before. For the charm will do more, Charmides, than only cure the headache. I dare say that you have heard eminent physicians say to a patient who comes to them with bad eyes, that they cannot cure his eyes by themselves, but that if his eyes are to be cured, his head must be treated ; and then again they say that to think of curing the head alone, and not the rest of the BODY also, is the height of folly. And arguing in this way they apply their methods to the whole BODY, and try to treat and heal the whole and the part together. Did you ever observe that this is what they say ? CHARMIDES

His approving answers reassured me, and I began by degrees to regain confidence, and the vital heat returned. Such, Charmides, I said, is the nature of the charm, which I learned when serving with the army from one of the physicians of the Thracian king Zamolxis, who are to be so skilful that they can even give immortality. This Thracian told me that in these notions of theirs, which I was just now mentioning, the Greek physicians are quite right as far as they go ; but Zamolxis, he added, our king, who is also a god, says further, “that as you ought not to attempt to cure the eyes without the head, or the head without the BODY, so neither ought you to attempt to cure the BODY without the soul ; and this,” he said, “is the reason why the cure of many diseases is unknown to the physicians of Hellas, because they are ignorant of the whole, which ought to be studied also ; for the part can never be well unless the whole is well.” For all good and evil, whether in the BODY or in human nature, originates, as he declared, in the soul, and overflows from thence, as if from the head into the eyes. And therefore if the head and BODY are to be well, you must begin by curing the soul ; that is the first thing. And the cure, my dear youth, has to be effected by the use of certain charms, and these charms are fair words ; and by them temperance is implanted in the soul, and where temperance is, there health is speedily imparted, not only to the head, but to the whole BODY. And he who taught me the cure and the charm at the same time added a special direction : “Let no one,” he said, “persuade you to cure the head, until he has first given you his soul to be cured by the charm. For this,” he said, “is the great error of our day in the treatment of the human BODY, that physicians separate the soul from the BODY.” And he added with emphasis, at the same time making me swear to his words, “Let no one, however rich, or noble, or fair, persuade you to give him the cure, without the charm.” Now I have sworn, and I must keep my oath, and therefore if you will allow me to apply the Thracian charm first to your soul, as the stranger directed, I will afterwards proceed to apply the cure to your head. But if not, I do not know what I am to do with you, my dear Charmides. CHARMIDES

Then, in reference to the BODY, not quietness, but quickness will be the higher degree of temperance, if temperance is a good ? CHARMIDES

And in all that concerns either BODY or soul, swiftness and activity are clearly better than slowness and quietness ? CHARMIDES

And does not this seem to put us in the right way ? Just remark, that the BODY which is in health requires neither medical nor any other aid, but is well enough ; and the healthy man has no love of the physician, because he is in health. LYSIS

But the human BODY, regarded as a BODY, is neither good nor evil ? LYSIS

And the BODY is compelled by reason of disease to court and make friends of the art of medicine ? LYSIS

And so, Lysis and Menexenus, we have discovered the nature of friendship — there can be no doubt of it : Friendship is the love which by reason of the presence of evil the neither good nor evil has of the good, either in the soul, or in the BODY, or anywhere. LYSIS

And we were saying, I believe, that the BODY being neither good nor evil, because of disease, that is to say because of evil, is the friend of medicine, and medicine is a good : and medicine has entered into this friendship for the sake of health, and health is a good. LYSIS

And the good is loved for the sake of the evil ? Let me put the case in this way : Suppose that of the three principles, good, evil, and that which is neither good nor evil, there remained only the good and the neutral, and that evil went far away, and in no way affected soul or BODY, nor ever at all that class of things which, as we say, are neither good nor evil in themselves ; — would the good be of any use, or other than useless to us ? For if there were nothing to hurt us any longer, we should have no need of anything that would do us good. Then would be clearly seen that we did but love and desire the good because of the evil, and as the remedy of the evil, which was the disease ; but if there had been no disease, there would have been no need of a remedy. Is not this the nature of the good — to be loved by us who are placed between the two, because of the evil ? but there is no use in the good for its own sake. LYSIS

Soc. And does not gymnastic also treat of discourse concerning the good or evil condition of the BODY ? GORGIAS

Soc. I mean to say, that the producers of those things which the author of the song praises, that is to say, the physician, the trainer, the money-maker, will at once come to you, and first the physician will say : “O Socrates, Gorgias is deceiving you, for my art is concerned with the greatest good of men and not his.” And when I ask, Who are you ? he will reply, “I am a physician.” What do you mean ? I shall say. Do you mean that your art produces the greatest good ? “Certainly,” he will answer, “for is not health the greatest good ? What greater good can men have, Socrates ?” And after him the trainer will come and say, “I too, Socrates, shall be greatly surprised if Gorgias can show more good of his art than I can show of mine.” To him again I shall say, Who are you, honest friend, and what is your business ? “I am a trainer,” he will reply, “and my business is to make men beautiful and strong in BODY.” When I have done with the trainer, there arrives the money-maker, and he, as I expect, utterly despise them all. “Consider Socrates,” he will say, “whether Gorgias or any one else can produce any greater good than wealth.” Well, you and I say to him, and are you a creator of wealth ? “Yes,” he replies. And who are you ? “A money-maker.” And do you consider wealth to be the greatest good of man ? “Of course,” will be his reply. And we shall rejoin : Yes ; but our friend Gorgias contends that his art produces a greater good than yours. And then he will be sure to go on and ask, “What good ? Let Gorgias answer.” Now I want you, Gorgias, to imagine that this question is asked of you by them and by me ; What is that which, as you say, is the greatest good of man, and of which you are the creator ? Answer us. GORGIAS

Soc. And this applies not only to the BODY, but also to the soul : in either there may be that which gives the appearance of health and not the reality ? GORGIAS

Soc. And now I will endeavour to explain to you more clearly what I mean : The soul and BODY being two, have two arts corresponding to them : there is the art of politics attending on the soul ; and another art attending on the BODY, of which I know no single name, but which may be described as having two divisions, one of them gymnastic, and the other medicine. And in politics there is a legislative part, which answers to gymnastic, as justice does to medicine ; and the two parts run into one another, justice having to do with the same subject as legislation, and medicine with the same subject as gymnastic, but with a difference. Now, seeing that there are these four arts, two attending on the BODY and two on the soul for their highest good ; flattery knowing, or rather guessing their natures, has distributed herself into four shams or simulations of them ; she puts on the likeness of some one or other of them, and pretends to be that which she simulates, and having no regard for men’s highest interests, is ever making pleasure the bait of the unwary, and deceiving them into the belief that she is of the highest value to them. Cookery simulates the disguise of medicine, and pretends to know what food is the best for the BODY ; and if the physician and the cook had to enter into a competition in which children were the judges, or men who had no more sense than children, as to which of them best understands the goodness or badness of food, the physician would be starved to death. A flattery I deem this to be and of an ignoble sort, Polus, for to you I am now addressing myself, because it aims at pleasure without any thought of the best. An art I do not call it, but only an experience, because it is unable to explain or to give a reason of the nature of its own applications. And I do not call any irrational thing an art ; but if you dispute my words, I am prepared to argue in defence of them. GORGIAS

as cookery : medicine : : rhetoric : justice. And this, I say, is the natural difference between the rhetorician and the sophist, but by reason of their near connection, they are apt to be jumbled up together ; neither do they know what to make of themselves, nor do other men know what to make of them. For if the BODY presided over itself, and were not under the guidance of the soul, and the soul did not discern and discriminate between cookery and medicine, but the BODY was made the judge of them, and the rule of judgment was the bodily delight which was given by them, then the word of Anaxagoras, that word with which you, friend Polus, are so well acquainted, would prevail far and wide : “Chaos” would come again, and cookery, health, and medicine would mingle in an indiscriminate mass. And now I have told you my notion of rhetoric, which is, in relation to the soul, what cookery is to the BODY. I may have been inconsistent in making a long speech, when I would not allow you to discourse at length. But I think that I may be excused, because you did not understand me, and could make no use of my answer when I spoke shortly, and therefore I had to enter into explanation. And if I show an equal inability to make use of yours, I hope that you will speak at equal length ; but if I am able to understand you, let me have the benefit of your brevity, as is only fair : And now you may do what you please with my answer. GORGIAS

Soc. So then, in mind, BODY, and estate, which are three, you have pointed out three corresponding evils — injustice, disease, poverty ? GORGIAS

Soc. He would seem as if he did not know the nature of health and bodily vigour ; and if we are right, Polus, in our previous conclusions, they are in a like case who strive to evade justice, which they see to be painful, but are blind to the advantage which ensues from it, not knowing how far more miserable a companion a diseased soul is than a diseased BODY ; a soul, I say, which is corrupt and unrighteous and unholy. And hence they do all that they can to avoid punishment and to avoid being released from the greatest of evils ; they provide themselves with money and friends, and cultivate to the utmost their powers of persuasion. But if we, Polus, are right, do you see what follows, or shall we draw out the consequences in form ? GORGIAS

Who knows if life be not death and death life ; and that we are very likely dead ; I have heard a philosopher say that at this moment we are actually dead, and that the BODY (soma) is our tomb (sema), and that the part of the soul which is the seat of the desires is liable to be tossed about by words and blown up and down ; and some ingenious person, probably a Sicilian or an Italian, playing with the word, invented a tale in which he called the soul — because of its believing and make-believe nature — a vessel, and the ignorant he called the uninitiated or leaky, and the place in the souls of the uninitiated in which the desires are seated, being the intemperate and incontinent part, he compared to a vessel full of holes, because it can never be satisfied. He is not of your way of thinking, Callicles, for he declares, that of all the souls in Hades, meaning the invisible world these uninitiated or leaky persons are the most miserable, and that they pour water into a vessel which is full of holes out of a colander which is similarly perforated. The colander, as my informer assures me, is the soul, and the soul which he compares to a colander is the soul of the ignorant, which is likewise full of holes, and therefore incontinent, owing to a bad memory and want of faith. These notions are strange enough, but they show the principle which, if I can, I would fain prove to you ; that you should change your mind, and, instead of the intemperate and insatiate life, choose that which is orderly and sufficient and has a due provision for daily needs. Do I make any impression on you, and are you coming over to the opinion that the orderly are happier than the intemperate ? Or do I fail to persuade you, and, however many tales I rehearse to you, do you continue of the same opinion still ? GORGIAS

Soc. Do you see the inference : — that pleasure and pain are simultaneous, when you say that being thirsty, you drink ? For are they not simultaneous, and do they not affect at the same time the same part, whether of the soul or the BODY ? — which of them is affected cannot be supposed to be of any consequence : Is not this true ? GORGIAS

Soc. Then I will proceed, and ask whether you also agree with me, and whether you think that I spoke the truth when I further said to Gorgias and Polus that cookery in my opinion is only an experience, and not an art at all ; and that whereas medicine is an art, and attends to the nature and constitution of the patient, and has principles of action and reason in each case, cookery in attending upon pleasure never regards either the nature or reason of that pleasure to which she devotes herself, but goes straight to her end, nor ever considers or calculates anything, but works by experience and routine, and just preserves the recollection of what she has usually done when producing pleasure. And first, I would have you consider whether I have proved what I was saying, and then whether there are not other similar processes which have to do with the soul — some of them processes of art, making a provision for the soul’s highest interest — others despising the interest, and, as in the previous case, considering only the pleasure of the soul, and how this may be acquired, but not considering what pleasures are good or bad, and having no other aim but to afford gratification, whether good or bad. In my opinion, Callicles, there are such processes, and this is the sort of thing which I term flattery, whether concerned with the BODY or the soul, or whenever employed with a view to pleasure and without any consideration of good and evil. And now I wish that you would tell me whether you agree with us in this notion, or whether you differ. GORGIAS

Soc. Yet, surely, Callicles, if you look you will find such a one. Suppose that we just calmly consider whether any of these was such as I have described. Will not the good man, who says whatever he says with a view to the best, speak with a reference to some standard and not at random ; just as all other artists, whether the painter, the builder, the shipwright, or any other look all of them to their own work, and do not select and apply at random what they apply, but strive to give a definite form to it ? The artist disposes all things in order, and compels the one part to harmonize and accord with the other part, until he has constructed a regular and systematic whole ; and this is true of all artists, and in the same way the trainers and physicians, of whom we spoke before, give order and regularity to the BODY : do you deny this ? GORGIAS

Soc. And the same may be said of the human BODY ? GORGIAS

Soc. What is the name which is given to the effect of harmony and order in the BODY ? GORGIAS

Soc. Well, if you had rather that I should, I will ; and you shall say whether you agree with me, and if not, you shall refute and answer me. “Healthy,” as I conceive, is the name which is given to the regular order of the BODY, whence comes health and every other bodily excellence : is that true or not ? GORGIAS

Soc. For what use is there, Callicles, in giving to the BODY of a sick man who is in a bad state of health a quantity of the most delightful food or drink or any other pleasant thing, which may be really as bad for him as if you gave him nothing, or even worse if rightly estimated. Is not that true ? GORGIAS

Soc. For in my opinion there is no profit in a man’s life if his BODY is in an evil plight — in that case his life also is evil : am I not right ? GORGIAS

Soc. Listen to me, then, while I recapitulate the argument : — Is the pleasant the same as the good ? Not the same. Callicles and I are agreed about that. And is the pleasant to be pursued for the sake of the good ? or the good for the sake of the pleasant ? The pleasant is to be pursued for the sake of the good. And that is pleasant at the presence of which we are pleased, and that is good at the presence of which we are good ? To be sure. And we — good, and all good things whatever are good when some virtue is present in us or them ? That, Callicles, is my conviction. But the virtue of each thing, whether BODY or soul, instrument or creature, when given to them in the best way comes to them not by chance but as the result of the order and truth and art which are imparted to them : Am I not right ? I maintain that I am. And is not the virtue of each thing dependent on order or arrangement ? Yes, I say. And that which makes a thing good is the proper order inhering in each thing ? Such is my view. And is not the soul which has an order of her own better than that which has no order ? Certainly. And the soul which has order is orderly ? Of course. And that which is orderly is temperate ? Assuredly. And the temperate soul is good ? No other answer can I give, Callicles dear ; have you any ? GORGIAS

And now, these things being as we have said, let us proceed in the next place to consider whether you are right in throwing in my teeth that I am unable to help myself or any of my friends or kinsmen, or to save them in the extremity of danger, and that I am in the power of another like an outlaw to whom anyone may do what he likes — he may box my ears, which was a brave saying of yours ; or take away my goods or banish me, or even do his worst and kill me ; a condition which, as you say, is the height of disgrace. My answer to you is one which has been already often repeated, but may as well be repeated once more. I tell you, Callicles, that to be boxed on the ears wrongfully is not the worst evil which can befall a man, nor to have my purse or my BODY cut open, but that to smite and slay me and mine wrongfully is far more disgraceful and more evil ; aye, and to despoil and enslave and pillage, or in any way at all to wrong me and mine, is far more disgraceful and evil to the doer of the wrong than to me who am the sufferer. These truths, which have been already set forth as I state them in the previous discussion, would seem now to have been fixed and riveted by us, if I may use an expression which is certainly bold, in words which are like bonds of iron and adamant ; and unless you or some other still more enterprising hero shall break them, there is no possibility of denying what I say. For my position has always been, that I myself am ignorant how these things are, but that I have never met any one who could say otherwise, any more than you can, and not appear ridiculous. This is my position still, and if what I am saying is true, and injustice is the greatest of evils to the doer of injustice, and yet there is if possible a greater than this greatest of evils, in an unjust man not suffering retribution, what is that defence of which the want will make a man truly ridiculous ? Must not the defence be one which will avert the greatest of human evils ? And will not worst of all defences be that with which a man is unable to defend himself or his family or his friends ? — and next will come that which is unable to avert the next greatest evil ; thirdly that which is unable to avert the third greatest evil ; and so of other evils. As is the greatness of evil so is the honour of being able to avert them in their several degrees, and the disgrace of not being able to avert them. Am I not right Callicles ? GORGIAS

Soc. And yet surely swimming saves a man from death, there are occasions on which he must know how to swim. And if you despise the swimmers, I will tell you of another and greater art, the art of the pilot, who not only saves the souls of men, but also their bodies and properties from the extremity of danger, just like rhetoric. Yet his art is modest and unpresuming : it has no airs or pretences of doing anything extraordinary, and, in return for the same salvation which is given by the pleader, demands only two obols, if he brings us from Aegina to Athens, or for the longer voyage from Pontus or Egypt, at the utmost two drachmae, when he has saved, as I was just now saying, the passenger and his wife and children and goods, and safely disembarked them at the Piraeus — this is the payment which he asks in return for so great a boon ; and he who is the master of the art, and has done all this, gets out and walks about on the sea-shore by his ship in an unassuming way. For he is able to reflect and is aware that he cannot tell which of his fellow-passengers he has benefited, and which of them he has injured in not allowing them to be drowned. He knows that they are just the same when he has disembarked them as when they embarked, and not a whit better either in their bodies or in their souls ; and he considers that if a man who is afflicted by great and incurable bodily diseases is only to be pitied for having escaped, and is in no way benefited by him in having been saved from drowning, much less he who has great and incurable diseases, not of the BODY, but of the soul, which is the more valuable part of him ; neither is life worth having nor of any profit to the bad man, whether he be delivered from the sea, or the law-courts, or any other devourer — and so he reflects that such a one had better not live, for he cannot live well. GORGIAS

Soc. The reason is, Callicles, that the love of Demus which abides in your soul is an adversary to me ; but I dare say that if we recur to these same matters, and consider them more thoroughly, you may be convinced for all that. Please, then, to remember that there are two processes of training all things, including BODY and soul ; in the one, as we said, we treat them with a view to pleasure, and in the other with a view to the highest good, and then we do not indulge but resist them : was not that the distinction which we drew ? GORGIAS

Soc. And the other had in view the greatest improvement of that which was ministered to, whether BODY or soul ? GORGIAS

Soc. O, my dear friend, I say nothing against them regarded as the serving-men of the State ; and I do think that they were certainly more serviceable than those who are living now, and better able to gratify the wishes of the State ; but as to transforming those desires and not allowing them to have their way, and using the powers which they had, whether of persuasion or of force, in the improvement of their fellow citizens, which is the prime object of the truly good citizen, I do not see that in these respects they were a whit superior to our present statesmen, although I do admit that they were more clever at providing ships and walls and docks, and all that. You and I have a ridiculous way, for during the whole time that we are arguing, we are always going round and round to the same point, and constantly misunderstanding one another. If I am not mistaken, you have admitted and acknowledged more than once, that there are two kinds of operations which have to do with the BODY, and two which have to do with the soul : one of the two is ministerial, and if our bodies are hungry provides food for them, and if they are thirsty gives them drink, or if they are cold supplies them with garments, blankets, shoes, and all that they crave. I use the same images as before intentionally, in order that you may understand me the better. The purveyor of the articles may provide them either wholesale or retail, or he may be the maker of any of them, — the baker, or the cook, or the weaver, or the shoemaker, or the currier ; and in so doing, being such as he is, he is naturally supposed by himself and every one to minister to the BODY. For none of them know that there is another art — an art of gymnastic and medicine which is the true minister of the BODY, and ought to be the mistress of all the rest, and to use their results according to the knowledge which she has and they have not, of the real good or bad effects of meats and drinks on the BODY. All other arts which have to do with the BODY are servile and menial and illiberal ; and gymnastic and medicine are, as they ought to be, their mistresses. GORGIAS

Now, when I say that all this is equally true of the soul, you seem at first to know and understand and assent to my words, and then a little while afterwards you come repeating, Has not the State had good and noble citizens ? and when I ask you who they are, you reply, seemingly quite in earnest as if I had asked, Who are or have been good trainers ? — and you had replied, Thearion, the baker, Mithoecus, who wrote the Sicilian cookery-book, Sarambus, the vintner : these are ministers of the BODY, first-rate in their art ; for the first makes admirable loaves, the second excellent dishes, and the third capital wine — to me these appear to be the exact parallel of the statesmen whom you mention. Now you would not be altogether pleased if I said to you, My friend, you know nothing of gymnastics ; those of whom you are speaking to me are only the ministers and purveyors of luxury, who have no good or noble notions of their art, and may very likely be filling and fattening men’s bodies and gaining their approval, although the result is that they lose their original flesh in the long run, and become thinner than they were before ; and yet they, in their simplicity, will not attribute their diseases and loss of flesh to their entertainers ; but when in after years the unhealthy surfeit brings the attendant penalty of disease, he who happens to be near them at the time, and offers them advice, is accused and blamed by them, and if they could they would do him some harm ; while they proceed to eulogize the men who have been the real authors of the mischief. GORGIAS

From this tale, Callicles, which I have heard and believe, I draw the following inferences : — Death, if I am right, is in the first place the separation from one another of two things, soul and BODY ; nothing else. And after they are separated they retain their several natures, as in life ; the BODY keeps the same habit, and the results of treatment or accident are distinctly visible in it : for example, he who by nature or training or both, was a tall man while he was alive, will remain as he was, after he is dead ; and the fat man will remain fat ; and so on ; and the dead man, who in life had a fancy to have flowing hair, will have flowing hair. And if he was marked with the whip and had the prints of the scourge, or of wounds in him when he was alive, you might see the same in the dead BODY ; and if his limbs were broken or misshapen when he was alive, the same appearance would be visible in the dead. And in a word, whatever was the habit of the BODY during life would be distinguishable after death, either perfectly, or in a great measure and for a certain time. And I should imagine that this is equally true of the soul, Callicles ; when a man is stripped of the BODY, all the natural or acquired affections of the soul are laid open to view. And when they come to the judge, as those from Asia come to Rhadamanthus, he places them near him and inspects them quite impartially, not knowing whose the soul is : perhaps he may lay hands on the soul of the great king, or of some other king or potentate, who has no soundness in him, but his soul is marked with the whip, and is full of the prints and scars of perjuries and crimes with which each action has stained him, and he is all crooked with falsehood and imposture, and has no straightness, because he has lived without truth. Him Rhadamanthus beholds, full of all deformity and disproportion, which is caused by licence and luxury and insolence and incontinence, and despatches him ignominiously to his prison, and there he undergoes the punishment which he deserves. GORGIAS

Her. I will take that which appears to me to follow next in order. You know the distinction of soul and BODY ? CRATYLUS

Soc. You want me first of all to examine the natural fitness of the word psnche (soul), and then of the word soma (BODY) ? CRATYLUS

Soc. If I am to say what occurs to me at the moment, I should imagine that those who first use the name psnche meant to express that the soul when in the BODY is the source of life, and gives the power of breath and revival (anapsuchon), and when this reviving power fails then the BODY perishes and dies, and this, if I am not mistaken, they called psyche. But please stay a moment ; I fancy that I can discover something which will be more acceptable to the disciples of Euthyphro, for I am afraid that they will scorn this explanation. What do you say to another ? CRATYLUS

Soc. What is that which holds and carries and gives life and motion to the entire nature of the BODY ? What else but the soul ? CRATYLUS

Soc. You mean soma (the BODY). CRATYLUS

Soc. That may be variously interpreted ; and yet more variously if a little permutation is allowed. For some say that the BODY is the grave (sema) of the soul which may be thought to be buried in our present life ; or again the index of the soul, because the soul gives indications to (semainei) the BODY ; probably the Orphic poets were the inventors of the name, and they were under the impression that the soul is suffering the punishment of sin, and that the BODY is an enclosure or prison in which the soul is incarcerated, kept safe (soma, sozetai), as the name ooma implies, until the penalty is paid ; according to this view, not even a letter of the word need be changed. CRATYLUS

Soc. In spite of the mistakes which are made about the power of this deity, and the foolish fears which people have of him, such as the fear of always being with him after death, and of the soul denuded of the BODY going to him, my belief is that all is quite consistent, and that the office and name of the God really correspond. CRATYLUS

Soc. And is not that the reason, Hermogenes, why no one, who has been to him, is willing to come back to us ? Even the Sirens, like all the rest of the world, have been laid under his spells. Such a charm, as I imagine, is the God able to infuse into his words. And, according to this view, he is the perfect and accomplished Sophist, and the great benefactor of the inhabitants of the other world ; and even to us who are upon earth he sends from below exceeding blessings. For he has much more than he wants down there ; wherefore he is called Pluto (or the rich). Note also, that he will have nothing to do with men while they are in the BODY, but only when the soul is liberated from the desires and evils of the BODY. Now there is a great deal of philosophy and reflection in that ; for in their liberated state he can bind them with the desire of virtue, but while they are flustered and maddened by the BODY, not even father Cronos himself would suffice to keep them with him in his own far-famed chains. CRATYLUS

Soc. Say rather an harmonious name, as beseems the God of Harmony. In the first place, the purgations and purifications which doctors and diviners use, and their fumigations with drugs magical or medicinal, as well as their washings and lustral sprinklings, have all one and the same object, which is to make a man pure both in BODY and soul. CRATYLUS

Soc. I do not think, Hermogenes, that there is any great difficulty about them — edone is e onesis, the action which tends to advantage ; and the original form may be supposed to have been eone, but this has been altered by the insertion of the d. Lupe appears to be derived from the relaxation (luein) which the BODY feels when in sorrow ; ania (trouble) is the hindrance of motion (a and ienai) ; algedon (distress), if I am not mistaken, is a foreign word, which is derived from aleinos (grievous) ; odune (grief) is called from the putting on (endusis) sorrow ; in achthedon (vexation) “the word too labours,” as any one may see ; chara (joy) is the very expression of the fluency and diffusion of the soul (cheo) ; terpsis (delight) is so called from the pleasure creeping (erpon) through the soul, which may be likened to a breath (pnoe) and is properly erpnoun, but has been altered by time into terpnon ; eupherosune (cheerfulness) and epithumia explain themselves ; the former, which ought to be eupherosune and has been changed euphrosune, is named, as every one may see, from the soul moving (pheresthai) in harmony with nature ; epithumia is really e epi ton thumon iousa dunamis, the power which enters into the soul ; thumos (passion) is called from the rushing (thuseos) and boiling of the soul ; imeros (desire) denotes the stream (rous) which most draws the soul dia ten esin tes roes — because flowing with desire (iemenos), and expresses a longing after things and violent attraction of the soul to them, and is termed imeros from possessing this power ; pothos (longing) is expressive of the desire of that which is not present but absent, and in another place (pou) ; this is the reason why the name pothos is applied to things absent, as imeros is to things present ; eros (love) is so called because flowing in (esron) from without ; the stream is not inherent, but is an influence introduced through the eyes, and from flowing in was called esros (influx) in the old time when they used o (short) for o (long), and is called eros, now that o (long) is substituted for o (short). But why do you not give me another word ? CRATYLUS

Soc. Very good ; but then how do the primary names which precede analysis show the natures of things, as far as they can be shown ; which they must do, if they are to be real names ? And here I will ask you a question : Suppose that we had no voice or tongue, and wanted to communicate with one another, should we not, like the deaf and dumb, make signs with the hands and head and the rest of the BODY ? CRATYLUS

Soc. We could not ; for by bodily imitation only can the BODY ever express anything. CRATYLUS

And am I not right in asserting that there are two goddesses ? The elder one, having no mother, who is called the heavenly Aphrodite — she is the daughter of Uranus ; the younger, who is the daughter of Zeus and Dione — her we call common ; and the Love who is her fellow-worker is rightly named common, as the other love is called heavenly. All the gods ought to have praise given to them, but not without distinction of their natures ; and therefore I must try to distinguish the characters of the two Loves. Now actions vary according to the manner of their performance. Take, for example, that which we are now doing, drinking, singing and talking these actions are not in themselves either good or evil, but they turn out in this or that way according to the mode of performing them ; and when well done they are good, and when wrongly done they are evil ; and in like manner not every love, but only that which has a noble purpose, is noble and worthy of praise. The Love who is the offspring of the common Aphrodite is essentially common, and has no discrimination, being such as the meaner sort of men feel, and is apt to be of women as well as of youths, and is of the BODY rather than of the soul — the most foolish beings are the objects of this love which desires only to gain an end, but never thinks of accomplishing the end nobly, and therefore does good and evil quite indiscriminately. The goddess who is his mother is far younger than the other, and she was born of the union of the male and female, and partakes of both. SYMPOSIUM

But the offspring of the heavenly Aphrodite is derived from a mother in whose birth the female has no part, — she is from the male only ; this is that love which is of youths, and the goddess being older, there is nothing of wantonness in her. Those who are inspired by this love turn to the male, and delight in him who is the more valiant and intelligent nature ; any one may recognise the pure enthusiasts in the very character of their attachments. For they love not boys, but intelligent, beings whose reason is beginning to be developed, much about the time at which their beards begin to grow. And in choosing young men to be their companions, they mean to be faithful to them, and pass their whole life in company with them, not to take them in their inexperience, and deceive them, and play the fool with them, or run away from one to another of them. But the love of young boys should be forbidden by law, because their future is uncertain ; they may turn out good or bad, either in BODY or soul, and much noble enthusiasm may be thrown away upon them ; in this matter the good are a law to themselves, and the coarser sort of lovers ought to be restrained by force ; as we restrain or attempt to restrain them from fixing their affections on women of free birth. These are the persons who bring a reproach on love ; and some have been led to deny the lawfulness of such attachments because they see the impropriety and evil of them ; for surely nothing that is decorously and lawfully done can justly be censured. SYMPOSIUM

Evil is the vulgar lover who loves the BODY rather than the soul, inasmuch as he is not even stable, because he loves a thing which is in itself unstable, and therefore when the bloom of youth which he was desiring is over, he takes wing and flies away, in spite of all his words and promises ; whereas the love of the noble disposition is life-long, for it becomes one with the everlasting. The custom of our country would have both of them proven well and truly, and would have us yield to the one sort of lover and avoid the other, and therefore encourages some to pursue, and others to fly ; testing both the lover and beloved in contests and trials, until they show to which of the two classes they respectively belong. And this is the reason why, in the first place, a hasty attachment is held to be dishonourable, because time is the true test of this as of most other things ; and secondly there is a dishonour in being overcome by the love of money, or of wealth, or of political power, whether a man is frightened into surrender by the loss of them, or, having experienced the benefits of money and political corruption, is unable to rise above the seductions of them. For none of these things are of a permanent or lasting nature ; not to mention that no generous friendship ever sprang from them. There remains, then, only one way of honourable attachment which custom allows in the beloved, and this is the way of virtue ; for as we admitted that any service which the lover does to him is not to be accounted flattery or a dishonour to himself, so the beloved has one way only of voluntary service which is not dishonourable, and this is virtuous service. SYMPOSIUM

Eryximachus spoke as follows : Seeing that Pausanias made a fair beginning, and but a lame ending, I must endeavour to supply his deficiency. I think that he has rightly distinguished two kinds of love. But my art further informs me that the double love is not merely an affection of the soulsoul of man towards the fair, or towards anything, but is to be found in the bodies of all animals and in productions of the earth, and I may say in all that is ; such is the conclusion which I seem to have gathered from my own art of medicine, whence I learn how great and wonderful and universal is the deity of love, whose empire extends over all things, divine as well as human. And from medicine I would begin that I may do honour to my art. There are in the human BODY these two kinds of love, which are confessedly different and unlike, and being unlike, they have loves and desires which are unlike ; and the desire of the healthy is one, and the desire of the diseased is another ; and as Pausanias was just now saying that to indulge good men is honourable, and bad men dishonourable : — so too in the BODY the good and healthy elements are to be indulged, and the bad elements and the elements of disease are not to be indulged, but discouraged. And this is what the physician has to do, and in this the art of medicine consists : for medicine may be regarded generally as the knowledge of the loves and desires of the BODY, and how to satisfy them or not ; and the best physician is he who is able to separate fair love from foul, or to convert one into the other ; and he who knows how to eradicate and how to implant love, whichever is required, and can reconcile the most hostile elements in the constitution and make them loving friends, is skilful practitioner. Now the : most hostile are the most opposite, such as hot and cold, bitter and sweet, moist and dry, and the like. And my ancestor, Asclepius, knowing how to implant friendship and accord in these elements, was the creator of our art, as our friends the poets here tell us, and I believe them ; and not only medicine in every branch but the arts of gymnastic and husbandry are under his dominion. SYMPOSIUM

Yes, said Aristophanes, who followed, the hiccough is gone ; not, however, until I applied the sneezing ; and I wonder whether the harmony of the BODY has a love of such noises and ticklings, for I no sooner applied the sneezing than I was cured. SYMPOSIUM

herein is an excellent proof of her tenderness — that she walks not upon the hard but upon the soft. Let us adduce a similar proof of the tenderness of Love ; for he walks not upon the earth, nor yet upon skulls of men, which are not so very soft, but in the hearts and souls of both god, and men, which are of all things the softest : in them he walks and dwells and makes his home. Not in every soul without exception, for Where there is hardness he departs, where there is softness there he dwells ; and nestling always with his feet and in all manner of ways in the softest of soft places, how can he be other than the softest of all things ? Of a truth he is the tenderest as well as the youngest, and also he is of flexile form ; for if he were hard and without flexure he could not enfold all things, or wind his way into and out of every soulsoul of man undiscovered. And a proof of his flexibility and symmetry of form is his grace, which is universally admitted to be in an especial manner the attribute of Love ; ungrace and love are always at war with one another. The fairness of his complexion is revealed by his habitation among the flowers ; for he dwells not amid bloomless or fading beauties, whether of BODY or soul or aught else, but in the place of flowers and scents, there he sits and abides. Concerning the beauty of the god I have said enough ; and yet there remains much more which I might say. Of his virtue I have now to speak : his greatest glory is that he can neither do nor suffer wrong to or from any god or any man ; for he suffers not by force if he suffers ; force comes not near him, neither when he acts does he act by force. For all men in all things serve him of their own free will, and where there is voluntary agreement, there, as the laws which are the lords of the city say, is justice. And not only is he just but exceedingly temperate, for Temperance is the acknowledged ruler of the pleasures and desires, and no pleasure ever masters Love ; he is their master and they are his servants ; and if he conquers them he must be temperate indeed. As to courage, even the God of War is no match for him ; he is the captive and Love is the lord, for love, the love of Aphrodite, masters him, as the tale runs ; and the master is stronger than the servant. And if he conquers the bravest of all others, he must be himself the bravest. SYMPOSIUM

“Then if this be the nature of love, can you tell me further,” she said, “what is the manner of the pursuit ? what are they doing who show all this eagerness and heat which is called love ? and what is the object which they have in view ? Answer me.” “Nay, Diotima,” I replied, “if I had known, I should not have wondered at your wisdom, neither should I have come to learn from you about this very matter.” “Well,” she said, “I will teach you : — The object which they have in view is birth in beauty, whether of BODY or, soul.” “I do not understand you,” I said ; “the oracle requires an explanation.” “I will make my meaning dearer,” she replied. “I mean to say, that all men are bringing to the birth in their bodies and in their souls. There is a certain age at which human nature is desirous of procreation — procreation which must be in beauty and not in deformity ; and this procreation is the union of man and woman, and is a divine thing ; for conception and generation are an immortal principle in the mortal creature, and in the inharmonious they can never be. But the deformed is always inharmonious with the divine, and the beautiful harmonious. Beauty, then, is the destiny or goddess of parturition who presides at birth, and therefore, when approaching beauty, the conceiving power is propitious, and diffusive, and benign, and begets and bears fruit : at the sight of ugliness she frowns and contracts and has a sense of pain, and turns away, and shrivels up, and not without a pang refrains from conception. And this is the reason why, when the hour of conception arrives, and the teeming nature is full, there is such a flutter and ecstasy about beauty whose approach is the alleviation of the pain of travail. For love, Socrates, is not, as you imagine, the love of the beautiful only.” “What then ?” “The love of generation and of birth in beauty.” “Yes,” I said. “Yes, indeed,” she replied. “But why of generation ?” “Because to the mortal creature, generation is a sort of eternity and immortality,” she replied ; “and if, as has been already admitted, love is of the everlasting possession of the good, all men will necessarily desire immortality together with good : Wherefore love is of immortality.” SYMPOSIUM

All this she taught me at various times when she spoke of love. And I remember her once saying to me, “What is the cause, Socrates, of love, and the attendant desire ? See you not how all animals, birds, as well as beasts, in their desire of procreation, are in agony when they take the infection of love, which begins with the desire of union ; whereto is added the care of offspring, on whose behalf the weakest are ready to battle against the strongest even to the uttermost, and to die for them, and will, let themselves be tormented with hunger or suffer anything in order to maintain their young. Man may be supposed to act thus from reason ; but why should animals have these passionate feelings ? Can you tell me why ?” Again I replied that I did not know. She said to me : “And do you expect ever to become a master in the art of love, if you do not know this ?” “But I have told you already, Diotima, that my ignorance is the reason why I come to you ; for I am conscious that I want a teacher ; tell me then the cause of this and of the other mysteries of love.” “Marvel not,” she said, “if you believe that love is of the immortal, as we have several times acknowledged ; for here again, and on the same principle too, the mortal nature is seeking as far as is possible to be everlasting and immortal : and this is only to be attained by generation, because generation always leaves behind a new existence in the place of the old. Nay even in the life, of the same individual there is succession and not absolute unity : a man is called the same, and yet in the short interval which elapses between youth and age, and in which every animal is said to have life and identity, he is undergoing a perpetual process of loss and reparation — hair, flesh, bones, blood, and the whole BODY are always changing. Which is true not only of the BODY, but also of the soul, whose habits, tempers, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains, fears, never remain the same in any one of us, but are always coming and going ; and equally true of knowledge, and what is still more surprising to us mortals, not only do the sciences in general spring up and decay, so that in respect of them we are never the same ; but each of them individually experiences a like change. For what is implied in the word ‘recollection,’ but the departure of knowledge, which is ever being forgotten, and is renewed and preserved by recollection, and appears to be the same although in reality new, according to that law of succession by which all mortal things are preserved, not absolutely the same, but by substitution, the old worn-out mortality leaving another new and similar existence behind unlike the divine, which is always the same and not another ? And in this way, Socrates, the mortal BODY, or mortal anything, partakes of immortality ; but the immortal in another way. Marvel not then at the love which all men have of their offspring ; for that universal love and interest is for the sake of immortality.” SYMPOSIUM

“Those who are pregnant in the BODY only, betake themselves to women and beget children — this is the character of their love ; their offspring, as they hope, will preserve their memory and giving them the blessedness and immortality which they desire in the future. But souls which are pregnant — for there certainly are men who are more creative in their souls than in their bodies conceive that which is proper for the soul to conceive or contain. And what are these conceptions ? — wisdom and virtue in general. And such creators are poets and all artists who are deserving of the name inventor. But the greatest and fairest sort of wisdom by far is that which is concerned with the ordering of states and families, and which is called temperance and justice. And he who in youth has the seed of these implanted in him and is himself inspired, when he comes to maturity desires to beget and generate. He wanders about seeking beauty that he may beget offspring — for in deformity he will beget nothing — and naturally embraces the beautiful rather than the deformed BODY ; above all when he finds fair and noble and well-nurtured soul, he embraces the two in one person, and to such an one he is full of speech about virtue and the nature and pursuits of a good man ; and he tries to educate him ; and at the touch of the beautiful which is ever present to his memory, even when absent, he brings forth that which he had conceived long before, and in company with him tends that which he brings forth ; and they are married by a far nearer tie and have a closer friendship than those who beget mortal children, for the children who are their common offspring are fairer and more immortal. Who, when he thinks of Homer and Hesiod and other great poets, would not rather have their children than ordinary human ones ? Who would not emulate them in the creation of children such as theirs, which have preserved their memory and given them everlasting glory ? Or who would not have such children as Lycurgus left behind him to be the saviours, not only of Lacedaemon, but of Hellas, as one may say ? There is Solon, too, who is the revered father of Athenian laws ; and many others there are in many other places, both among hellenes and barbarians, who have given to the world many noble works, and have been the parents of virtue of every kind ; and many temples have been raised in their honour for the sake of children such as theirs ; which were never raised in honour of any one, for the sake of his mortal children. SYMPOSIUM

And is this anything but the separation of soul and BODY ? And being dead is the attainment of this separation ; when the soul exists in herself, and is parted from the BODY and the BODY is parted from the soul — that is death ? PHAEDO

And will he think much of the other ways of indulging the BODY — for example, the acquisition of costly raiment, or sandals, or other adornments of the BODY ? Instead of caring about them, does he not rather despise anything more than nature needs ? What do you say ? PHAEDO

Would you not say that he is entirely concerned with the soul and not with the BODY ? He would like, as far as he can, to be quit of the BODY and turn to the soul. PHAEDO

In matters of this sort philosophers, above all other men, may be observed in every sort of way to dissever the soul from the BODY. PHAEDO

What again shall we say of the actual acquirement of knowledge ? — is the BODY, if invited to share in the inquiry, a hinderer or a helper ? I mean to say, have sight and hearing any truth in them ? Are they not, as the poets are always telling us, inaccurate witnesses ? and yet, if even they are inaccurate and indistinct, what is to be said of the other senses ? — for you will allow that they are the best of them ? PHAEDO

Then when does the soul attain truth ? — for in attempting to consider anything in company with the BODY she is obviously deceived. PHAEDO

And thought is best when the mind is gathered into herself and none of these things trouble her — neither sounds nor sights nor pain nor any pleasure — when she has as little as possible to do with the BODY, and has no bodily sense or feeling, but is aspiring after being ? PHAEDO

And in this the philosopher dishonors the BODY ; his soul runs away from the BODY and desires to be alone and by herself ? PHAEDO

And he attains to the knowledge of them in their highest purity who goes to each of them with the mind alone, not allowing when in the act of thought the intrusion or introduction of sight or any other sense in the company of reason, but with the very light of the mind in her clearness penetrates into the very fight of truth in each ; he has got rid, as far as he can, of eyes and ears and of the whole BODY, which he conceives of only as a disturbing element, hindering the soul from the acquisition of knowledge when in company with her — is not this the sort of man who, if ever man did, is likely to attain the knowledge of existence ? PHAEDO

And when they consider all this, must not true philosophers make a reflection, of which they will speak to one another in such words as these : We have found, they will say, a path of speculation which seems to bring us and the argument to the conclusion that while we are in the BODY, and while the soul is mingled with this mass of evil, our desire will not be satisfied, and our desire is of the truth. For the BODY is a source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food ; and also is liable to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after truth : and by filling us so full of loves, and lusts, and fears, and fancies, and idols, and every sort of folly, prevents our ever having, as people say, so much as a thought. For whence come wars, and fightings, and factions ? whence but from the BODY and the lusts of the BODY ? For wars are occasioned by the love of money, and money has to be acquired for the sake and in the service of the BODY ; and in consequence of all these things the time which ought to be given to philosophy is lost. Moreover, if there is time and an inclination toward philosophy, yet the BODY introduces a turmoil and confusion and fear into the course of speculation, and hinders us from seeing the truth : and all experience shows that if we would have pure knowledge of anything we must be quit of the BODY, and the soul in herself must behold all things in themselves : then I suppose that we shall attain that which we desire, and of which we say that we are lovers, and that is wisdom, not while we live, but after death, as the argument shows ; for if while in company with the BODY the soul cannot have pure knowledge, one of two things seems to follow — either knowledge is not to be attained at all, or, if at all, after death. For then, and not till then, the soul will be in herself alone and without the BODY. In this present life, I reckon that we make the nearest approach to knowledge when we have the least possible concern or interest in the BODY, and are not saturated with the bodily nature, but remain pure until the hour when God himself is pleased to release us. And then the foolishness of the BODY will be cleared away and we shall be pure and hold converse with other pure souls, and know of ourselves the clear light everywhere ; and this is surely the light of truth. For no impure thing is allowed to approach the pure. These are the sort of words, Simmias, which the true lovers of wisdom cannot help saying to one another, and thinking. You will agree with me in that ? PHAEDO

And what is purification but the separation of the soul from the BODY, as I was saying before ; the habit of the soul gathering and collecting herself into herself, out of all the courses of the BODY ; the dwelling in her own place alone, as in another life, so also in this, as far as she can ; the release of the soul from the chains of the BODY ? PHAEDO

And what is that which is termed death, but this very separation and release of the soul from the BODY ? PHAEDO

And the true philosophers, and they only, study and are eager to release the soul. Is not the separation and release of the soul from the BODY their especial study ? PHAEDO

Then, Simmias, as the true philosophers are ever studying death, to them, of all men, death is the least terrible. Look at the matter in this way : how inconsistent of them to have been always enemies of the BODY, and wanting to have the soul alone, and when this is granted to them, to be trembling and repining ; instead of rejoicing at their departing to that place where, when they arrive, they hope to gain that which in life they loved (and this was wisdom), and at the same time to be rid of the company of their enemy. Many a man has been willing to go to the world below in the hope of seeing there an earthly love, or wife, or son, and conversing with them. And will he who is a true lover of wisdom, and is persuaded in like manner that only in the world below he can worthily enjoy her, still repine at death ? Will he not depart with joy ? Surely he will, my friend, if he be a true philosopher. For he will have a firm conviction that there only, and nowhere else, he can find wisdom in her purity. And if this be true, he would be very absurd, as I was saying, if he were to fear death. PHAEDO

And when you see a man who is repining at the approach of death, is not his reluctance a sufficient proof that he is not a lover of wisdom, but a lover of the BODY, and probably at the same time a lover of either money or power, or both ? PHAEDO

Again, there is temperance. Is not the calm, and control, and disdain of the passions which even the many call temperance, a quality belonging only to those who despise the BODY and live in philosophy ? PHAEDO

Cebes answered : I agree, Socrates, in the greater part of what you say. But in what relates to the soul, men are apt to be incredulous ; they fear that when she leaves the BODY her place may be nowhere, and that on the very day of death she may be destroyed and perish — immediately on her release from the BODY, issuing forth like smoke or air and vanishing away into nothingness. For if she could only hold together and be herself after she was released from the evils of the BODY, there would be good reason to hope, Socrates, that what you say is true. But much persuasion and many arguments are required in order to prove that when the man is dead the soul yet exists, and has any force of intelligence. PHAEDO

I think, said Simmias, that Cebes is satisfied : although he is the most incredulous of mortals, yet I believe that he is convinced of the existence of the soul before birth. But that after death the soul will continue to exist is not yet proven even to my own satisfaction. I cannot get rid of the feeling of the many to which Cebes was referring — the feeling that when the man dies the soul may be scattered, and that this may be the end of her. For admitting that she may be generated and created in some other place, and may have existed before entering the human BODY, why after having entered in and gone out again may she not herself be destroyed and come to an end ? PHAEDO

But that proof, Simmias and Cebes, has been already given, said Socrates, if you put the two arguments together — I mean this and the former one, in which we admitted that everything living is born of the dead. For if the soul existed before birth, and in coming to life and being born can be born only from death and dying, must she not after death continue to exist, since she has to be born again ? surely the proof which you desire has been already furnished. Still I suspect that you and Simmias would be glad to probe the argument further ; like children, you are haunted with a fear that when the soul leaves the BODY, the wind may really blow her away and scatter her ; especially if a man should happen to die in stormy weather and not when the sky is calm. PHAEDO

And, further, is not one part of us BODY, and the rest of us soul ? PHAEDO

And to which class may we say that the BODY is more alike and akin ? PHAEDO

Then the soul is more like to the unseen, and the BODY to the seen ? PHAEDO

And were we not saying long ago that the soul when using the BODY as an instrument of perception, that is to say, when using the sense of sight or hearing or some other sense (for the meaning of perceiving through the BODY is perceiving through the senses) — were we not saying that the soul too is then dragged by the BODY into the region of the changeable, and wanders and is confused ; the world spins round her, and she is like a drunkard when under their influence ? PHAEDO

And the BODY is more like the changing ? PHAEDO

Yet once more consider the matter in this light : When the soul and the BODY are united, then nature orders the soul to rule and govern, and the BODY to obey and serve. PHAEDO

The soul resembles the divine and the BODY the mortal — there can be no doubt of that, Socrates. PHAEDO

Then reflect, Cebes : is not the conclusion of the whole matter this ? — that the soul is in the very likeness of the divine, and immortal, and intelligible, and uniform, and indissoluble, and unchangeable ; and the BODY is in the very likeness of the human, and mortal, and unintelligible, and multiform, and dissoluble, and changeable. Can this, my dear Cebes, be denied ? PHAEDO

But if this is true, then is not the BODY liable to speedy dissolution ? PHAEDO

And do you further observe, that after a man is dead, the BODY, which is the visible part of man, and has a visible framework, which is called a corpse, and which would naturally be dissolved and decomposed and dissipated, is not dissolved or decomposed at once, but may remain for a good while, if the constitution be sound at the time of death, and the season of the year favorable ? For the BODY when shrunk and embalmed, as is the custom in Egypt, may remain almost entire through infinite ages ; and even in decay, still there are some portions, such as the bones and ligaments, which are practically indestructible. You allow that ? PHAEDO

And are we to suppose that the soul, which is invisible, in passing to the true Hades, which like her is invisible, and pure, and noble, and on her way to the good and wise God, whither, if God will, my soul is also soon to go — that the soul, I repeat, if this be her nature and origin, is blown away and perishes immediately on quitting the BODY as the many say ? That can never be, dear Simmias and Cebes. The truth rather is that the soul which is pure at departing draws after her no bodily taint, having never voluntarily had connection with the BODY, which she is ever avoiding, herself gathered into herself (for such abstraction has been the study of her life). And what does this mean but that she has been a true disciple of philosophy and has practised how to die easily ? And is not philosophy the practice of death ? PHAEDO

But the soul which has been polluted, and is impure at the time of her departure, and is the companion and servant of the BODY always, and is in love with and fascinated by the BODY and by the desires and pleasures of the BODY, until she is led to believe that the truth only exists in a bodily form, which a man may touch and see and taste and use for the purposes of his lusts — the soul, I mean, accustomed to hate and fear and avoid the intellectual principle, which to the bodily eye is dark and invisible, and can be attained only by philosophy — do you suppose that such a soul as this will depart pure and unalloyed ? PHAEDO

She is engrossed by the corporeal, which the continual association and constant care of the BODY have made natural to her. PHAEDO

Yes, that is very likely, Cebes ; and these must be the souls, not of the good, but of the evil, who are compelled to wander about such places in payment of the penalty of their former evil way of life ; and they continue to wander until the desire which haunts them is satisfied and they are imprisoned in another BODY. And they may be supposed to be fixed in the same natures which they had in their former life. PHAEDO

No, indeed, he replied ; and therefore they who have a care of their souls, and do not merely live in the fashions of the BODY, say farewell to all this ; they will not walk in the ways of the blind : and when philosophy offers them purification and release from evil, they feel that they ought not to resist her influence, and to her they incline, and whither she leads they follow her. PHAEDO

And this is the state in which the soul is most enthralled by the BODY. PHAEDO

Why, because each pleasure and pain is a sort of nail which nails and rivets the soul to the BODY, and engrosses her and makes her believe that to be true which the BODY affirms to be true ; and from agreeing with the BODY and having the same delights she is obliged to have the same habits and ways, and is not likely ever to be pure at her departure to the world below, but is always saturated with the BODY ; so that she soon sinks into another BODY and there germinates and grows, and has therefore no part in the communion of the divine and pure and simple. PHAEDO

Certainly not ! For not in that way does the soul of a philosopher reason ; she will not ask philosophy to release her in order that when released she may deliver herself up again to the thraldom of pleasures and pains, doing a work only to be undone again, weaving instead of unweaving her Penelope’s web. But she will make herself a calm of passion and follow Reason, and dwell in her, beholding the true and divine (which is not matter of opinion), and thence derive nourishment. Thus she seeks to live while she lives, and after death she hopes to go to her own kindred and to be freed from human ills. Never fear, Simmias and Cebes, that a soul which has been thus nurtured and has had these pursuits, will at her departure from the BODY be scattered and blown away by the winds and be nowhere and nothing. PHAEDO

In this respect, replied Simmias : Might not a person use the same argument about harmony and the lyre — might he not say that harmony is a thing invisible, incorporeal, fair, divine, abiding in the lyre which is harmonized, but that the lyre and the strings are matter and material, composite, earthy, and akin to mortality ? And when someone breaks the lyre, or cuts and rends the strings, then he who takes this view would argue as you do, and on the same analogy, that the harmony survives and has not perished ; for you cannot imagine, as we would say, that the lyre without the strings, and the broken strings themselves, remain, and yet that the harmony, which is of heavenly and immortal nature and kindred, has perished — and perished too before the mortal. The harmony, he would say, certainly exists somewhere, and the wood and strings will decay before that decays. For I suspect, Socrates, that the notion of the soul which we are all of us inclined to entertain, would also be yours, and that you too would conceive the BODY to be strung up, and held together, by the elements of hot and cold, wet and dry, and the like, and that the soul is the harmony or due proportionate admixture of them. And, if this is true, the inference clearly is that when the strings of the BODY are unduly loosened or overstrained through disorder or other injury, then the soul, though most divine, like other harmonies of music or of the works of art, of course perishes at once, although the material remains of the BODY may last for a considerable time, until they are either decayed or burnt. Now if anyone maintained that the soul, being the harmony of the elements of the BODY, first perishes in that which is called death, how shall we answer him ? PHAEDO

Cebes said : I will tell you. My feeling is that the argument is still in the same position, and open to the same objections which were urged before ; for I am ready to admit that the existence of the soul before entering into the bodily form has been very ingeniously, and, as I may be allowed to say, quite sufficiently proven ; but the existence of the soul after death is still, in my judgment, unproven. Now my objection is not the same as that of Simmias ; for I am not disposed to deny that the soul is stronger and more lasting than the BODY, being of opinion that in all such respects the soul very far excels the BODY. Well, then, says the argument to me, why do you remain unconvinced ? When you see that the weaker is still in existence after the man is dead, will you not admit that the more lasting must also survive during the same period of time ? Now I, like Simmias, must employ a figure ; and I shall ask you to consider whether the figure is to the point. The parallel which I will suppose is that of an old weaver, who dies, and after his death someBODY says : He is not dead, he must be alive ; and he appeals to the coat which he himself wove and wore, and which is still whole and undecayed. And then he proceeds to ask of someone who is incredulous, whether a man lasts longer, or the coat which is in use and wear ; and when he is answered that a man lasts far longer, thinks that he has thus certainly demonstrated the survival of the man, who is the more lasting, because the less lasting remains. But that, Simmias, as I would beg you to observe, is not the truth ; everyone sees that he who talks thus is talking nonsense. For the truth is that this weaver, having worn and woven many such coats, though he outlived several of them, was himself outlived by the last ; but this is surely very far from proving that a man is slighter and weaker than a coat. Now the relation of the BODY to the soul may be expressed in a similar figure ; for you may say with reason that the soul is lasting, and the BODY weak and short-lived in comparison. And every soul may be said to wear out many bodies, especially in the course of a long life. For if while the man is alive the BODY deliquesces and decays, and yet the soul always weaves her garment anew and repairs the waste, then of course, when the soul perishes, she must have on her last garment, and this only will survive her ; but then again when the soul is dead the BODY will at last show its native weakness, and soon pass into decay. And therefore this is an argument on which I would rather not rely as proving that the soul exists after death. For suppose that we grant even more than you affirm as within the range of possibility, and besides acknowledging that the soul existed before birth admit also that after death the souls of some are existing still, and will exist, and will be born and die again and again, and that there is a natural strength in the soul which will hold out and be born many times — for all this, we may be still inclined to think that she will weary in the labors of successive births, and may at last succumb in one of her deaths and utterly perish ; and this death and dissolution of the BODY which brings destruction to the soul may be unknown to any of us, for no one of us can have had any experience of it : and if this be true, then I say that he who is confident in death has but a foolish confidence, unless he is able to prove that the soul is altogether immortal and imperishable. But if he is not able to prove this, he who is about to die will always have reason to fear that when the BODY is disunited, the soul also may utterly perish. PHAEDO

And now let us proceed, he said. And first of all let me be sure that I have in my mind what you were saying. Simmias, if I remember rightly, has fears and misgivings whether the soul, being in the form of harmony, although a fairer and diviner thing than the BODY, may not perish first. On the other hand, Cebes appeared to grant that the soul was more lasting than the BODY, but he said that no one could know whether the soul, after having worn out many bodies, might not perish herself and leave her last BODY behind her ; and that this is death, which is the destruction not of the BODY but of the soul, for in the BODY the work of destruction is ever going on. Are not these, Simmias and Cebes, the points which we have to consider ? PHAEDO

And what did you think, he said, of that part of the argument in which we said that knowledge was recollection only, and inferred from this that the soul must have previously existed somewhere else before she was enclosed in the BODY ? Cebes said that he had been wonderfully impressed by that part of the argument, and that his conviction remained unshaken. Simmias agreed, and added that he himself could hardly imagine the possibility of his ever thinking differently about that. PHAEDO

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. PHAEDO

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 ? PHAEDO

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. PHAEDO

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. PHAEDO

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 ? PHAEDO

Nay, my good friend, said Socrates, let us not boast, lest some evil eye should put to flight the word which I am about to speak. That, however, may be left in the hands of those above, while I draw near in Homeric fashion, and try the mettle of your words. Briefly, the sum of your objection is as follows : You want to have proven to you that the soul is imperishable and immortal, and you think that the philosopher who is confident in death has but a vain and foolish confidence, if he thinks that he will fare better than one who has led another sort of life, in the world below, unless he can prove this ; and you say that the demonstration of the strength and divinity of the soul, and of her existence prior to our becoming men, does not necessarily imply her immortality. Granting that the soul is longlived, and has known and done much in a former state, still she is not on that account immortal ; and her entrance into the human form may be a sort of disease which is the beginning of dissolution, and may at last, after the toils of life are over, end in that which is called death. And whether the soul enters into the BODY once only or many times, that, as you would say, makes no difference in the fears of individuals. For any man, who is not devoid of natural feeling, has reason to fear, if he has no knowledge or proof of the soul’s immortality. That is what I suppose you to say, Cebes, which I designedly repeat, in order that nothing may escape us, and that you may, if you wish, add or subtract anything. PHAEDO

What hopes I had formed, and how grievously was I disappointed ! As I proceeded, I found my philosopher altogether forsaking mind or any other principle of order, but having recourse to air, and ether, and water, and other eccentricities. I might compare him to a person who began by maintaining generally that mind is the cause of the actions of Socrates, but who, when he endeavored to explain the causes of my several actions in detail, went on to show that I sit here because my BODY is made up of bones and muscles ; and the bones, as he would say, are hard and have ligaments which divide them, and the muscles are elastic, and they cover the bones, which have also a covering or environment of flesh and skin which contains them ; and as the bones are lifted at their joints by the contraction or relaxation of the muscles, I am able to bend my limbs, and this is why I am sitting here in a curved posture : that is what he would say, and he would have a similar explanation of my talking to you, which he would attribute to sound, and air, and hearing, and he would assign ten thousand other causes of the same sort, forgetting to mention the true cause, which is that the Athenians have thought fit to condemn me, and accordingly I have thought it better and more right to remain here and undergo my sentence ; for I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone off to Megara or Boeotia — by the dog of Egypt they would, if they had been guided only by their own idea of what was best, and if I had not chosen as the better and nobler part, instead of playing truant and running away, to undergo any punishment which the State inflicts. There is surely a strange confusion of causes and conditions in all this. It may be said, indeed, that without bones and muscles and the other parts of the BODY I cannot execute my purposes. But to say that I do as I do because of them, and that this is the way in which mind acts, and not from the choice of the best, is a very careless and idle mode of speaking. I wonder that they cannot distinguish the cause from the condition, which the many, feeling about in the dark, are always mistaking and misnaming. And thus one man makes a vortex all round and steadies the earth by the heaven ; another gives the air as a support to the earth, which is a sort of broad trough. Any power which in disposing them as they are disposes them for the best never enters into their minds, nor do they imagine that there is any superhuman strength in that ; they rather expect to find another Atlas of the world who is stronger and more everlasting and more containing than the good is, and are clearly of opinion that the obligatory and containing power of the good is as nothing ; and yet this is the principle which I would fain learn if anyone would teach me. But as I have failed either to discover myself or to learn of anyone else, the nature of the best, I will exhibit to you, if you like, what I have found to be the second best mode of inquiring into the cause. PHAEDO

And now, he said, I think that I may begin again ; and to the question which I am about to ask I will beg you to give not the old safe answer, but another, of which I will offer you an example ; and I hope that you will find in what has been just said another foundation which is as safe. I mean that if anyone asks you “what that is, the inherence of which makes the BODY hot,” you will reply not heat (this is what I call the safe and stupid answer), but fire, a far better answer, which we are now in a condition to give. Or if anyone asks you “why a BODY is diseased,” you will not say from disease, but from fever ; and instead of saying that oddness is the cause of odd numbers, you will say that the monad is the cause of them : and so of things in general, as I dare say that you will understand sufficiently without my adducing any further examples. PHAEDO

Tell me, then, what is that the inherence of which will render the BODY alive ? PHAEDO

But then, O my friends, he said, if the soul is really immortal, what care should be taken of her, not only in respect of the portion of time which is called life, but of eternity ! And the danger of neglecting her from this point of view does indeed appear to be awful. If death had only been the end of all, the wicked would have had a good bargain in dying, for they would have been happily quit not only of their BODY, but of their own evil together with their souls. But now, as the soul plainly appears to be immortal, there is no release or salvation from evil except the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom. For the soul when on her progress to the world below takes nothing with her but nurture and education ; which are indeed said greatly to benefit or greatly to injure the departed, at the very beginning of its pilgrimage in the other world. PHAEDO

For after death, as they say, the genius of each individual, to whom he belonged in life, leads him to a certain place in which the dead are gathered together for judgment, whence they go into the world below, following the guide who is appointed to conduct them from this world to the other : and when they have there received their due and remained their time, another guide brings them back again after many revolutions of ages. Now this journey to the other world is not, as Aeschylus says in the “Telephus,” a single and straight path — no guide would be wanted for that, and no one could miss a single path ; but there are many partings of the road, and windings, as I must infer from the rites and sacrifices which are offered to the gods below in places where three ways meet on earth. The wise and orderly soul is conscious of her situation and follows in the path ; but the soul which desires the BODY, and which, as I was relating before, has long been fluttering about the lifeless frame and the world of sight, is after many struggles and many sufferings hardly and with violence carried away by her attendant genius, and when she arrives at the place where the other souls are gathered, if she be impure and have done impure deeds, or been concerned in foul murders or other crimes which are the brothers of these, and the works of brothers in crime — from that soul everyone flees and turns away ; no one will be her companion, no one her guide, but alone she wanders in extremity of evil until certain times are fulfilled, and when they are fulfilled, she is borne irresistibly to her own fitting habitation ; as every pure and just soul which has passed through life in the company and under the guidance of the gods has also her own proper home. PHAEDO

Well, then, he said, my conviction is that the earth is a round BODY in the center of the heavens, and therefore has no need of air or any similar force as a support, but is kept there and hindered from falling or inclining any way by the equability of the surrounding heaven and by her own equipoise. For that which, being in equipoise, is in the center of that which is equably diffused, will not incline any way in any degree, but will always remain in the same state and not deviate. And this is my first notion. PHAEDO

Such is the name of the other world ; and when the dead arrive at the place to which the genius of each severally conveys them, first of all they have sentence passed upon them, as they have lived well and piously or not. And those who appear to have lived neither well nor ill, go to the river Acheron, and mount such conveyances as they can get, and are carried in them to the lake, and there they dwell and are purified of their evil deeds, and suffer the penalty of the wrongs which they have done to others, and are absolved, and receive the rewards of their good deeds according to their deserts. But those who appear to be incurable by reason of the greatness of their crimes — who have committed many and terrible deeds of sacrilege, murders foul and violent, or the like — such are hurled into Tartarus, which is their suitable destiny, and they never come out. Those again who have committed crimes, which, although great, are not unpardonable — who in a moment of anger, for example, have done violence to a father or mother, and have repented for the remainder of their lives, or who have taken the life of another under like extenuating circumstances — these are plunged into Tartarus, the pains of which they are compelled to undergo for a year, but at the end of the year the wave casts them forth — mere homicides by way of Cocytus, parricides and matricides by Pyriphlegethon — and they are borne to the Acherusian Lake, and there they lift up their voices and call upon the victims whom they have slain or wronged, to have pity on them, and to receive them, and to let them come out of the river into the lake. And if they prevail, then they come forth and cease from their troubles ; but if not, they are carried back again into Tartarus and from thence into the rivers unceasingly, until they obtain mercy from those whom they have wronged : for that is the sentence inflicted upon them by their judges. Those also who are remarkable for having led holy lives are released from this earthly prison, and go to their pure home which is above, and dwell in the purer earth ; and those who have duly purified themselves with philosophy live henceforth altogether without the BODY, in mansions fairer far than these, which may not be described, and of which the time would fail me to tell. PHAEDO

I do not mean to affirm that the description which I have given of the soul and her mansions is exactly true — a man of sense ought hardly to say that. But I do say that, inasmuch as the soul is shown to be immortal, he may venture to think, not improperly or unworthily, that something of the kind is true. The venture is a glorious one, and he ought to comfort himself with words like these, which is the reason why lengthen out the tale. Wherefore, I say, let a man be of good cheer about his soul, who has cast away the pleasures and ornaments of the BODY as alien to him, and rather hurtful in their effects, and has followed after the pleasures of knowledge in this life ; who has adorned the soul in her own proper jewels, which are temperance, and justice, and courage, and nobility, and truth — in these arrayed she is ready to go on her journey to the world below, when her time comes. You, Simmias and Cebes, and all other men, will depart at some time or other. Me already, as the tragic poet would say, the voice of fate calls. Soon I must drink the poison ; and I think that I had better repair to the bath first, in order that the women may not have the trouble of washing my BODY after I am dead. PHAEDO

In any way that you like ; only you must get hold of me, and take care that I do not walk away from you. Then he turned to us, and added with a smile : I cannot make Crito believe that I am the same Socrates who have been talking and conducting the argument ; he fancies that I am the other Socrates whom he will soon see, a dead BODY — and he asks, How shall he bury me ? And though I have spoken many words in the endeavor to show that when I have drunk the poison I shall leave you and go to the joys of the blessed — these words of mine, with which I comforted you and myself, have had, I perceive, no effect upon Crito. And therefore I want you to be surety for me now, as he was surety for me at the trial : but let the promise be of another sort ; for he was my surety to the judges that I would remain, but you must be my surety to him that I shall not remain, but go away and depart ; and then he will suffer less at my death, and not be grieved when he sees my BODY being burned or buried. I would not have him sorrow at my hard lot, or say at the burial, Thus we lay out Socrates, or, Thus we follow him to the grave or bury him ; for false words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Be of good cheer, then, my dear Crito, and say that you are burying my BODY only, and do with that as is usual, and as you think best. PHAEDO

Let us next see how his master, whose law of life is pleasure and not good, will keep and train the BODY of his servant. Will he not choose a beloved who is delicate rather than sturdy and strong ? One brought up in shady bowers and not in the bright sun, a stranger to manly exercises and the sweat of toil, accustomed only to a soft and luxurious diet, instead of the hues of health having the colours of paint and ornament, and the rest of a piece ? — such a life as any one can imagine and which I need not detail at length. But I may sum up all that I have to say in a word, and pass on. Such a person in war, or in any of the great crises of life, will be the anxiety of his friends and also of his lover, and certainly not the terror of his enemies ; which noBODY can deny. PHAEDRUS

The soul through all her being is immortal, for that which is ever in motion is immortal ; but that which moves another and is moved by another, in ceasing to move ceases also to live. Only the self-moving, never leaving self, never ceases to move, and is the fountain and beginning of motion to all that moves besides. Now, the beginning is unbegotten, for that which is begotten has a beginning ; but the beginning is begotten of nothing, for if it were begotten of something, then the begotten would not come from a beginning. But if unbegotten, it must also be indestructible ; for if beginning were destroyed, there could be no beginning out of anything, nor anything out of a beginning ; and all things must have a beginning. And therefore the self-moving is the beginning of motion ; and this can neither be destroyed nor begotten, else the whole heavens and all creation would collapse and stand still, and never again have motion or birth. But if the self-moving is proved to be immortal, he who affirms that self-motion is the very idea and essence of the soul will not be put to confusion. For the BODY which is moved from without is soulless ; but that which is moved from within has a soul, for such is the nature of the soul. But if this be true, must not the soul be the self-moving, and therefore of necessity unbegotten and immortal ? Enough of the soul’s immortality. PHAEDRUS

Of the nature of the soul, though her true form be ever a theme of large and more than mortal discourse, let me speak briefly, and in a figure. And let the figure be composite — a pair of winged horses and a charioteer. Now the winged horses and the charioteers of the gods are all of them noble and of noble descent, but those of other races are mixed ; the human charioteer drives his in a pair ; and one of them is noble and of noble breed, and the other is ignoble and of ignoble breed ; and the driving of them of necessity gives a great deal of trouble to him. I will endeavour to explain to you in what way the mortal differs from the immortal creature. The soul in her totality has the care of inanimate being everywhere, and traverses the whole heaven in divers forms appearing — when perfect and fully winged she soars upward, and orders the whole world ; whereas the imperfect soul, losing her wings and drooping in her flight at last settles on the solid ground — there, finding a home, she receives an earthly frame which appears to be self-moved, but is really moved by her power ; and this composition of soulsoul and BODY is called a living and mortal creature. For immortal no such union can be reasonably believed to be ; although fancy, not having seen nor surely known the nature of God, may imagine an immortal creature having both a BODY and also a soul which are united throughout all time. Let that, however, be as God wills, and be spoken of acceptably to him. And now let us ask the reason why the soul loses her wings ! PHAEDRUS

Thus far I have been speaking of the fourth and last kind of madness, which is imputed to him who, when he sees the beauty of earth, is transported with the recollection of the true beauty ; he would like to fly away, but he cannot ; he is like a bird fluttering and looking upward and careless of the world below ; and he is therefore thought to be mad. And I have shown this of all inspirations to be the noblest and highest and the offspring of the highest to him who has or shares in it, and that he who loves the beautiful is called a lover because he partakes of it. For, as has been already said, every soulsoul of man has in the way of nature beheld true being ; this was the condition of her passing into the form of man. But all souls do not easily recall the things of the other world ; they may have seen them for a short time only, or they may have been unfortunate in their earthly lot, and, having had their hearts turned to unrighteousness through some corrupting influence, they may have lost the memory of the holy things which once they saw. Few only retain an adequate remembrance of them ; and they, when they behold here any image of that other world, are rapt in amazement ; but they are ignorant of what this rapture means, because they do not clearly perceive. For there is no light of justice or temperance or any of the higher ideas which are precious to souls in the earthly copies of them : they are seen through a glass dimly ; and there are few who, going to the images, behold in them the realities, and these only with difficulty. There was a time when with the rest of the happy band they saw beauty shining in brightness — we philosophers following in the train of Zeus, others in company with other gods ; and then we beheld the beatific vision and were initiated into a mystery which may be truly called most blessed, celebrated by us in our state of innocence, before we had any experience of evils to come, when we were admitted to the sight of apparitions innocent and simple and calm and happy, which we beheld shining impure light, pure ourselves and not yet enshrined in that living tomb which we carry about, now that we are imprisoned in the BODY, like an oyster in his shell. Let me linger over the memory of scenes which have passed away. PHAEDRUS

After this their happiness depends upon their self-control ; if the better elements of the mind which lead to order and philosophy prevail, then they pass their life here in happiness and harmony — masters of themselves and orderly — enslaving the vicious and emancipating the virtuous elements of the soul ; and when the end comes, they are light and winged for flight, having conquered in one of the three heavenly or truly Olympian victories ; nor can human discipline or divine inspiration confer any greater blessing on man than this. If, on the other hand, they leave philosophy and lead the lower life of ambition, then probably, after wine or in some other careless hour, the two wanton animals take the two souls when off their guard and bring them together, and they accomplish that desire of their hearts which to the many is bliss ; and this having once enjoyed they continue to enjoy, yet rarely because they have not the approval of the whole soul. They too are dear, but not so dear to one another as the others, either at the time of their love or afterwards. They consider that they have given and taken from each other the most sacred pledges, and they may not break them and fall into enmity. At last they pass out of the BODY, unwinged, but eager to soar, and thus obtain no mean reward of love and madness. For those who have once begun the heavenward pilgrimage may not go down again to darkness and the journey beneath the earth, but they live in light always ; happy companions in their pilgrimage, and when the time comes at which they receive their wings they have the same plumage because of their love. PHAEDRUS

Soc. At any rate, you will allow that every discourse ought to be a living creature, having a BODY of its own and a head and feet ; there should be a middle, beginning, and end, adapted to one another and to the whole ? PHAEDRUS

Soc. The second principle is that of division into species according to the natural formation, where the joint is, not breaking any part as a bad carver might. Just as our two discourses, alike assumed, first of all, a single form of unreason ; and then, as the BODY which from being one becomes double and may be divided into a left side and right side, each having parts right and left of the same name — after this manner the speaker proceeded to divide the parts of the left side and did not desist until he found in them an evil or left-handed love which he justly reviled ; and the other discourse leading us to the madness which lay on the right side, found another love, also having the same name, but divine, which the speaker held up before us and applauded and affirmed to be the author of the greatest benefits. PHAEDRUS

Soc. Why, because medicine has to define the nature of the BODY and rhetoric of the soul — if we would proceed, not empirically but scientifically, in the one case to impart health and strength by giving medicine and food in the other to implant the conviction or virtue which you desire, by the right application of words and training. PHAEDRUS

Phaedr. Hippocrates the Asclepiad says that the nature even of the BODY can only be understood as a whole. PHAEDRUS

Soc. Then clearly, Thrasymachus or any one else who teaches rhetoric in earnest will give an exact description of the nature of the soul ; which will enable us to see whether she be single and same, or, like the BODY, multiform. That is what we should call showing the nature of the soul. PHAEDRUS

Soc. Then motion is a good, and rest an evil, to the soul as well as to the BODY ? THEAETETUS

And I am far from saying that wisdom and the wise man have no existence ; but I say that the wise man is he who makes the evils which appear and are to a man, into goods which are and appear to him. And I would beg you not to my words in the letter, but to take the meaning of them as I will explain them. Remember what has been already said, — that to the sick man his food appears to be and is bitter, and to the man in health the opposite of bitter. Now I cannot conceive that one of these men can be or ought to be made wiser than the other : nor can you assert that the sick man because he has one impression is foolish, and the healthy man because he has another is wise ; but the one state requires to be changed into the other, the worse into the better. As in education, a change of state has to be effected, and the sophist accomplishes by words the change which the physician works by the aid of drugs. Not that any one ever made another think truly, who previously thought falsely. For no one can think what is not, or think anything different from that which he feels ; and this is always true. But as the inferior habit of mind has thoughts of kindred nature, so I conceive that a good mind causes men to have good thoughts ; and these which the inexperienced call true, I maintain to be only better, and not truer than others. And, O my dear Socrates, I do not call wise men tadpoles : far from it ; I say that they are the physicians of the human BODY, and the husbandmen of plants — for the husbandmen also take away the evil and disordered sensations of plants, and infuse into them good and healthy sensations — aye and true ones ; and the wise and good rhetoricians make the good instead of the evil to seem just to states ; for whatever appears to a state to be just and fair, so long as it is regarded as such, is just and fair to it ; but the teacher of wisdom causes the good to take the place of the evil, both in appearance and in reality. And in like manner the Sophist who is able to train his pupils in this spirit is a wise man, and deserves to be well paid by them. And so one man is wiser than another ; and no one thinks falsely, and you, whether you will or not, must endure to be a measure. On these foundations the argument stands firm, which you, Socrates, may, if you please, overthrow by an opposite argument, or if you like you may put questions to me — a method to which no intelligent person will object, quite the reverse. But I must beg you to put fair questions : for there is great inconsistency in saying that you have a zeal for virtue, and then always behaving unfairly in argument. The unfairness of which I complain is that you do not distinguish between mere disputation and dialectic : the disputer may trip up his opponent as often as he likes, and make fun ; but the dialectician will be in earnest, and only correct his adversary when necessary, telling him the errors into which he has fallen through his own fault, or that of the company which he has previously kept. If you do so, your adversary will lay the blame of his own confusion and perplexity on himself, and not on you ; will follow and love you, and will hate himself, and escape from himself into philosophy, in order that he may become different from what he was. But the other mode of arguing, which is practised by the many, will have just the opposite effect upon him ; and as he grows older, instead of turning philosopher, he will come to hate philosophy. I would recommend you, therefore, as I said before, not to encourage yourself in this polemical and controversial temper, but to find out, in a friendly and congenial spirit, what we really mean when we say that all things are in motion, and that to every individual and state what appears, is. In this manner you will consider whether knowledge and sensation are the same or different, but you will not argue, as you were just now doing, from the customary use of names and words, which the vulgar pervert in all sorts of ways, causing infinite perplexity to one another. THEAETETUS

Soc. The reason why I am thus precise is, because I want to know whether, when we perceive black and white through the eyes, and again, other qualities through other organs, we do not perceive them with one and the same part of ourselves, and, if you were asked, you might refer all such perceptions to the BODY. Perhaps, however, I had better allow you to answer for yourself and not interfere ; Tell me, then, are not the organs through which you perceive warm and hard and light and sweet, organs of the BODY ? THEAETETUS

Theaet. Of the BODY, certainly. THEAETETUS

Soc. The simple sensations which reach the soul through the BODY are given at birth to men and animals by nature, but their reflections on the being and use of them are slowly and hardly gained, if they are ever gained, by education and long experience. THEAETETUS

Soc. As, for example, when Hesiod says that a waggon is made up of a hundred planks. Now, neither you nor I could describe all of them individually ; but if any one asked what is a waggon, we should be content to answer, that a waggon consists of wheels, axle, BODY, rims, yoke. THEAETETUS

Str. When a hook is used, and the fish is not struck in any chance part of his BODY — he as be is with the spear, but only about the head and mouth, and is then drawn out from below upwards with reeds and rods : — What is the right name of that mode of fish, Theaetetus ? SOPHIST

Str. And you are aware that this exchange of the merchant is of two kinds : it is partly concerned with food for the use of the BODY, and partly with the food of the soul which is bartered and received in exchange for money. SOPHIST

Theaet. Yes, I understand ; and I agree that there are two sorts of purification and that one of them is concerned with the soul, and that there is another which is concerned with the BODY. SOPHIST

Str. The one may be compared to disease in the BODY, the other to deformity. SOPHIST

Str. And in the case of the BODY are there not two arts, which have to do with the two bodily states ? SOPHIST

Str. They cross-examine a man’s words, when he thinks that he is saying something and is really saying nothing, and easily convict him of inconsistencies in his opinions ; these they then collect by the dialectical process, and placing them side by side, show that they contradict one another about the same things, in relation to the same things, and in the same respect. He, seeing this, is angry with himself, and grows gentle towards others, and thus is entirely delivered from great prejudices and harsh notions, in a way which is most amusing to the hearer, and produces the most lasting good effect on the person who is the subject of the operation. For as the physician considers that the BODY will receive no benefit from taking food until the internal obstacles have been removed, so the purifier of the soul is conscious that his patient will receive no benefit from the application of knowledge until he is refuted, and from refutation learns modesty ; he must be purged of his prejudices first and made to think that he knows only what he knows, and no more. SOPHIST

Str. Some of them are dragging down all things from heaven and from the unseen to earth, and they literally grasp in their hands rocks and oaks ; of these they lay hold, and obstinately maintain, that the things only which can be touched or handled have being or essence, because they define being and BODY as one, and if any one else says that what is not a BODY exists they altogether despise him, and will hear of nothing but BODY. SOPHIST

Str. And do they not acknowledge this to be a BODY having a soul ? SOPHIST

Theaet. They would distinguish : the soul would be said by them to have a BODY ; but as to the other qualities of justice, wisdom, and the like, about which you asked, they would not venture either to deny their existence, or to maintain that they were all corporeal. SOPHIST

Str. And you would allow that we participate in generation, with the BODY, and through perception, but we participate with the soul through in true essence ; and essence you would affirm to be always the same and immutable, whereas generation or becoming varies ? SOPHIST

Str. This too, is evident, that the king cannot do much with his hands, or with his whole BODY, towards the maintenance of his empire, compared with what he does by the intelligence and strength of his mind. STATESMAN

Str. Why, because only the most divine things of all remain ever unchanged and the same, and BODY is not included in this class. Heaven and the universe, as we have termed them, although they have been endowed by the Creator with many glories, partake of a bodily nature, and therefore cannot be entirely free from perturbation. But their motion is, as far as possible, single and in the same place, and of the same kind ; and is therefore only subject to a reversal, which is the least alteration possible. For the lord of all moving things is alone able to move of himself ; and to think that he moves them at one time in one direction and at another time in another is blasphemy. Hence we must not say that the world is either self-moved always, or all made to go round by God in two opposite courses ; or that two Gods, having opposite purposes, make it move round. But as I have already said (and this is the only remaining alternative) the world is guided at one time by an external power which is divine and receives fresh life and immortality from the renewing hand of the Creator, and again, when let go, moves spontaneously, being set free at such a time as to have, during infinite cycles of years, a reverse movement : this is due to its perfect balance, to its vast size, and to the fact that it turns on the smallest pivot. STATESMAN

Str. The life of all animals first came to a standstill, and the mortal nature ceased to be or look older, and was then reversed and grew young and delicate ; the white locks of the aged darkened again, and the cheeks the bearded man became smooth, and recovered their former bloom ; the bodies of youths in their prime grew softer and smaller, continually by day and night returning and becoming assimilated to the nature of a newly-born child in mind as well as BODY ; in the succeeding stage they wasted away and wholly disappeared. And the bodies of those who died by violence at that time quickly passed through the like changes, and in a few days were no more seen. STATESMAN

Str. The provision of food and of all other things which mingle their particles with the particles of the human BODY ; and minister to the BODY, will form a seventh class, which may be called by the general term of nourishment, unless you have any better name to offer. This, however, appertains rather to the husbandman, huntsman, trainer, doctor, cook, and is not to be assigned to the Statesman’s art. STATESMAN

Str. And whether with a view to the public good they purge the State by killing some, or exiling some ; whether they reduce the size of the BODY corporate by sending out from the hive swarms of citizens, or, by introducing persons from without, increase it ; while they act according to the rules of wisdom and justice, and use their power with a view to the general security and improvement, the city over which they rule, and which has these characteristics, may be described as the only true State. All other governments are not genuine or real ; but only imitations of this, and some of them are better and some of them are worse ; the better are said to be well governed, but they are mere imitations like the others. STATESMAN

Str. We said that no great number of persons, whoever they may be, can attain political knowledge, or order a State wisely, but that the true government is to be found in a small BODY, or in an individual, and that other States are but imitations of this, as we said a little while ago, some for the better and some for the worse. STATESMAN

Str. But then, as the State is not like a beehive, and has no natural head who is at once recognized to be the superior both in BODY and in mind, mankind are obliged to meet and make laws, and endeavour to approach as nearly as they can to the true form of government. STATESMAN

Str. Acuteness and quickness, whether in BODY or soul or in the movement of sound, and the imitations of them which painting and music supply, you must have praised yourself before now, or been present when others praised them. STATESMAN

Str. You fancy that this is all so easy : Well, let us consider these notions with reference to the opposite classes of action under which they fall. When we praise quickness and energy and acuteness, whether of mind or BODY or sound, we express our praise of the quality which we admire by one word, and that one word is manliness or courage. STATESMAN

Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state in our histories. But one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour. For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable ; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles ; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean ; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. This vast power, gathered into one, endeavoured to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within the straits ; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind. She was pre-eminent in courage and military skill, and was the leader of the Hellenes. And when the rest fell off from her, being compelled to stand alone, after having undergone the very extremity of danger, she defeated and triumphed over the invaders, and preserved from slavery those who were not yet subjugated, and generously liberated all the rest of us who dwell within the pillars. But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods ; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a BODY sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way ; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island.” TIMAEUS

First then, in my judgment, we must make a distinction and ask, What is that which always is and has no becoming ; and what is that which is always becoming and never is ? That which is apprehended by intelligence and reason is always in the same state ; but that which is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason, is always in a process of becoming and perishing and never really is. Now everything that becomes or is created must of necessity be created by some cause, for without a cause nothing can be created. The work of the creator, whenever he looks to the unchangeable and fashions the form and nature of his work after an unchangeable pattern, must necessarily be made fair and perfect ; but when he looks to the created only, and uses a created pattern, it is not fair or perfect. Was the heaven then or the world, whether called by this or by any other more appropriate name — assuming the name, I am asking a question which has to be asked at the beginning of an enquiry about anything — was the world, I say, always in existence and without beginning ? or created, and had it a beginning ? Created, I reply, being visible and tangible and having a BODY, and therefore sensible ; and all sensible things are apprehended by opinion and sense and are in a process of creation and created. Now that which is created must, as we affirm, of necessity be created by a cause. But the father and maker of all this universe is past finding out ; and even if we found him, to tell of him to all men would be impossible. And there is still a question to be asked about him : Which of the patterns had the artificer in view when he made the world — the pattern of the unchangeable, or of that which is created ? If the world be indeed fair and the artificer good, it is manifest that he must have looked to that which is eternal ; but if what cannot be said without blasphemy is true, then to the created pattern. Every one will see that he must have looked to, the eternal ; for the world is the fairest of creations and he is the best of causes. And having been created in this way, the world has been framed in the likeness of that which is apprehended by reason and mind and is unchangeable, and must therefore of necessity, if this is admitted, be a copy of something. Now it is all-important that the beginning of everything should be according to nature. And in speaking of the copy and 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 are the judges, are only mortal men, and we ought to accept the tale which is probable and enquire no further. TIMAEUS

Tim. Let me tell you then why the creator made this world of generation. He was good, and the good can never have any jealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as they could be. This is in the truest sense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well in believing on the testimony of wise men : God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable. Wherefore also finding the whole visible sphere not at rest, but moving in an irregular and disorderly fashion, out of disorder he brought order, considering that this was in every way better than the other. Now the deeds of the best could never be or have been other than the fairest ; and the creator, reflecting on the things which are by nature visible, found that no unintelligent creature taken as a whole was fairer than the intelligent taken as a whole ; and that intelligence could not be present in anything which was devoid of soul. For which reason, when he was framing the universe, he put intelligence in soul, and soul in BODY, that he might be the creator of a work which was by nature fairest and best. Wherefore, using the language of probability, we may say that the world became a living creature truly endowed with soul and intelligence by the providence of God. TIMAEUS

Now that which is created is of necessity corporeal, and also visible and tangible. And nothing is visible where there is no fire, or tangible which has no solidity, and nothing is solid without earth. Wherefore also God in the beginning of creation made the BODY of the universe to consist of fire and earth. But two things cannot be rightly put together without a third ; there must be some bond of union between them. And the fairest bond is that which makes the most complete fusion of itself and the things which it combines ; and proportion is best adapted to effect such a union. For whenever in any three numbers, whether cube or square, there is a mean, which is to the last term what the first term is to it ; and again, when the mean is to the first term as the last term is to the mean — then the mean becoming first and last, and the first and last both becoming means, they will all of them of necessity come to be the same, and having become the same with one another will be all one. If the universal frame had been created a surface only and having no depth, a single mean would have sufficed to bind together itself and the other terms ; but now, as the world must be solid, and solid bodies are always compacted not by one mean but by two, God placed water and air in the mean between fire and earth, and made them to have the same proportion so far as was possible (as fire is to air so is air to water, and as air is to water so is water to earth) ; and thus he bound and put together a visible and tangible heaven. And for these reasons, and out of such elements which are in number four, the BODY of the world was created, and it was harmonised by proportion, and therefore has the spirit of friendship ; and having been reconciled to itself, it was indissoluble by the hand of any other than the framer. TIMAEUS

Such was the whole plan of the eternal God about the god that was to be, to whom for this reason he gave a BODY, smooth and even, having a surface in every direction equidistant from the centre, a BODY entire and perfect, and formed out of perfect bodies. And in the centre he put the soul, which he diffused throughout the BODY, making it also to be the exterior environment of it ; and he made the universe a circle moving in a circle, one and solitary, yet by reason of its excellence able to converse with itself, and needing no other friendship or acquaintance. Having these purposes in view he created the world a blessed god. TIMAEUS

Now God did not make the soul after the BODY, although we are speaking of them in this order ; for having brought them together he would never have allowed that the elder should be ruled by the younger ; but this is a random manner of speaking which we have, because somehow we ourselves too are very much under the dominion of chance. Whereas he made the soul in origin and excellence prior to and older than the BODY, to be the ruler and mistress, of whom the BODY was to be the subject. And he made her out of the following elements and on this wise : Out of the indivisible and unchangeable, and also out of that which is divisible and has to do with material bodies, he compounded a third and intermediate kind of essence, partaking of the nature of the same and of the other, and this compound he placed accordingly in a mean between the indivisible, and the divisible and material. He took the three elements of the same, the other, and the essence, and mingled them into one form, compressing by force the reluctant and unsociable nature of the other into the same. When he had mingled them with the essence and out of three made one, he again divided this whole into as many portions as was fitting, each portion being a compound of the same, the other, and the essence. And he proceeded to divide after this manner : — First of all, he took away one part of the whole (1), and then he separated a second part which was double the first (2), and then he took away a third part which was half as much again as the second and three times as much as the first (3), and then he took a fourth part which was twice as much as the second (4), and a fifth part which was three times the third (9), and a sixth part which was eight times the first (8), and a seventh part which was twenty-seven times the first (27). After this he filled up the double intervals (i.e. between 1, 2, 4, 8) and the triple (i.e. between 1, 3, 9, 27) cutting off yet other portions from the mixture and placing them in the intervals, so that in each interval there were two kinds of means, the one exceeding and exceeded by equal parts of its extremes (as for example 1, 4/3, 2, in which the mean 4/3 is one-third of 1 more than 1, and one-third of 2 less than 2), the other being that kind of mean which exceeds and is exceeded by an equal number. Where there were intervals of 3/2 and of 4/3 and of 9/8, made by the connecting terms in the former intervals, he filled up all the intervals of 4/3 with the interval of 9/8, leaving a fraction over ; and the interval which this fraction expressed was in the ratio of 256 to 243. And thus the whole mixture out of which he cut these portions was all exhausted by him. This entire compound he divided lengthways into two parts, which he joined to one another at the centre like the letter X, and bent them into a circular form, connecting them with themselves and each other at the point opposite to their original meeting-point ; and, comprehending them in a uniform revolution upon the same axis, he made the one the outer and the other the inner circle. Now the motion of the outer circle he called the motion of the same, and the motion of the inner circle the motion of the other or diverse. The motion of the same he carried round by the side to the right, and the motion of the diverse diagonally to the left. And he gave dominion to the motion of the same and like, for that he left single and undivided ; but the inner motion he divided in six places and made seven unequal circles having their intervals in ratios of two and three, three of each, and bade the orbits proceed in a direction opposite to one another ; and three (Sun, Mercury, Venus) he made to move with equal swiftness, and the remaining four (Moon, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter) to move with unequal swiftness to the three and to one another, but in due proportion. TIMAEUS

Now when the Creator had framed the soul according to his will, he formed within her the corporeal universe, and brought the two together, and united them centre to centre. The soul, interfused everywhere from the centre to the circumference of heaven, of which also she is the external envelopment, herself turning in herself, began a divine beginning of never ceasing and rational life enduring throughout all time. The BODY of heaven is visible, but the soul is invisible, and partakes of reason and harmony, and being made by the best of intellectual and everlasting natures, is the best of things created. And because she is composed of the same and of the other and of the essence, these three, and is divided and united in due proportion, and in her revolutions returns upon herself, the soul, when touching anything which has essence, whether dispersed in parts or undivided, is stirred through all her powers, to declare the sameness or difference of that thing and some other ; and to what individuals are related, and by what affected, and in what way and how and when, both in the world of generation and in the world of immutable being. And when reason, which works with equal truth, whether she be in the circle of the diverse or of the same — in voiceless silence holding her onward course in the sphere of the self-moved — when reason, I say, is hovering around the sensible world and when the circle of the diverse also moving truly imparts the intimations of sense to the whole soul, then arise opinions and beliefs sure and certain. But when reason is concerned with the rational, and the circle of the same moving smoothly declares it, then intelligence and knowledge are necessarily perfected. And if any one affirms that in which these two are found to be other than the soul, he will say the very opposite of the truth. TIMAEUS

When the creator had made all these ordinances he remained in his own accustomed nature, and his children heard and were obedient to their father’s word, and receiving from him the immortal principle of a mortal creature, in imitation of their own creator they borrowed portions of fire, and earth, and water, and air from the world, which were hereafter to be restored — these they took and welded them together, not with the indissoluble chains by which they were themselves bound, but with little pegs too small to be visible, making up out of all the four elements each separate BODY, and fastening the courses of the immortal soul in a BODY which was in a state of perpetual influx and efflux. Now these courses, detained as in a vast river, neither overcame nor were overcome ; but were hurrying and hurried to and fro, so that the whole animal was moved and progressed, irregularly however and irrationally and anyhow, in all the six directions of motion, wandering backwards and forwards, and right and left, and up and down, and in all the six directions. For great as was the advancing and retiring flood which provided nourishment, the affections produced by external contact caused still greater tumult — when the BODY of any one met and came into collision with some external fire, or with the solid earth or the gliding waters, or was caught in the tempest borne on the air, and the motions produced by any of these impulses were carried through the BODY to the soul. All such motions have consequently received the general name of “sensations,” which they still retain. And they did in fact at that time create a very great and mighty movement ; uniting with the ever flowing stream in stirring up and violently shaking the courses of the soul, they completely stopped the revolution of the same by their opposing current, and hindered it from predominating and advancing ; and they so disturbed the nature of the other or diverse, that the three double intervals (i.e. between 1, 2, 4, 8), and the three triple intervals (i.e. between 1, 3, 9, 27), together with the mean terms and connecting links which are expressed by the ratios of 3 : 2, and 4 : 3, and of 9 : 8 — these, although they cannot be wholly undone except by him who united them, were twisted by them in all sorts of ways, and the circles were broken and disordered in every possible manner, so that when they moved they were tumbling to pieces, and moved irrationally, at one time in a reverse direction, and then again obliquely, and then upside down, as you might imagine a person who is upside down and has his head leaning upon the ground and his feet up against something in the air ; and when he is in such a position, both he and the spectator fancy that the right of either is his left, and left right. If, when powerfully experiencing these and similar effects, the revolutions of the soul come in contact with some external thing, either of the class of the same or of the other, they speak of the same or of the other in a manner the very opposite of the truth ; and they become false and foolish, and there is no course or revolution in them which has a guiding or directing power ; and if again any sensations enter in violently from without and drag after them the whole vessel of the soul, then the courses of the soul, though they seem to conquer, are really conquered. TIMAEUS

And by reason of all these affections, the soul, when encased in a mortal BODY, now, as in the beginning, is at first without intelligence ; but when the flood of growth and nutriment abates, and the courses of the soul, calming down, go their own way and become steadier as time goes on, then the several circles return to their natural form, and their revolutions are corrected, and they call the same and the other by their right names, and make the possessor of them to become a rational being. And if these combine in him with any true nurture or education, he attains the fulness and health of the perfect man, and escapes the worst disease of all ; but if he neglects education he walks lame to the end of his life, and returns imperfect and good for nothing to the world below. This, however, is a later stage ; at present we must treat more exactly the subject before us, which involves a preliminary enquiry into the generation of the BODY and its members, and as to how the soul was created — for what reason and by what providence of the gods ; and holding fast to probability, we must pursue our way. TIMAEUS

First, then, the gods, imitating the spherical shape of the universe, enclosed the two divine courses in a spherical BODY, that, namely, which we now term the head, being the most divine part of us and the lord of all that is in us : to this the gods, when they put together the BODY, gave all the other members to be servants, considering that it partook of every sort of motion. In order then that it might not tumble about among the high and deep places of the earth, but might be able to get over the one and out of the other, they provided the BODY to be its vehicle and means of locomotion ; which consequently had length and was furnished with four limbs extended and flexible ; these God contrived to be instruments of locomotion with which it might take hold and find support, and so be able to pass through all places, carrying on high the dwelling-place of the most sacred and divine part of us. Such was the origin of legs and hands, which for this reason were attached to every man ; and the gods, deeming the front part of man to be more honourable and more fit to command than the hinder part, made us to move mostly in a forward direction. Wherefore man must needs have his front part unlike and distinguished from the rest of his BODY. TIMAEUS

And so in the vessel of the head, they first of all put a face in which they inserted organs to minister in all things to the providence of the soul, and they appointed this part, which has authority, to be by nature the part which is in front. And of the organs they first contrived the eyes to give light, and the principle according to which they were inserted was as follows : So much of fire as would not burn, but gave a gentle light, they formed into a substance akin to the light of every-day life ; and the pure fire which is within us and related thereto they made to flow through the eyes in a stream smooth and dense, compressing the whole eye, and especially the centre part, so that it kept out everything of a coarser nature, and allowed to pass only this pure element. When the light of day surrounds the stream of vision, then like falls upon like, and they coalesce, and one BODY is formed by natural affinity in the line of vision, wherever the light that falls from within meets with an external object. And the whole stream of vision, being similarly affected in virtue of similarity, diffuses the motions of what it touches or what touches it over the whole BODY, until they reach the soul, causing that perception which we call sight. But when night comes on and the external and kindred fire departs, then the stream of vision is cut off ; for going forth to an unlike element it is changed and extinguished, being no longer of one nature with the surrounding atmosphere which is now deprived of fire : and so the eye no longer sees, and we feel disposed to sleep. For when the eyelids, which the gods invented for the preservation of sight, are closed, they keep in the internal fire ; and the power of the fire diffuses and equalises the inward motions ; when they are equalised, there is rest, and when the rest is profound, sleep comes over us scarce disturbed by dreams ; but where the greater motions still remain, of whatever nature and in whatever locality, they engender corresponding visions in dreams, which are remembered by us when we are awake and in the external world. And now there is no longer any difficulty in understanding the creation of images in mirrors and all smooth and bright surfaces. For from the communion of the internal and external fires, and again from the union of them and their numerous transformations when they meet in the mirror, all these appearances of necessity arise, when the fire from the face coalesces with the fire from the eye on the bright and smooth surface. And right appears left and left right, because the visual rays come into contact with the rays emitted by the object in a manner contrary to the usual mode of meeting ; but the right appears right, and the left left, when the position of one of the two concurring lights is reversed ; and this happens when the mirror is concave and its smooth surface repels the right stream of vision to the left side, and the left to the right. Or if the mirror be turned vertically, then the concavity makes the countenance appear to be all upside down, and the lower rays are driven upwards and the upper downwards. TIMAEUS

Thus I state my view : — If mind and true opinion are two distinct classes, then I say that there certainly are these self-existent ideas unperceived by sense, and apprehended only by the mind ; if, however, as some say, true opinion differs in no respect from mind, then everything that we perceive through the BODY is to be regarded as most real and certain. But we must affirm that to be distinct, for they have a distinct origin and are of a different nature ; the one is implanted in us by instruction, the other by persuasion ; the one is always accompanied by true reason, the other is without reason ; the one cannot be overcome by persuasion, but the other can : and lastly, every man may be said to share in true opinion, but mind is the attribute of the gods and of very few men. Wherefore also we must acknowledge that there is one kind of being which is always the same, uncreated and indestructible, never receiving anything into itself from without, nor itself going out to any other, but invisible and imperceptible by any sense, and of which the contemplation is granted to intelligence only. And there is another nature of the same name with it, and like to it, perceived by sense, created, always in motion, becoming in place and again vanishing out of place, which is apprehended by opinion and sense. And there is a third nature, which is space, and is eternal, and admits not of destruction and provides a home for all created things, and is apprehended without the help of sense, by a kind of spurious reason, and is hardly real ; which we beholding as in a dream, say of all existence that it must of necessity be in some place and occupy a space, but that what is neither in heaven nor in earth has no existence. Of these and other things of the same kind, relating to the true and waking reality of nature, we have only this dreamlike sense, and we are unable to cast off sleep and determine the truth about them. For an image, since the reality, after which it is modelled, does not belong to it, and it exists ever as the fleeting shadow of some other, must be inferred to be in another (i.e. in space ), grasping existence in some way or other, or it could not be at all. But true and exact reason, vindicating the nature of true being, maintains that while two things (i.e. the image and space) are different they cannot exist one of them in the other and so be one and also two at the same time. TIMAEUS

In the first place, then, as is evident to all, fire and earth and water and air are bodies. And every sort of BODY possesses solidity, and every solid must necessarily be contained in planes ; and every plane rectilinear figure is composed of triangles ; and all triangles are originally of two kinds, both of which are made up of one right and two acute angles ; one of them has at either end of the base the half of a divided right angle, having equal sides, while in the other the right angle is divided into unequal parts, having unequal sides. These, then, proceeding by a combination of probability with demonstration, we assume to be the original elements of fire and the other bodies ; but the principles which are prior to these God only knows, and he of men who is the friend God. And next we have to determine what are the four most beautiful bodies which are unlike one another, and of which some are capable of resolution into one another ; for having discovered thus much, we shall know the true origin of earth and fire and of the proportionate and intermediate elements. And then we shall not be willing to allow that there are any distinct kinds of visible bodies fairer than these. Wherefore we must endeavour to construct the four forms of bodies which excel in beauty, and then we shall be able to say that we have sufficiently apprehended their nature. Now of the two triangles, the isosceles has one form only ; the scalene or unequal-sided has an infinite number. Of the infinite forms we must select the most beautiful, if we are to proceed in due order, and any one who can point out a more beautiful form than ours for the construction of these bodies, shall carry off the palm, not as an enemy, but as a friend. Now, the one which we maintain to be the most beautiful of all the many triangles (and we need not speak of the others) is that of which the double forms a third triangle which is equilateral ; the reason of this would be long to tell ; he who disproves what we are saying, and shows that we are mistaken, may claim a friendly victory. Then let us choose two triangles, out of which fire and the other elements have been constructed, one isosceles, the other having the square of the longer side equal to three times the square of the lesser side. TIMAEUS

Now is the time to explain what was before obscurely said : there was an error in imagining that all the four elements might be generated by and into one another ; this, I say, was an erroneous supposition, for there are generated from the triangles which we have selected four kinds — three from the one which has the sides unequal ; the fourth alone is framed out of the isosceles triangle. Hence they cannot all be resolved into one another, a great number of small bodies being combined into a few large ones, or the converse. But three of them can be thus resolved and compounded, for they all spring from one, and when the greater bodies are broken up, many small bodies will spring up out of them and take their own proper figures ; or, again, when many small bodies are dissolved into their triangles, if they become one, they will form one large mass of another kind. So much for their passage into one another. I have now to speak of their several kinds, and show out of what combinations of numbers each of them was formed. The first will be the simplest and smallest construction, and its element is that triangle which has its hypotenuse twice the lesser side. When two such triangles are joined at the diagonal, and this is repeated three times, and the triangles rest their diagonals and shorter sides on the same point as a centre, a single equilateral triangle is formed out of six triangles ; and four equilateral triangles, if put together, make out of every three plane angles one solid angle, being that which is nearest to the most obtuse of plane angles ; and out of the combination of these four angles arises the first solid form which distributes into equal and similar parts the whole circle in which it is inscribed. The second species of solid is formed out of the same triangles, which unite as eight equilateral triangles and form one solid angle out of four plane angles, and out of six such angles the second BODY is completed. And the third BODY is made up of 120 triangular elements, forming twelve solid angles, each of them included in five plane equilateral triangles, having altogether twenty bases, each of which is an equilateral triangle. The one element (that is, the triangle which has its hypotenuse twice the lesser side) having generated these figures, generated no more ; but the isosceles triangle produced the fourth elementary figure, which is compounded of four such triangles, joining their right angles in a centre, and forming one equilateral quadrangle. Six of these united form eight solid angles, each of which is made by the combination of three plane right angles ; the figure of the BODY thus composed is a cube, having six plane quadrangular equilateral bases. There was yet a fifth combination which God used in the delineation of the universe. TIMAEUS

To earth, then, let us assign the cubical form ; for earth is the most immoveable of the four and the most plastic of all bodies, and that which has the most stable bases must of necessity be of such a nature. Now, of the triangles which we assumed at first, that which has two equal sides is by nature more firmly based than that which has unequal sides ; and of the compound figures which are formed out of either, the plane equilateral quadrangle has necessarily, a more stable basis than the equilateral triangle, both in the whole and in the parts. Wherefore, in assigning this figure to earth, we adhere to probability ; and to water we assign that one of the remaining forms which is the least moveable ; and the most moveable of them to fire ; and to air that which is intermediate. Also we assign the smallest BODY to fire, and the greatest to water, and the intermediate in size to air ; and, again, the acutest BODY to fire, and the next in acuteness to, air, and the third to water. Of all these elements, that which has the fewest bases must necessarily be the most moveable, for it must be the acutest and most penetrating in every way, and also the lightest as being composed of the smallest number of similar particles : and the second BODY has similar properties in a second degree, and the third BODY in the third degree. Let it be agreed, then, both according to strict reason and according to probability, that the pyramid is the solid which is the original element and seed of fire ; and let us assign the element which was next in the order of generation to air, and the third to water. We must imagine all these to be so small that no single particle of any of the four kinds is seen by us on account of their smallness : but when many of them are collected together their aggregates are seen. And the ratios of their numbers, motions, and other properties, everywhere God, as far as necessity allowed or gave consent, has exactly perfected, and harmonised in due proportion. TIMAEUS

From all that we have just been saying about the elements or kinds, the most probable conclusion is as follows : — earth, when meeting with fire and dissolved by its sharpness, whether the dissolution take place in the fire itself or perhaps in some mass of air or water, is borne hither and thither, until its parts, meeting together and mutually harmonising, again become earth ; for they can never take any other form. But water, when divided by fire or by air, on reforming, may become one part fire and two parts air ; and a single volume of air divided becomes two of fire. Again, when a small BODY of fire is contained in a larger BODY of air or water or earth, and both are moving, and the fire struggling is overcome and broken up, then two volumes of fire form one volume of air ; and when air is overcome and cut up into small pieces, two and a half parts of air are condensed into one part of water. Let us consider the matter in another way. When one of the other elements is fastened upon by fire, and is cut by the sharpness of its angles and sides, it coalesces with the fire, and then ceases to be cut by them any longer. For no element which is one and the same with itself can be changed by or change another of the same kind and in the same state. But so long as in the process of transition the weaker is fighting against the stronger, the dissolution continues. Again, when a few small particles, enclosed in many larger ones, are in process of decomposition and extinction, they only cease from their tendency to extinction when they consent to pass into the conquering nature, and fire becomes air and air water. But if bodies of another kind go and attack them (i.e. the small particles), the latter continue to be dissolved until, being completely forced back and dispersed, they make their escape to their own kindred, or else, being overcome and assimilated to the conquering power, they remain where they are and dwell with their victors, and from being many become one. And owing to these affections, all things are changing their place, for by the motion of the receiving vessel the bulk of each class is distributed into its proper place ; but those things which become unlike themselves and like other things, are hurried by the shaking into the place of the things to which they grow like. TIMAEUS

Water which is mingled with fire, so much as is fine and liquid (being so called by reason of its motion and the way in which it rolls along the ground), and soft, because its bases give way are less stable than those of earth, when separated from fire and air and isolated, becomes more uniform, and by their retirement is compressed into itself ; and if the condensation be very great, the water above the earth becomes hail, but on the earth, ice ; and that which is congealed in a less degree and is only half solid, when above the earth is called snow, and when upon the earth, and condensed from dew, hoarfrost. Then, again, there are the numerous kinds of water which have been mingled with one another, and are distilled through plants which grow in the earth ; and this whole class is called by the name of juices or saps. The unequal admixture of these fluids creates a variety of species ; most of them are nameless, but four which are of a fiery nature are clearly distinguished and have names. First there is wine, which warms the soul as well as the BODY : secondly, there is the oily nature, which is smooth and divides the visual ray, and for this reason is bright and shining and of a glistening appearance, including pitch, the juice of the castor berry, oil itself, and other things of a like kind : thirdly, there is the class of substances which expand the contracted parts of the mouth, until they return to their natural state, and by reason of this property create sweetness ; — these are included under the general name of honey : and, lastly, there is a frothy nature, which differs from all juices, having a burning quality which dissolves the flesh ; it is called opos (a vegetable acid). TIMAEUS

As to the kinds of earth, that which is filtered through water passes into stone in the following manner : — The water which mixes with the earth and is broken up in the process changes into air, and taking this form mounts into its own place. But as there is no surrounding vacuum it thrusts away the neighbouring air, and this being rendered heavy, and, when it is displaced, having been poured around the mass of earth, forcibly compresses it and drives it into the vacant space whence the new air had come up ; and the earth when compressed by the air into an indissoluble union with water becomes rock. The fairer sort is that which is made up of equal and similar parts and is transparent ; that which has the opposite qualities is inferior. But when all the watery part is suddenly drawn out by fire, a more brittle substance is formed, to which we give the name of pottery. Sometimes also moisture may remain, and the earth which has been fused by fire becomes, when cool, a certain stone of a black colour. A like separation of the water which had been copiously mingled with them may occur in two substances composed of finer particles of earth and of a briny nature ; out of either of them a half solid BODY is then formed, soluble in water — the one, soda, which is used for purging away oil and earth, and other, salt, which harmonizes so well in combinations pleasing to the palate, and is, as the law testifies, a substance dear to the gods. The compounds of earth and water are not soluble by water, but by fire only, and for this reason : — Neither fire nor air melt masses of earth ; for their particles, being smaller than the interstices in its structure, have plenty of room to move without forcing their way, and so they leave the earth unmelted and undissolved ; but particles of water, which are larger, force a passage, and dissolve and melt the earth. Wherefore earth when not consolidated by force is dissolved by water only ; when consolidated, by nothing but fire ; for this is the only BODY which can find an entrance. The cohesion of water again, when very strong, is dissolved by fire only — when weaker, then either by air or fire — the former entering the interstices, and the latter penetrating even the triangles. But nothing can dissolve air, when strongly condensed, which does not reach the elements or triangles ; or if not strongly condensed, then only fire can dissolve it. As to bodies composed of earth and water, while the water occupies the vacant interstices of the earth in them which are compressed by force, the particles of water which approach them from without, finding no entrance, flow around the entire mass and leave it undissolved ; but the particles of fire, entering into the interstices of the water, do to the water what water does to earth and fire to air, and are the sole causes of the compound BODY of earth and water liquefying and becoming fluid. Now these bodies are of two kinds ; some of them, such as glass and the fusible sort of stones, have less water than they have earth ; on the other hand, substances of the nature of wax and incense have more of water entering into their composition. TIMAEUS

I have thus shown the various classes of bodies as they are diversified by their forms and combinations and changes into one another, and now I must endeavour to set forth their affections and the causes of them. In the first place, the bodies which I have been describing are necessarily objects of sense. But we have not yet considered the origin of flesh, or what belongs to flesh, or of that part of the soul which is mortal. And these things cannot be adequately explained without also explaining the affections which are concerned with sensation, nor the latter without the former : and yet to explain them together is hardly possible ; for which reason we must assume first one or the other and afterwards examine the nature of our hypothesis. In order, then, that the affections may follow regularly after the elements, let us presuppose the existence of BODY and soul. TIMAEUS

First, let us enquire what we mean by saying that fire is hot ; and about this we may reason from the dividing or cutting power which it exercises on our bodies. We all of us feel that fire is sharp ; and we may further consider the fineness of the sides, and the sharpness of the angles, and the smallness of the particles, and the swiftness of the motion — all this makes the action of fire violent and sharp, so that it cuts whatever it meets. And we must not forget that the original figure of fire (i.e. the pyramid), more than any other form, has a dividing power which cuts our bodies into small pieces (Kepmatizei), and thus naturally produces that affection which we call heat ; and hence the origin of the name (thepmos, Kepma). Now, the opposite of this is sufficiently manifest ; nevertheless we will not fail to describe it. For the larger particles of moisture which surround the BODY, entering in and driving out the lesser, but not being able to take their places, compress the moist principle in us ; and this from being unequal and disturbed, is forced by them into a state of rest, which is due to equability and compression. But things which are contracted contrary to nature are by nature at war, and force themselves apart ; and to this war and convulsion the name of shivering and trembling is given ; and the whole affection and the cause of the affection are both termed cold. That is called hard to which our flesh yields, and soft which yields to our flesh ; and things are also termed hard and soft relatively to one another. That which yields has a small base ; but that which rests on quadrangular bases is firmly posed and belongs to the class which offers the greatest resistance ; so too does that which is the most compact and therefore most repellent. The nature of the light and the heavy will be best understood when examined in connexion with our notions of above and below ; for it is quite a mistake to suppose that the universe is parted into two regions, separate from and opposite to each other, the one a lower to which all things tend which have any bulk, and an upper to which things only ascend against their will. For as the universe is in the form of a sphere, all the extremities, being equidistant from the centre, are equally extremities, and the centre, which is equidistant from them, is equally to be regarded as the opposite of them all. Such being the nature of the world, when a person says that any of these points is above or below, may he not be justly charged with using an improper expression ? For the centre of the world cannot be rightly called either above or below, but is the centre and nothing else ; and the circumference is not the centre, and has in no one part of itself a different relation to the centre from what it has in any of the opposite parts. Indeed, when it is in every direction similar, how can one rightly give to it names which imply opposition ? For if there were any solid BODY in equipoise at the centre of the universe, there would be nothing to draw it to this extreme rather than to that, for they are all perfectly similar ; and if a person were to go round the world in a circle, he would often, when standing at the antipodes of his former position, speak of the same point as above and below ; for, as I was saying just now, to speak of the whole which is in the form of a globe as having one part above and another below is not like a sensible man. TIMAEUS

The reason why these names are used, and the circumstances under which they are ordinarily applied by us to the division of the heavens, may be elucidated by the following supposition : — if a person were to stand in that part of the universe which is the appointed place of fire, and where there is the great mass of fire to which fiery bodies gather — if, I say, he were to ascend thither, and, having the power to do this, were to abstract particles of fire and put them in scales and weigh them, and then, raising the balance, were to draw the fire by force towards the uncongenial element of the air, it would be very evident that he could compel the smaller mass more readily than the larger ; for when two things are simultaneously raised by one and the same power, the smaller BODY must necessarily yield to the superior power with less reluctance than the larger ; and the larger BODY is called heavy and said to tend downwards, and the smaller BODY is called light and said to tend upwards. And we may detect ourselves who are upon the earth doing precisely the same thing. For we of separate earthy natures, and sometimes earth itself, and draw them into the uncongenial element of air by force and contrary to nature, both clinging to their kindred elements. But that which is smaller yields to the impulse given by us towards the dissimilar element more easily than the larger ; and so we call the former light, and the place towards which it is impelled we call above, and the contrary state and place we call heavy and below respectively. Now the relations of these must necessarily vary, because the principal masses of the different elements hold opposite positions ; for that which is light, heavy, below or above in one place will be found to be and become contrary and transverse and every way diverse in relation to that which is light, heavy, below or above in an opposite place. And about all of them this has to be considered : — that the tendency of each towards its kindred element makes the BODY which is moved heavy, and the place towards which the motion tends below, but things which have an opposite tendency we call by an opposite name. Such are the causes which we assign to these phenomena. As to the smooth and the rough, any one who sees them can explain the reason of them to another. For roughness is hardness mingled with irregularity, and smoothness is produced by the joint effect of uniformity and density. TIMAEUS

The most important of the affections which concern the whole BODY remains to be considered — that is, the cause of pleasure and pain in the perceptions of which I have been speaking, and in all other things which are perceived by sense through the parts of the BODY, and have both pains and pleasures attendant on them. Let us imagine the causes of every affection, whether of sense or not, to be of the following nature, remembering that we have already distinguished between the nature which is easy and which is hard to move ; for this is the direction in which we must hunt the prey which we mean to take. A BODY which is of a nature to be easily moved, on receiving an impression however slight, spreads abroad the motion in a circle, the parts communicating with each other, until at last, reaching the principle of mind, they announce the quality of the agent. But a BODY of the opposite kind, being immobile, and not extending to the surrounding region, merely receives the impression, and does not stir any of the neighbouring parts ; and since the parts do not distribute the original impression to other parts, it has no effect of motion on the whole animal, and therefore produces no effect on the patient. This is true of the bones and hair and other more earthy parts of the human BODY ; whereas what was said above relates mainly to sight and hearing, because they have in them the greatest amount of fire and air. Now we must conceive of pleasure and pain in this way. An impression produced in us contrary to nature and violent, if sudden, is painful ; and, again, the sudden return to nature is pleasant ; but a gentle and gradual return is imperceptible and vice versa. On the other hand the impression of sense which is most easily produced is most readily felt, but is not accompanied by Pleasure or pain ; such, for example, are the affections of the sight, which, as we said above, is a BODY naturally uniting with our BODY in the day-time ; for cuttings and burnings and other affections which happen to the sight do not give pain, nor is there pleasure when the sight returns to its natural state ; but the sensations are dearest and strongest according to the manner in which the eye is affected by the object, and itself strikes and touches it ; there is no violence either in the contraction or dilation of the eye. But bodies formed of larger particles yield to the agent only with a struggle ; and then they impart their motions to the whole and cause pleasure and pain — pain when alienated from their natural conditions, and pleasure when restored to them. Things which experience gradual withdrawings and emptyings of their nature, and great and sudden replenishments, fail to perceive the emptying, but are sensible of the replenishment ; and so they occasion no pain, but the greatest pleasure, to the mortal part of the soul, as is manifest in the case of perfumes. But things which are changed all of a sudden, and only gradually and with difficulty return to their own nature, have effects in every way opposite to the former, as is evident in the case of burnings and cuttings of the BODY. TIMAEUS

Thus have we discussed the general affections of the whole BODY, and the names of the agents which produce them. And now I will endeavour to speak of the affections of particular parts, and the causes and agents of them, as far as I am able. In the first place let us set forth what was omitted when we were speaking of juices, concerning the affections peculiar to the tongue. These too, like most of the other affections, appear to be caused by certain contractions and dilations, but they have besides more of roughness and smoothness than is found in other affections ; for whenever earthy particles enter into the small veins which are the testing of the tongue, reaching to the heart, and fall upon the moist, delicate portions of flesh — when, as they are dissolved, they contract and dry up the little veins, they are astringent if they are rougher, but if not so rough, then only harsh. Those of them which are of an abstergent nature, and purge the whole surface of the tongue, if they do it in excess, and so encroach as to consume some part of the flesh itself, like potash and soda, are all termed bitter. But the particles which are deficient in the alkaline quality, and which cleanse only moderately, are called salt, and having no bitterness or roughness, are regarded as rather agreeable than otherwise. Bodies which share in and are made smooth by the heat of the mouth, and which are inflamed, and again in turn inflame that which heats them, and which are so light that they are carried upwards to the sensations of the head, and cut all that comes in their way, by reason of these qualities in them, are all termed pungent. But when these same particles, refined by putrefaction, enter into the narrow veins, and are duly proportioned to the particles of earth and air which are there, they set them whirling about one another, and while they are in a whirl cause them to dash against and enter into one another, and so form hollows surrounding the particles that enter — which watery vessels of air (for a film of moisture, sometimes earthy, sometimes pure, is spread around the air) are hollow spheres of water ; and those of them which are pure, are transparent, and are called bubbles, while those composed of the earthy liquid, which is in a state of general agitation and effervescence, are said to boil or ferment — of all these affections the cause is termed acid. And there is the opposite affection arising from an opposite cause, when the mass of entering particles, immersed in the moisture of the mouth, is congenial to the tongue, and smooths and oils over the roughness, and relaxes the parts which are unnaturally contracted, and contracts the parts which are relaxed, and disposes them all according to their nature — that sort of remedy of violent affections is pleasant and agreeable to every man, and has the name sweet. But enough of this. TIMAEUS

In considering the third kind of sense, hearing, we must speak of the causes in which it originates. We may in general assume sound to be a blow which passes through the ears, and is transmitted by means of the air, the brain, and the blood, to the soul, and that hearing is the vibration of this blow, which begins in the head and ends in the region of the liver. The sound which moves swiftly is acute, and the sound which moves slowly is grave, and that which is regular is equable and smooth, and the reverse is harsh. A great BODY of sound is loud, and a small BODY of sound the reverse. Respecting the harmonies of sound I must hereafter speak. TIMAEUS

There is a fourth class of sensible things, having many intricate varieties, which must now be distinguished. They are called by the general name of colours, and are a flame which emanates from every sort of BODY, and has particles corresponding to the sense of sight. I have spoken already, in what has preceded, of the causes which generate sight, and in this place it will be natural and suitable to give a rational theory of colours. TIMAEUS

As I said at first, when all things were in disorder God created in each thing in relation to itself, and in all things in relation to each other, all the measures and harmonies which they could possibly receive. For in those days nothing had any proportion except by accident ; nor did any of the things which now have names deserve to be named at all — as, for example, fire, water, and the rest of the elements. All these the creator first set in order, and out of them he constructed the universe, which was a single animal comprehending in itself all other animals, mortal and immortal. Now of the divine, he himself was the creator, but the creation of the mortal he committed to his offspring. And they, imitating him, received from him the immortal principle of the soul ; and around this they proceeded to fashion a mortal BODY, and. made it to be the vehicle of the so and constructed within the BODY a soul of another nature which was mortal, subject to terrible and irresistible affections — first of all, pleasure, the greatest incitement to evil ; then, pain, which deters from good ; also rashness and fear, two foolish counsellors, anger hard to be appeased, and hope easily led astray — these they mingled with irrational sense and with all-daring love according to necessary laws, and so framed man. Wherefore, fearing to pollute the divine any more than was absolutely unavoidable, they gave to the mortal nature a separate habitation in another part of the BODY, placing the neck between them to be the isthmus and boundary, which they constructed between the head and breast, to keep them apart. And in the breast, and in what is termed the thorax, they encased the mortal soul ; and as the one part of this was superior and the other inferior they divided the cavity of the thorax into two parts, as the women’s and men’s apartments are divided in houses, and placed the midriff to be a wall of partition between them. That part of the inferior soul which is endowed with courage and passion and loves contention they settled nearer the head, midway between the midriff and the neck, in order that it might be under the rule of reason and might join with it in controlling and restraining the desires when they are no longer willing of their own accord to obey the word of command issuing from the citadel. TIMAEUS

The heart, the knot of the veins and the fountain of the blood which races through all the limbs was set in the place of guard, that when the might of passion was roused by reason making proclamation of any wrong assailing them from without or being perpetrated by the desires within, quickly the whole power of feeling in the BODY, perceiving these commands and threats, might obey and follow through every turn and alley, and thus allow the principle of the best to have the command in all of them. But the gods, foreknowing that the palpitation of the heart in the expectation of danger and the swelling and excitement of passion was caused by fire, formed and implanted as a supporter to the heart the lung, which was, in the first place, soft and bloodless, and also had within hollows like the pores of a sponge, in order that by receiving the breath and the drink, it might give coolness and the power of respiration and alleviate the heat. Wherefore they cut the air-channels leading to the lung, and placed the lung about the heart as a soft spring, that, when passion was rife within, the heart, beating against a yielding BODY, might be cooled and suffer less, and might thus become more ready to join with passion in the service of reason. TIMAEUS

The part of the soul which desires meats and drinks and the other things of which it has need by reason of the bodily nature, they placed between the midriff and the boundary of the navel, contriving in all this region a sort of manger for the food of the BODY ; and there they bound it down like a wild animal which was chained up with man, and must be nourished if man was to exist. They appointed this lower creation his place here in order that he might be always feeding at the manger, and have his dwelling as far as might be from the council-chamber, making as little noise and disturbance as possible, and permitting the best part to advise quietly for the good of the whole. And knowing that this lower principle in man would not comprehend reason, and even if attaining to some degree of perception would never naturally care for rational notions, but that it would be led away by phantoms and visions night and day — to be a remedy for this, God combined with it the liver, and placed it in the house of the lower nature, contriving that it should be solid and smooth, and bright and sweet, and should also have a bitter quality, in order that the power of thought, which proceeds from the mind, might be reflected as in a mirror which receives likenesses of objects and gives back images of them to the sight ; and so might strike terror into the desires, when, making use of the bitter part of the liver, to which it is akin, it comes threatening and invading, and diffusing this bitter element swiftly through the whole liver produces colours like bile, and contracting every part makes it wrinkled and rough ; and twisting out of its right place and contorting the lobe and closing and shutting up the vessels and gates, causes pain and loathing. And the converse happens when some gentle inspiration of the understanding pictures images of an opposite character, and allays the bile and bitterness by refusing to stir or touch the nature opposed to itself, but by making use of the natural sweetness of the liver, corrects all things and makes them to be right and smooth and free, and renders the portion of the soul which resides about the liver happy and joyful, enabling it to pass the night in peace, and to practise divination in sleep, inasmuch as it has no share in mind and reason. For the authors of our being, remembering the command of their father when he bade them create the human race as good as they could, that they might correct our inferior parts and make them to attain a measure of truth, placed in the liver the seat of divination. And herein is a proof that God has given the art of divination not to the wisdom, but to the foolishness of man. No man, when in his wits, attains prophetic truth and inspiration ; but when he receives the inspired word, either his intelligence is enthralled in sleep, or he is demented by some distemper or possession. And he who would understand what he remembers to have been said, whether in a dream or when he was awake, by the prophetic and inspired nature, or would determine by reason the meaning of the apparitions which he has seen, and what indications they afford to this man or that, of past, present or future good and evil, must first recover his wits. But, while he continues demented, he cannot judge of the visions which he sees or the words which he utters ; the ancient saying is very true, that “only a man who has his wits can act or judge about himself and his own affairs.” And for this reason it is customary to appoint interpreters to be judges of the true inspiration. Some persons call them prophets ; they are quite unaware that they are only the expositors of dark sayings and visions, and are not to be called prophets at all, but only interpreters of prophecy. TIMAEUS

Such is the nature of the liver, which is placed as we have described in order that it may give prophetic intimations. During the life of each individual these intimations are plainer, but after his death the liver becomes blind, and delivers oracles too obscure to be intelligible. The neighbouring organ (the spleen) is situated on the left-hand side, and is constructed with a view of keeping the liver bright and pure — like a napkin, always ready prepared and at hand to clean the mirror. And hence, when any impurities arise in the region of the liver by reason of disorders of the BODY, the loose nature of the spleen, which is composed of a hollow and bloodless tissue, receives them all and dears them away, and when filled with the unclean matter, swells and festers, but, again, when the BODY is purged, settles down into the same place as before, and is humbled. TIMAEUS

The creation of the rest of follows next in order, and this we may investigate in a similar manner. And it appears to be very meet that the BODY should be framed on the following principles : — TIMAEUS

The authors of our race were aware that we should be intemperate in eating and drinking, and take a good deal more than was necessary or proper, by reason of gluttony. In order then that disease might not quickly destroy us, and lest our mortal race should perish without fulfilling its end — intending to provide against this, the gods made what is called the lower belly, to be a receptacle for the superfluous meat and drink, and formed the convolution of the bowels, so that the food might be prevented from passing quickly through and compelling the BODY to require more food, thus producing insatiable gluttony, and making the whole race an enemy to philosophy and music, and rebellious against the divinest element within us. TIMAEUS

The bones and flesh, and other similar parts of us, were made as follows. The firsfirst prinprinciple of all of them was the generation of the marrow. For the bonds of life which unite the soul with the BODY are made fast there, and they are the root and foundation of the human race. The marrow itself is created out of other materials : God took such of the primary triangles as were straight and smooth, and were adapted by their perfection to produce fire and water, and air and earth — these, I say, he separated from their kinds, and mingling them in due proportions with one another, made the marrow out of them to be a universal seed of the whole race of mankind ; and in this seed he then planted and enclosed the souls, and in the original distribution gave to the marrow as many and various forms as the different kinds of souls were hereafter to receive. That which, like a field, was to receive the divine seed, he made round every way, and called that portion of the marrow, brain, intending that, when an animal was perfected, the vessel containing this substance should be the head ; but that which was intended to contain the remaining and mortal part of the soul he distributed into figures at once around and elongated, and he called them all by the name “marrow” ; and to these, as to anchors, fastening the bonds of the whole soul, he proceeded to fashion around them the entire framework of our BODY, constructing for the marrow, first of all a complete covering of bone. TIMAEUS

Bone was composed by him in the following manner. Having sifted pure and smooth earth he kneaded it and wetted it with marrow, and after that he put it into fire and then into water, and once more into fire and again into water — in this way by frequent transfers from one to the other he made it insoluble by either. Out of this he fashioned, as in a lathe, a globe made of bone, which he placed around the brain, and in this he left a narrow opening ; and around the marrow of the neck and back he formed vertebrae which he placed under one another like pivots, beginning at the head and extending through the whole of the trunk. Thus wishing to preserve the entire seed, he enclosed it in a stone-like casing, inserting joints, and using in the formation of them the power of the other or diverse as an intermediate nature, that they might have motion and flexure. Then again, considering that the bone would be too brittle and inflexible, and when heated and again cooled would soon mortify and destroy the seed within — having this in view, he contrived the sinews and the flesh, that so binding all the members together by the sinews, which admitted of being stretched and relaxed about the vertebrae, he might thus make the BODY capable of flexion and extension, while the flesh would serve as a protection against the summer heat and against the winter cold, and also against falls, softly and easily yielding to external bodies, like articles made of felt ; and containing in itself a warm moisture which in summer exudes and makes the surface damp, would impart a nature coolness to the whole BODY ; and again in winter by the help of this internal warmth would form a very tolerable defence against the frost which surrounds it and attacks it from without. He who modelled us, considering these things, mixed earth with fire and water and blended them ; and making a ferment of acid and salt, he mingled it with them and formed soft and succulent flesh. As for the sinews, he made them of a mixture of bone and unfermented flesh, attempered so as to be in a mean, and gave them a yellow colour ; wherefore the sinews have a firmer and more glutinous nature than flesh, but a softer and moister nature than the bones. With these God covered the bones and marrow, binding them together by sinews, and then enshrouded them all in an upper covering of flesh. The more living and sensitive of the bones he enclosed in the thinnest film of flesh, and those which had the least life within them in the thickest and most solid flesh. So again on the joints of the bones, where reason indicated that no more was required, he placed only a thin covering of flesh, that it might not interfere with the flexion of our bodies and make them unwieldy because difficult to move ; and also that it might not, by being crowded and pressed and matted together, destroy sensation by reason of its hardness, and impair the memory and dull the edge of intelligence. Wherefore also the thighs and the shanks and the hips, and the bones of the arms and the forearms, and other parts which have no joints, and the inner bones, which on account of the rarity of the soul in the marrow are destitute of reason — all these are abundantly provided with flesh ; but such as have mind in them are in general less fleshy, except where the creator has made some part solely of flesh in order to give sensation — as, for example, the tongue. But commonly this is not the case. For the nature which comes into being and grows up in us by a law of necessity, does not admit of the combination of solid bone and much flesh with acute perceptions. More than any other part the framework of the head would have had them, if they could have co-existed, and the human race, having a strong and fleshy and sinewy head, would have had a life twice or many times as long as it now has, and also more healthy and free from pain. TIMAEUS

But our creators, considering whether they should make a longer-lived race which was worse, or a shorter-lived race which was better, came to the conclusion that every one ought to prefer a shorter span of life, which was better, to a longer one, which was worse ; and therefore they covered the head with thin bone, but not with flesh and sinews, since it had no joints ; and thus the head was added, having more wisdom and sensation than the rest of the BODY, but also being in every man far weaker. For these reasons and after this manner God placed the sinews at the extremity of the head, in a circle round the neck, and glued them together by the principle of likeness and fastened the extremities of the jawbones to them below the face, and the other sinews he dispersed throughout the BODY, fastening limb to limb. The framers of us framed the mouth, as now arranged, having teeth and tongue and lips, with a view to the necessary and the good, contriving the way in for necessary purposes, the way out for the best purposes ; for that is necessary which enters in and gives food to the BODY ; but the river of speech, which flows out of a man and ministers to the intelligence, is the fairest and noblest of all streams. Still the head could neither be left a bare frame of bones, on account of the extremes of heat and cold in the different seasons, nor yet be allowed to be wholly covered, and so become dull and senseless by reason of an overgrowth of flesh. The fleshy nature was not therefore wholly dried up, but a large sort of peel was parted off and remained over, which is now called the skin. This met and grew by the help of the cerebral moisture, and became the circular envelopment of the head. And the moisture, rising up under the sutures, watered and closed in the skin upon the crown, forming a sort of knot. The diversity of the sutures was caused by the power of the courses of the soul and of the food, and the more these struggled against one another the more numerous they became, and fewer if the struggle were less violent. This skin the divine power pierced all round with fire, and out of the punctures which were thus made the moisture issued forth, and the liquid and heat which was pure came away, and a mixed part which was composed of the same material as the skin, and had a fineness equal to the punctures, was borne up by its own impulse and extended far outside the head, but being too slow to escape, was thrust back by the external air, and rolled up underneath the skin, where it took root. Thus the hair sprang up in the skin, being akin to it because it is like threads of leather, but rendered harder and closer through the pressure of the cold, by which each hair, while in process of separation from the skin, is compressed and cooled. Wherefore the creator formed the head hairy, making use of the causes which I have mentioned, and reflecting also that instead of flesh the brain needed the hair to be a light covering or guard, which would give shade in summer and shelter in winter, and at the same time would not impede our quickness of perception. From the combination of sinew, skin, and bone, in the structure of the finger, there arises a triple compound, which, when dried up, takes the form of one hard skin partaking of all three natures, and was fabricated by these second causes, but designed by mind which is the principal cause with an eye to the future. For our creators well knew that women and other animals would some day be framed out of men, and they further knew that many animals would require the use of nails for many purposes ; wherefore they fashioned in men at their first creation the rudiments of nails. For this purpose and for these reasons they caused skin, hair, and nails to grow at the extremities of the limbs. And now that all the parts and members of the mortal animal had come together, since its life of necessity consisted of fire and breath, and it therefore wasted away by dissolution and depletion, the gods contrived the following remedy : They mingled a nature akin to that of man with other forms and perceptions, and thus created another kind of animal. These are the trees and plants and seeds which have been improved by cultivation and are now domesticated among us ; anciently there were only the will kinds, which are older than the cultivated. For everything that partakes of life may be truly called a living being, and the animal of which we are now speaking partakes of the third kind of soul, which is said to be seated between the midriff and the navel, having no part in opinion or reason or mind, but only in feelings of pleasure and pain and the desires which accompany them. For this nature is always in a passive state, revolving in and about itself, repelling the motion from without and using its own, and accordingly is not endowed by nature with the power of observing or reflecting on its own concerns. Wherefore it lives and does not differ from a living being, but is fixed and rooted in the same spot, having no power of self-motion. TIMAEUS

Now after the superior powers had created all these natures to be food for us who are of the inferior nature, they cut various channels through the BODY as through a garden, that it might be watered as from a running stream. In the first place, they cut two hidden channels or veins down the back where the skin and the flesh join, which answered severally to the right and left side of the BODY. These they let down along the backbone, so as to have the marrow of generation between them, where it was most likely to flourish, and in order that the stream coming down from above might flow freely to the other parts, and equalise the irrigation. In the next place, they divided the veins about the head, and interlacing them, they sent them in opposite directions ; those coming from the right side they sent to the left of the BODY, and those from the left they diverted towards the right, so that they and the skin might together form a bond which should fasten the head to the BODY, since the crown of the head was not encircled by sinews ; and also in order that the sensations from both sides might be distributed over the whole BODY. And next, they ordered the water-courses of the BODY in a manner which I will describe, and which will be more easily understood if we begin by admitting that all things which have lesser parts retain the greater, but the greater cannot retain the lesser. Now of all natures fire has the smallest parts, and therefore penetrates through earth and water and air and their compounds, nor can anything hold it. And a similar principle applies to the human belly ; for when meats and drinks enter it, it holds them, but it cannot hold air and fire, because the particles of which they consist are smaller than its own structure. TIMAEUS

These elements, therefore, God employed for the sake of distributing moisture from the belly into the veins, weaving together network of fire and air like a weel, having at the entrance two lesser weels ; further he constructed one of these with two openings, and from the lesser weels he extended cords reaching all round to the extremities of the network. All the interior of the net he made of fire, but the lesser weels and their cavity, of air. The network he took and spread over the newly-formed animal in the following manner : — He let the lesser weels pass into the mouth ; there were two of them, and one he let down by the air-pipes into the lungs, the other by the side of the air-pipes into the belly. The former he divided into two branches, both of which he made to meet at the channels of the nose, so that when the way through the mouth did not act, the streams of the mouth as well were replenished through the nose. With the other cavity (i.e. of the greater weel) he enveloped the hollow parts of the BODY, and at one time he made all this to flow into the lesser weels, quite gently, for they are composed of air, and at another time he caused the lesser weels to flow back again ; and the net he made to find a way in and out through the pores of the BODY, and the rays of fire which are bound fast within followed the passage of the air either way, never at any time ceasing so long as the mortal being holds together. This process, as we affirm, the name-giver named inspiration and expiration. And all this movement, active as well as passive, takes place in order that the BODY, being watered and cooled, may receive nourishment and life ; for when the respiration is going in and out, and the fire, which is fast bound within, follows it, and ever and anon moving to and fro, enters through the belly and reaches the meat and drink, it dissolves them, and dividing them into small portions and guiding them through the passages where it goes, pumps them as from a fountain into the channels of the veins, and makes the stream of the veins flow through the BODY as through a conduit. TIMAEUS

Let us once more consider the phenomena of respiration, and enquire into the causes which have made it what it is. They are as follows : — Seeing that there is no such thing as a vacuum into which any of those things which are moved can enter, and the breath is carried from us into the external air, the next point is, as will be dear to every one, that it does not go into a vacant space, but pushes its neighbour out of its place, and that which is thrust out in turn drives out its neighbour ; and in this everything of necessity at last comes round to that place from whence the breath came forth, and enters in there, and following the breath, fills up the vacant space ; and this goes on like the rotation of a wheel, because there can be no such thing as a vacuum. Wherefore also the breast and the lungs, when they emit the breath, are replenished by the air which surrounds the BODY and which enters in through the pores of the flesh and is driven round in a circle ; and again, the air which is sent away and passes out through the BODY forces the breath inwards through the passage of the mouth and the nostrils. Now the origin of this movement may be supposed to be as follows. In the interior of every animal the hottest part is that which is around the blood and veins ; it is in a manner on internal fountain of fire, which we compare to the network of a creel, being woven all of fire and extended through the centre of the BODY, while the outer parts are composed of air. Now we must admit that heat naturally proceeds outward to its own place and to its kindred element ; and as there are two exits for the heat, the out through the BODY, and the other through the mouth and nostrils, when it moves towards the one, it drives round the air at the other, and that which is driven round falls into the fire and becomes warm, and that which goes forth is cooled. But when the heat changes its place, and the particles at the other exit grow warmer, the hotter air inclining in that direction and carried towards its native element, fire, pushes round the air at the other ; and this being affected in the same way and communicating the same impulse, a circular motion swaying to and from is produced by the double process, which we call inspiration and expiration. TIMAEUS

Such as we have seen, is the nature and such are the causes of respiration — the subject in which this discussion originated. For the fire cuts the food and following the breath surges up within, fire and breath rising together and filling the veins by drawing up out of the belly and pouring into them the cut portions of the food ; and so the streams of food are kept flowing through the whole BODY in all animals. And fresh cuttings from kindred substances, whether the fruits of the earth or herb of the field, which God planted to be our daily food, acquire all sorts of colours by their inter-mixture ; but red is the most pervading of them, being created by the cutting action of fire and by the impression which it makes on a moist substance ; and hence the liquid which circulates in the BODY has a colour such as we have described. The liquid itself we call blood, which nourishes the flesh and the whole BODY, whence all parts are watered and empty places filled. TIMAEUS

The frame of the entire creature when young has the triangles of each kind new, and may be compared to the keel of a vessel which is just off the stocks ; they are locked firmly together and yet the whole mass is soft and delicate, being freshly formed of marrow and nurtured on milk. Now when the triangles out of which meats and drinks are composed come in from without, and are comprehended in the BODY, being older and weaker than the triangles already there, the frame of the BODY gets the better of them and its newer triangles cut them up, and so the animal grows great, being nourished by a multitude of similar particles. But when the roots of the triangles are loosened by having undergone many conflicts with many things in the course of time, they are no longer able to cut or assimilate the food which enters, but are themselves easily divided by the bodies which come in from without. In this way every animal is overcome and decays, and this affection is called old age. And at last, when the bonds by which the triangles of the marrow are united no longer hold, and are parted by the strain of existence, they in turn loosen the bonds of the soul, and she, obtaining a natural release, flies away with joy. For that which takes place according to nature is pleasant, but that which is contrary to nature is painful. And thus death, if caused by disease or produced by wounds, is painful and violent ; but that sort of death which comes with old age and fulfils the debt of nature is the easiest of deaths, and is accompanied with pleasure rather than with pain. TIMAEUS

Now every one can see whence diseases arise. There are four natures out of which the BODY is compacted, earth and fire and water and air, and the unnatural excess or defect of these, or the change of any of them from its own natural place into another, or — since there are more kinds than one of fire and of the other elements — the assumption by any of these of a wrong kind, or any similar irregularity, produces disorders and diseases ; for when any of them is produced or changed in a manner contrary to nature, the parts which were previously cool grow warm, and those which were dry become moist, and the light become heavy, and the heavy light ; all sorts of changes occur. For, as we affirm, a thing can only remain the same with itself, whole and sound, when the same is added to it, or subtracted from it, in the same respect and in the same manner and in due proportion ; and whatever comes or goes away in violation of these laws causes all manner of changes and infinite diseases and corruptions. Now there is a second class of structures which are also natural, and this affords a second opportunity of observing diseases to him who would understand them. For whereas marrow and bone and flesh and sinews are composed of the four elements, and the blood, though after another manner, is likewise formed out of them, most diseases originate in the way which I have described ; but the worst of all owe their severity to the fact that the generation of these substances stances in a wrong order ; they are then destroyed. For the natural order is that the flesh and sinews should be made of blood, the sinews out of the fibres to which they are akin, and the flesh out of the dots which are formed when the fibres are separated. And the glutinous and rich matter which comes away from the sinews and the flesh, not only glues the flesh to the bones, but nourishes and imparts growth to the bone which surrounds the marrow ; and by reason of the solidity of the bones, that which filters through consists of the purest and smoothest and oiliest sort of triangles, dropping like dew from the bones and watering the marrow. TIMAEUS

Now when each process takes place in this order, health commonly results ; when in the opposite order, disease. For when the flesh becomes decomposed and sends back the wasting substance into the veins, then an over-supply of blood of diverse kinds, mingling with air in the veins, having variegated colours and bitter properties, as well as acid and saline qualities, contains all sorts of bile and serum and phlegm. For all things go the wrong way, and having become corrupted, first they taint the blood itself, and then ceasing to give nourishment the BODY they are carried along the veins in all directions, no longer preserving the order of their natural courses, but at war with themselves, because they receive no good from one another, and are hostile to the abiding constitution of the BODY, which they corrupt and dissolve. The oldest part of the flesh which is corrupted, being hard to decompose, from long burning grows black, and from being everywhere corroded becomes bitter, and is injurious to every part of the BODY which is still uncorrupted. Sometimes, when the bitter element is refined away, the black part assumes an acidity which takes the place of the bitterness ; at other times the bitterness being tinged with blood has a redder colour ; and this, when mixed with black, takes the hue of grass ; and again, an auburn colour mingles with the bitter matter when new flesh is decomposed by the fire which surrounds the internal flame — to all which symptoms some physician perhaps, or rather some philosopher, who had the power of seeing in many dissimilar things one nature deserving of a name, has assigned the common name of bile. But the other kinds of bile are variously distinguished by their colours. As for serum, that sort which is the watery part of blood is innocent, but that which is a secretion of black and acid bile is malignant when mingled by the power of heat with any salt substance, and is then called acid phlegm. Again, the substance which is formed by the liquefaction of new and tender flesh when air is present, if inflated and encased in liquid so as to form bubbles, which separately are invisible owing to their small size, but when collected are of a bulk which is visible, and have a white colour arising out of the generation of foam — all this decomposition of tender flesh when inter-mingled with air is termed by us white phlegm. And the whey or sediment of newly-formed phlegm is sweat and tears, and includes the various daily discharges by which the BODY is purified. Now all these become causes of disease when the blood is not replenished in a natural manner by food and drink but gains bulk from opposite sources in violation of the laws of nature. When the several parts of the flesh are separated by disease, if the foundation remains, the power of the disorder is only half as great, and there is still a prospect of an easy recovery ; but when that which binds the flesh to the bones is diseased, and no longer being separated from the muscles and sinews, ceases to give nourishment to the bone and to unite flesh and bone, and from being oily and smooth and glutinous becomes rough and salt and dry, owing to bad regimen, then all the substance thus corrupted crumbles away under the flesh and the sinews, and separates from the bone, and the fleshy parts fall away from their foundation and leave the sinews bare and full of brine, and the flesh again gets into the circulation of the blood and makes the previously-mentioned disorders still greater. And if these bodily affections be severe, still worse are the prior disorders ; as when the bone itself, by reason of the density of the flesh, does not obtain sufficient air, but becomes mouldy and hot and gangrened and receives no nutriment, and the natural process is inverted, and the bone crumbling passes into the food, and the food into the flesh, and the flesh again falling into the blood makes all maladies that may occur more virulent than those already mentioned. But the worst case of all is when the marrow is diseased, either from excess or defect ; and this is the cause of the very greatest and most fatal disorders, in which the whole course of the BODY is reversed. TIMAEUS

There is a third class of diseases which may be conceived of as arising in three ways ; for they are produced sometimes by wind, and sometimes by phlegm, and sometimes by bile. When the lung, which is the dispenser of the air to the BODY, is obstructed by rheums and its passages are not free, some of them not acting, while through others too much air enters, then the parts which are unrefreshed by air corrode, while in other parts the excess of air forcing its way through the veins distorts them and decomposing the BODY is enclosed in the midst of it and occupies the midriff thus numberless painful diseases are produced, accompanied by copious sweats. And oftentimes when the flesh is dissolved in the BODY, wind, generated within and unable to escape, is the source of quite as much pain as the air coming in from without ; but the greatest pain is felt when the wind gets about the sinews and the veins of the shoulders, and swells them up, so twists back the great tendons and the sinews which are connected with them. These disorders are called tetanus and opisthotonus, by reason of the tension which accompanies them. The cure of them is difficult ; relief is in most cases given by fever supervening. The white phlegm, though dangerous when detained within by reason of the air-bubbles, yet if it can communicate with the outside air, is less severe, and only discolours the BODY, generating leprous eruptions and similar diseases. When it is mingled with black bile and dispersed about the courses of the head, which are the divinest part of us, the attack if coming on in sleep, is not so severe ; but when assailing those who are awake it is hard to be got rid of, and being an affection of a sacred part, is most justly called sacred. An acid and salt phlegm, again, is the source of all those diseases which take the form of catarrh, but they have many names because the places into which they flow are manifold. TIMAEUS

Inflammations of the BODY come from burnings and inflamings, and all of them originate in bile. When bile finds a means of discharge, it boils up and sends forth all sorts of tumours ; but when imprisoned within, it generates many inflammatory diseases, above all when mingled with pure blood ; since it then displaces the fibres which are scattered about in the blood and are designed to maintain the balance of rare and dense, in order that the blood may not be so liquefied by heat as to exude from the pores of the BODY, nor again become too dense and thus find a difficulty in circulating through the veins. The fibres are so constituted as to maintain this balance ; and if any one brings them all together when the blood is dead and in process of cooling, then the blood which remains becomes fluid, but if they are left alone, they soon congeal by reason of the surrounding cold. The fibres having this power over the blood, bile, which is only stale blood, and which from being flesh is dissolved again into blood, at the first influx coming in little by little, hot and liquid, is congealed by the power of the fibres ; and so congealing and made to cool, it produces internal cold and shuddering. When it enters with more of a flood and overcomes the fibres by its heat, and boiling up throws them into disorder, if it have power enough to maintain its supremacy, it penetrates the marrow and burns up what may be termed the cables of the soul, and sets her free ; but when there is not so much of it, and the BODY though wasted still holds out, the bile is itself mastered, and is either utterly banished, or is thrust through the veins into the lower or upper-belly, and is driven out of the BODY like an exile from a state in which there has been civil war ; whence arise diarrhoeas and dysenteries, and all such disorders. When the constitution is disordered by excess of fire, continuous heat and fever are the result ; when excess of air is the cause, then the fever is quotidian ; when of water, which is a more sluggish element than either fire or air, then the fever is a tertian ; when of earth, which is the most sluggish of the four, and is only purged away in a four-fold period, the result is a quartan fever, which can with difficulty be shaken off. TIMAEUS

Such is the manner in which diseases of the BODY arise ; the disorders of the soul, which depend upon the BODY, originate as follows. We must acknowledge disease of the mind to be a want of intelligence ; and of this there are two kinds ; to wit, madness and ignorance. In whatever state a man experiences either of them, that state may be called disease ; and excessive pains and pleasures are justly to be regarded as the greatest diseases to which the soul is liable. For a man who is in great joy or in great pain, in his unseasonable eagerness to attain the one and to avoid the other, is not able to see or to hear anything rightly ; but he is mad, and is at the time utterly incapable of any participation in reason. He who has the seed about the spinal marrow too plentiful and overflowing, like a tree overladen with fruit, has many throes, and also obtains many pleasures in his desires and their offspring, and is for the most part of his life deranged, because his pleasures and pains are so very great ; his soul is rendered foolish and disordered by his BODY ; yet he is regarded not as one diseased, but as one who is voluntarily bad, which is a mistake. The truth is that the intemperance of love is a disease of the soul due chiefly to the moisture and fluidity which is produced in one of the elements by the loose consistency of the bones. And in general, all that which is termed the incontinence of pleasure and is deemed a reproach under the idea that the wicked voluntarily do wrong is not justly a matter for reproach. For no man is voluntarily bad ; but the bad become bad by reason of an ill disposition of the BODY and bad education, things which are hateful to every man and happen to him against his will. And in the case of pain too in like manner the soul suffers much evil from the BODY. For where the acid and briny phlegm and other bitter and bilious humours wander about in the BODY, and find no exit or escape, but are pent up within and mingle their own vapours with the motions of the soul, and are blended, with them, they produce all sorts of diseases, more or fewer, and in every degree of intensity ; and being carried to the three places of the soul, whichever they may severally assail, they create infinite varieties of ill-temper and melancholy, of rashness and cowardice, and also of forgetfulness and stupidity. Further, when to this evil constitution of BODY evil forms of government are added and evil discourses are uttered in private as well as in public, and no sort of instruction is given in youth to cure these evils, then all of us who are bad become bad from two causes which are entirely beyond our control. In such cases the planters are to blame rather than the plants, the educators rather than the educated. But however that may be, we should endeavour as far as we can by education, and studies, and learning, to avoid vice and attain virtue ; this, however, is part of another subject. TIMAEUS

There is a corresponding enquiry concerning the mode of treatment by which the mind and the BODY are to be preserved, about which it is meet and right that I should say a word in turn ; for it is more our duty to speak of the good than of the evil. Everything that is good is fair, and the animal fair is not without proportion, and the animal which is to be fair must have due proportion. Now we perceive lesser symmetries or proportions and reason about them, but of the highest and greatest we take no heed ; for there is no proportion or disproportion more productive of health and disease, and virtue and vice, than that between soul and BODY. This however we do not perceive, nor do we reflect that when a weak or small frame is the vehicle of a great and mighty soul, or conversely, when a little soul is encased in a large BODY, then the whole animal is not fair, for it lacks the most important of all symmetries ; but the due proportion of mind and BODY is the fairest and loveliest of all sights to him who has the seeing eye. Just as a BODY which has a leg too long, or which is unsymmetrical in some other respect, is an unpleasant sight, and also, when doing its share of work, is much distressed and makes convulsive efforts, and often stumbles through awkwardness, and is the cause of infinite evil to its own self — in like manner we should conceive of the double nature which we call the living being ; and when in this compound there is an impassioned soul more powerful than the BODY, that soul, I say, convulses and fills with disorders the whole inner nature of man ; and when eager in the pursuit of some sort of learning or study, causes wasting ; or again, when teaching or disputing in private or in public, and strifes and controversies arise, inflames and dissolves the composite frame of man and introduces rheums ; and the nature of this phenomenon is not understood by most professors of medicine, who ascribe it to the opposite of the real cause. And once more, when BODY large and too strong for the soul is united to a small and weak intelligence, then inasmuch as there are two desires natural to man, — one of food for the sake of the BODY, and one of wisdom for the sake of the diviner part of us — then, I say, the motions of the stronger, getting the better and increasing their own power, but making the soul dull, and stupid, and forgetful, engender ignorance, which is the greatest of diseases. There is one protection against both kinds of disproportion : — that we should not move the BODY without the soul or the soul without the BODY, and thus they will be on their guard against each other, and be healthy and well balanced. And therefore the mathematician or any one else whose thoughts are much absorbed in some intellectual pursuit, must allow his BODY also to have due exercise, and practise gymnastic ; and he who is careful to fashion the BODY, should in turn impart to the soul its proper motions, and should cultivate music and all philosophy, if he would deserve to be called truly fair and truly good. And the separate parts should be treated in the same manner, in imitation of the pattern of the universe ; for as the BODY is heated and also cooled within by the elements which enter into it, and is again dried up and moistened by external things, and experiences these and the like affections from both kinds of motions, the result is that the BODY if given up to motion when in a state of quiescence is overmastered and perishes ; but if any one, in imitation of that which we call the foster-mother and nurse of the universe, will not allow the BODY ever to be inactive, but is always producing motions and agitations through its whole extent, which form the natural defence against other motions both internal and external, and by moderate exercise reduces to order according to their affinities the particles and affections which are wandering about the BODY, as we have already said when speaking of the universe, he will not allow enemy placed by the side of enemy to stir up wars and disorders in the BODY, but he will place friend by the side of friend, so as to create health. TIMAEUS

Now of all motions that is the best which is produced in a thing by itself, for it is most akin to the motion of thought and of the universe ; but that motion which is caused by others is not so good, and worst of all is that which moves the BODY, when at rest, in parts only and by some external agency. Wherefore of all modes of purifying and reuniting the BODY the best is gymnastic ; the next best is a surging motion, as in sailing or any other mode of conveyance which is not fatiguing ; the third sort of motion may be of use in a case of extreme necessity, but in any other will be adopted by no man of sense : I mean the purgative treatment of physicians ; for diseases unless they are very dangerous should not be irritated by medicines, since every form of disease is in a manner akin to the living being, whose complex frame has an appointed term of life. For not the whole race only, but each individual — barring inevitable accidents — comes into the world having a fixed span, and the triangles in us are originally framed with power to last for a certain time, beyond which no man prolong his life. And this holds also of the constitution of diseases ; if any one regardless of the appointed time tries to subdue them by medicine, he only aggravates and multiplies them. Wherefore we ought always to manage them by regimen, as far as a man can spare the time, and not provoke a disagreeable enemy by medicines. TIMAEUS

Enough of the composite animal, and of the BODY which is a part of him, and of the manner in which a man may train and be trained by himself so as to live most according to reason : and we must above and before all provide that the element which is to train him shall be the fairest and best adapted to that purpose. A minute discussion of this subject would be a serious task ; but if, as before, I am to give only an outline, the subject may not unfitly be summed up as follows. TIMAEUS

And we should consider that God gave the sovereign part of the human soul to be the divinity of each one, being that part which, as we say, dwells at the top of the BODY, inasmuch as we are a plant not of an earthly but of a heavenly growth, raises us from earth to our kindred who are in heaven. And in this we say truly ; for the divine power suspended the head and root of us from that place where the generation of the soul first began, and thus made the whole BODY upright. When a man is always occupied with the cravings of desire and ambition, and is eagerly striving to satisfy them, all his thoughts must be mortal, and, as far as it is possible altogether to become such, he must be mortal every whit, because he has cherished his mortal part. But he who has been earnest in the love of knowledge and of true wisdom, and has exercised his intellect more than any other part of him, must have thoughts immortal and divine, if he attain truth, and in so far as human nature is capable of sharing in immortality, he must altogether be immortal ; and since he is ever cherishing the divine power, and has the divinity within him in perfect order, he will be perfectly happy. Now there is only one way of taking care of things, and this is to give to each the food and motion which are natural to it. And the motions which are naturally akin to the divine principle within us are the thoughts and revolutions of the universe. These each man should follow, and correct the courses of the head which were corrupted at our birth, and by learning the harmonies and revolutions of the universe, should assimilate the thinking being to the thought, renewing his original nature, and having assimilated them should attain to that perfect life which the gods have set before mankind, both for the present and the future. TIMAEUS

Thus our original design of discoursing about the universe down to the creation of man is nearly completed. A brief mention may be made of the generation of other animals, so far as the subject admits of brevity ; in this manner our argument will best attain a due proportion. On the subject of animals, then, the following remarks may be offered. Of the men who came into the world, those who were cowards or led unrighteous lives may with reason be supposed to have changed into the nature of women in the second generation. And this was the reason why at that time the gods created in us the desire of sexual intercourse, contriving in man one animated substance, and in woman another, which they formed respectively in the following manner. The outlet for drink by which liquids pass through the lung under the kidneys and into the bladder, which receives then by the pressure of the air emits them, was so fashioned by them as to penetrate also into the BODY of the marrow, which passes from the head along the neck and through the back, and which in the preceding discourse we have named the seed. And the seed having life, and becoming endowed with respiration, produces in that part in which it respires a lively desire of emission, and thus creates in us the love of procreation. Wherefore also in men the organ of generation becoming rebellious and masterful, like an animal disobedient to reason, and maddened with the sting of lust, seeks to gain absolute sway ; and the same is the case with the so-called womb or matrix of women ; the animal within them is desirous of procreating children, and when remaining unfruitful long beyond its proper time, gets discontented and angry, and wandering in every direction through the BODY, closes up the passages of the breath, and, by obstructing respiration, drives them to extremity, causing all varieties of disease, until at length the desire and love of the man and the woman, bringing them together and as it were plucking the fruit from the tree, sow in the womb, as in a field, animals unseen by reason of their smallness and without form ; these again are separated and matured within ; they are then finally brought out into the light, and thus the generation of animals is completed. TIMAEUS

Concerning the country the Egyptian priests said what is not only probable but manifestly true, that the boundaries were in those days fixed by the Isthmus, and that in the direction of the continent they extended as far as the heights of Cithaeron and Parnes ; the boundary line came down in the direction of the sea, having the district of Oropus on the right, and with the river Asopus as the limit on the left. The land was the best in the world, and was therefore able in those days to support a vast army, raised from the surrounding people. Even the remnant of Attica which now exists may compare with any region in the world for the variety and excellence of its fruits and the suitableness of its pastures to every sort of animal, which proves what I am saying ; but in those days the country was fair as now and yielded far more abundant produce. How shall I establish my words ? and what part of it can be truly called a remnant of the land that then was ? The whole country is only a long promontory extending far into the sea away from the rest of the continent, while the surrounding basin of the sea is everywhere deep in the neighbourhood of the shore. Many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years, for that is the number of years which have elapsed since the time of which I am speaking ; and during all this time and through so many changes, there has never been any considerable accumulation of the soil coming down from the mountains, as in other places, but the earth has fallen away all round and sunk out of sight. The consequence is, that in comparison of what then was, there are remaining only the bones of the wasted BODY, as they may be called, as in the case of small islands, all the richer and softer parts of the soil having fallen away, and the mere skeleton of the land being left. But in the primitive state of the country, its mountains were high hills covered with soil, and the plains, as they are termed by us, of Phelleus were full of rich earth, and there was abundance of wood in the mountains. Of this last the traces still remain, for although some of the mountains now only afford sustenance to bees, not so very long ago there were still to be seen roofs of timber cut from trees growing there, which were of a size sufficient to cover the largest houses ; and there were many other high trees, cultivated by man and bearing abundance of food for cattle. Moreover, the land reaped the benefit of the annual rainfall, not as now losing the water which flows off the bare earth into the sea, but, having an abundant supply in all places, and receiving it into herself and treasuring it up in the close clay soil, it let off into the hollows the streams which it absorbed from the heights, providing everywhere abundant fountains and rivers, of which there may still be observed sacred memorials in places where fountains once existed ; and this proves the truth of what I am saying. CRITIAS

Soc. But when you have learned what sounds are high and what low, and the number and nature of the intervals and their limits or proportions, and the systems compounded out of them, which our fathers discovered, and have handed down to us who are their descendants under the name of harmonies ; and the affections corresponding to them in the movements of the human BODY, which when measured by numbers ought, as they say, to be called rhythms and measures ; and they tell us that the same principle should be applied to every one and many ; — when, I say, you have learned all this, then, my dear friend, you are perfect ; and you may be said to understand any other subject, when you have a similar grasp of it. But the, infinity of kinds and the infinity of individuals which there is in each of them, when not classified, creates in every one of us a state of infinite ignorance ; and he who never looks for number in anything, will not himself be looked for in the number of famous men. PHILEBUS

Soc. I do not think that he could — but now go on to the next step. When we saw those elements of which we have been speaking gathered up in one, did we not call them a BODY ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And the same may be said of the cosmos, which for the same reason may be considered to be a BODY, because made up of the same elements. PHILEBUS

Soc. But is our BODY nourished wholly by this BODY, or is this BODY nourished by our BODY, thence deriving and having the qualities of which we were just now speaking ? PHILEBUS

Soc. May our BODY be said to have a soul ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And whence comes that soul, my dear Protarchus, unless the BODY of the universe, which contains elements like those in our bodies but in every way fairer, had also a soul ? Can there be another source ? PHILEBUS

Pro. Yes ; this is another class of pleasures and pains, which is of the soul only, apart from the BODY, and is produced by expectation. PHILEBUS

Soc. Let us imagine affections of the BODY which are extinguished before they reach the soul, and leave her unaffected ; and again, other affections which vibrate through both soul and BODY, and impart a shock to both and to each of them. PHILEBUS

Soc. Instead of the oblivion of the soul, when you are describing the state in which she is unaffected by the shocks of the BODY, say unconsciousness. PHILEBUS

Soc. And the union or communion of soul and BODY in one feeling and motion would be properly called consciousness ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And do we not mean by recollection the power which the soul has of recovering, when by herself, some feeling which she experienced when in company with the BODY ? PHILEBUS

Soc. I want to attain the plainest possible notion of pleasure and desire, as they exist in the mind only, apart from the BODY ; and the previous analysis helps to show the nature of both. PHILEBUS

Soc. And that cannot be the BODY, for the BODY is supposed to be emptied ? PHILEBUS

Soc. That there is no such thing as desire of the BODY. PHILEBUS

Soc. The argument will not allow that our BODY either hungers or thirsts or has any similar experience. PHILEBUS

Pro. Nay, I should say that he has two pains ; in his BODY there is the actual experience of pain, and in his soul longing and expectation. PHILEBUS

Soc. We were maintaining a little while since, that when desires, as they are termed, exist in us, then the BODY has separate feelings apart from the soul — do you remember ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And the soul was supposed to desire the opposite of the bodily state, while the BODY was the source of any pleasure or pain which was experienced. PHILEBUS

Soc. But now let us suppose an interval of time at which the BODY experiences none of these changes. PHILEBUS

Pro. You mean, what would happen if the BODY were not changed either for good or bad ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And the obvious instances of the greatest pleasures, as we have often said, are the pleasures of the BODY ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Very good, and if this be true, then the greatest pleasures and pains will clearly be found in some vicious state of soul and BODY, and not in a virtuous state. PHILEBUS

Soc. There are some mixtures which are of the BODY, and only in the BODY, and others which are of the soul, and only in the soul ; while there are other mixtures of pleasures with pains, common both to soul and BODY, which in their composite state are called sometimes pleasures and sometimes pains. PHILEBUS

Soc. Yes, Protarchus, quite true of the mixed pleasures, which arise out of the communion of external and internal sensations in the BODY ; there are also cases in which the mind contributes an, opposite element to the BODY, whether of pleasure or pain, and the two unite and form one mixture. Concerning these I have already remarked, that when a man is empty he desires to be full, and has pleasure in hope and pain in vacuity. But now I must further add what I omitted before, that in all these and similar emotions in which BODY and mind are opposed (and they are innumerable), pleasure and pain coalesce in one. PHILEBUS

Soc. And why do you suppose me to have pointed out to you the admixture which takes place in comedy ? Why but to convince you that there was no difficulty in showing the mixed nature of fear and love and similar affections ; and I thought that when I had given you the illustration, you would have let me off, and have acknowledged as a general truth that the BODY without the soul, and the soul without the BODY, as well as the two united, are susceptible of all sorts of admixtures of pleasures and pains ; and so further discussion would have been unnecessary. And now I want to know whether I may depart ; or will you keep me here until midnight ? I fancy that I may obtain my release without many words ; — if I promise that to-morrow I will give you an account of all these cases. But at present I would rather sail in another direction, and go to other matters which remain to be settled, before the judgment can be given which Philebus demands. PHILEBUS

Soc. These, in turn, then, I will now endeavour to indicate ; for with the maintainers of the opinion that all pleasures are a cessation of pain, I do not agree, but, as I was saying, I use them as witnesses, that there are pleasures which seem only and are not, and there are others again which have great power and appear in many forms, yet are intermingled with pains, and are partly alleviations of agony and distress, both of BODY and mind. PHILEBUS

Soc. And now, having fairly separated the pure pleasures and those which may be rightly termed impure, let us further add to our description of them, that the pleasures which are in excess have no measure, but that those which are not in excess have measure ; the great, the excessive, whether more or less frequent, we shall be right in referring to the class of the infinite, and of the more and less, which pours through BODY and soul alike ; and the others we shall refer to the class which has measure. PHILEBUS

Soc. Is there not an absurdity in arguing that there is nothing good or noble in the BODY, or in anything else, but that good is in the soul only, and that the only good of the soul is pleasure ; and that courage or temperance or understanding, or any other good of the soul, is not really a good ? — and is there not yet a further absurdity in our being compelled to say that he who has a feeling of pain and not of pleasure is bad at the time when he is suffering pain, even though he be the best of men ; and again, that he who has a feeling of pleasure, in so far as he is pleased at the time when he is pleased, in that degree excels in virtue ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Quite impossible ; and now you and Philebus must tell me whether anything is still wanting in the mixture, for to my way of thinking the argument is now completed, and may be compared to an incorporeal law, which is going to hold fair rule over a living BODY. PHILEBUS

Ath. But war, whether external or civil, is not the best, and the need of either is to be deprecated ; but peace with one another, and good will, are best. Nor is the victory of the state over itself to be regarded as a really good thing, but as a necessity ; a man might as well say that the BODY was in the best state when sick and purged by medicine, forgetting that there is also a state of the BODY which needs no purge. And in like manner no one can be a true statesman, whether he aims at the happiness of the individual or state, who looks only, or first of all, to external warfare ; nor will he ever be a sound legislator who orders peace for the sake of war, and not war for the sake of peace. LAWS BOOK I

Ath. There seems to be a difficulty, Stranger, with regard to states, in making words and facts coincide so that there can be no dispute about them. As in the human BODY, the regimen which does good in one way does harm in another ; and we can hardly say that any one course of treatment is adapted to a particular constitution. Now the gymnasia and common meals do a great deal of good, and yet they are a source of evil in civil troubles ; as is shown in the case of the Milesian, and Boeotian, and Thurian youth, among whom these institutions seem always to have had a tendency to degrade the ancient and natural custom of love below the level, not only of man, but of the beasts. The charge may be fairly brought against your cities above all others, and is true also of most other states which especially cultivate gymnastics. Whether such matters are to be regarded jestingly or seriously, I think that the pleasure is to be deemed natural which arises out of the intercourse between men and women ; but that the intercourse of men with men, or of women with women, is contrary to nature, and that the bold attempt was originally due to unbridled lust. The Cretans are always accused of having invented the story of Ganymede and Zeus because they wanted to justify themselves in the enjoyment of unnatural pleasures by the practice of the god whom they believe to have been their lawgiver. Leaving the story, we may observe that any speculation about laws turns almost entirely on pleasure and pain, both in states and in individuals : these are two fountains which nature lets flow, and he who draws from them where and when, and as much as he ought, is happy ; and this holds of men and animals — of individuals as well as states ; and he who indulges in them ignorantly and at the wrong time, is the reverse of happy. LAWS BOOK I

Ath. And what would you say about the BODY, my friend ? Are you not surprised at any one of his own accord bringing upon himself deformity, leanness, ugliness, decrepitude ? LAWS BOOK I

Ath. Yet when a man goes of his own accord to a doctor’s shop, and takes medicine, is he not aware that soon, and for many days afterwards, he will be in a state of BODY which he would die rather than accept as the permanent condition of his life ? Are not those who train in gymnasia, at first beginning reduced to a state of weakness ? LAWS BOOK I

Ath. We will suppose that he knows the good to be good, and the bad to be bad, and makes use of them accordingly : which now is the better trained in dancing and music — he who is able to move his BODY and to use his voice in what is understood to be the right manner, but has no delight in good or hatred of evil ; or he who is incorrect in gesture and voice, but is right in his sense of pleapleasure and pain, and welcomes what is good, and is offended at what is evil ? LAWS BOOK II

Ath. Good, my friend ; I may observe, however, in passing, that in music there certainly are figures and there are melodies : and music is concerned with harmony and rhythm, so that you may speak of a melody or figure having good rhythm or good harmony — the term is correct enough ; but to speak metaphorically of a melody or figure having a “good colour,” as the masters of choruses do, is not allowable, although you can speak of the melodies or figures of the brave and the coward, praising the one and censuring the other. And not to be tedious, let us say that the figures and melodies which are expressive of virtue of soul or BODY, or of images of virtue, are without exception good, and those which are expressive of vice are the reverse of good. LAWS BOOK II

Ath. Thus far I too should agree with the many, that the excellence of music is to be measured by pleasure. But the pleasure must not be that of chance persons ; the fairest music is that which delights the best and best educated, and especially that which delights the one<one man who is pre-eminent in virtue and education. And therefore the judges must be men of character, for they will require both wisdom and courage ; the true judge must not draw his inspiration from the theatre, nor ought he to be unnerved by the clamour of the many and his own incapacity ; nor again, knowing the truth, ought he through cowardice and unmanliness carelessly to deliver a lying judgment, with the very same lips which have just appealed to the Gods before he judged. He is sitting not as the disciple of the theatre, but, in his proper place, as their instructor, and he ought to be the enemy of all pandering to the pleasure of the spectators. The ancient and common custom of Hellas, which still prevails in Italy and Sicily, did certainly leave the judgment to the BODY of spectators, who determined the victor by show of hands. But this custom has been the destruction of the poets ; for they are now in the habit of composing with a view to please the bad taste of their judges, and the result is that the spectators instruct themselves ; — and also it has been the ruin of the theatre ; they ought to be having characters put before them better than their own, and so receiving a higher pleasure, but now by their own act the opposite result follows. What inference is to be drawn from all this ? Shall I tell you ? LAWS BOOK II

Ath. How, then, shall we reassure him, and get him to sing ? Shall we begin by enacting that boys shall not taste wine at all until they are eighteen years of age ; we will tell them that fire must not be poured upon fire, whether in the BODY or in the soul, until they begin to go to work — this is a precaution which has to be taken against the excitableness of youth ; — afterwards they may taste wine in moderation up to the age of thirty, but while a man is young he should abstain altogether from intoxication and from excess of wine ; when, at length, he has reached forty years, after dinner at a public mess, he may invite not only the other Gods, but Dionysus above all, to the mystery and festivity of the elder men, making use of the wine which he has given men to lighten the sourness of old age ; that in age we may renew our youth, and forget our sorrows ; and also in order that the nature of the soul, like iron melted in the fire, may become softer and so more impressible. In the first place, will not any one who is thus mellowed be more ready and less ashamed to sing — I do not say before a large audience, but before a moderate company ; nor yet among strangers, but among his familiars, and, as we have often said, to chant, and to enchant ? LAWS BOOK II

Ath. And can he who does not know what the exact object is which is imitated, ever know whether the resemblance is truthfully executed ? I mean, for example, whether a statue has the proportions of a BODY, and the true situation of the parts ; what those proportions are, and how the parts fit into one another in due order ; also their colours and conformations, or whether this is all confused in the execution : do you think that any one can know about this, who does not know what the animal is which has been imitated ? LAWS BOOK II

Ath. The other story implied that wine was given man out of revenge, and in order to make him mad ; but our present doctrine, on the contrary, is, that wine was given him as a balm, and in order to implant modesty in the soul, and health and strength in the BODY. LAWS BOOK II

Ath. The movement of the BODY has rhythm in common with the movement of the voice, but gesture is peculiar to it, whereas song is simply the movement of the voice. LAWS BOOK II

Ath. And the movement of the BODY, when regarded as an amusement, we termed dancing ; but when extended and pursued with a view to the excellence of the BODY, this scientific training may be called gymnastic. LAWS BOOK II

Ath. Whereas the physician may often be too happy if he can restore health, and make the BODY whole, without any very great infliction of pain. LAWS BOOK III

Ath. That if any one gives too great a power to anything, too large a sail to a vessel, too much food to the BODY, too much authority to the mind, and does not observe the mean, everything is overthrown, and, in the wantonness of excess runs in the one case to disorders, and in the other to injustice, which is the child of excess. I mean to say, my dear friends, that there is no soul of man, young and irresponsible, who will be able to sustain the temptation of arbitrary power — no one who will not, under such circumstances, become filled with folly, that worst of diseases, and be hated by his nearest and dearest friends : when this happens, his kingdom is undermined, and all his power vanishes from him. And great legislators who know the mean should take heed of the danger. As far as we can guess at this distance of time, what happened was as follows : — LAWS BOOK III

Ath. We maintain, then, that a State which would be safe and happy, as far as the nature of man allows, must and ought to distribute honour and dishonour in the right way. And the right way is to place the goods of the soul first and highest in the scale, always assuming temperance to be the condition of them ; and to assign the second place to the goods of the BODY ; and the third place to money and property. And it any legislator or state departs from this rule by giving money the place of honour, or in any way preferring that which is really last, may we not say, that he or the state is doing an unholy and unpatriotic thing ? LAWS BOOK III

Athenian Stranger. Listen, all ye who have just now heard the laws about Gods, and about our dear forefathers : — Of all the things which a man has, next to the Gods, his soul is the most divine and most truly his own. Now in every man there are two parts : the better and superior, which rules, and the worse and inferior, which serves ; and the ruling part of him is always to be preferred to the subject. Wherefore I am right in bidding every one next to the Gods, who are our masters, and those who in order follow them (i.e., the demons), to honour his own soul, which every one seems to honour, but no one honours as he ought ; for honour is a divine good, and no evil thing is honourable ; and he who thinks that he can honour the soul by word or gift, or any sort of compliance, without making her in any way better, seems to honour her, but honours her not at all. For example, every man, from his very boyhood, fancies that he is able to know everything, and thinks that he honours his soul by praising her, and he is very ready to let her do whatever she may like. But I mean to say that in acting thus he injures his soul, and is far from honouring her ; whereas, in our opinion, he ought to honour her as second only to the Gods. Again, when a man thinks that others are to be blamed, and not himself, for the errors which he has committed from time to time, and the many and great evils which befell him in consequence, and is always fancying himself to be exempt and innocent, he is under the idea that he is honouring his soul ; whereas the very reverse is the fact, for he is really injuring her. And when, disregarding the word and approval of the legislator, he indulges in pleasure, then again he is far from honouring her ; he only dishonours her, and fills her full of evil and remorse ; or when he does not endure to the end the labours and fears and sorrows and pains which the legislator approves, but gives way before them, then, by yielding, he does not honour the soul, but by all such conduct he makes her to be dishonourable ; nor when he thinks that life at any price is a good, does he honour her, but yet once more he dishonours her ; for the soul having a notion that the world below is all evil, he yields to her, and does not resist and teach or convince her that, for aught she knows, the world of the Gods below, instead of being evil, may be the greatest of all goods. Again, when any one prefers beauty to virtue, what is this but the real and utter dishonour of the soul ? For such a preference implies that the BODY is more honourable than the soul ; and this is false, for there is nothing of earthly birth which is more honourable than the heavenly, and he who thinks otherwise of the soul has no idea how greatly he undervalues this wonderful possession ; nor, again, when a person is willing, or not unwilling, to acquire dishonest gains, does he then honour his soul with gifts — far otherwise ; he sells her glory and honour for a small piece of gold ; but all the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue. In a word, I may say that he who does not estimate the base and evil, the good and noble, according to the standard of the legislator, and abstain in every possible way from the one and practise the other to the utmost of his power, does not know that in all these respects he is most foully and disgracefully abusing his soul, which is the divinest part of man ; for no one, as I may say, ever considers that which is declared to be the greatest penalty of evil-doing — namely, to grow into the likeness of bad men, and growing like them to fly from the conversation of the good, and be cut off from them, and cleave to and follow after the company of the bad. And he who is joined to them must do and suffer what such men by nature do and say to one another — a suffering which is not justice but retribution ; for justice and the just are noble, whereas retribution is the suffering which waits upon injustice ; and whether a man escape or endure this, he is miserable — in the former case, because he is not cured ; while in the latter, he perishes in order that the rest of mankind may be saved. LAWS BOOK V

Speaking generally, our glory is to follow the better and improve the inferior, which is susceptible of improvement, as far as this is possible. And of all human possessions, the soul is by nature most inclined to avoid the evil, and track out and find the chief good ; which when a man has found, he should take up his abode with it during the remainder of his life. Wherefore the soul also is second (or next to God) in honour ; and third, as every one will perceive, comes the honour of the BODY in natural order. Having determined this, we have next to consider that there is a natural honour of the BODY, and that of honours some are true and some are counterfeit. To decide which are which is the business of the legislator ; and he, I suspect, would intimate that they are as follows : — Honour is not to be given to the fair BODY, or to the strong or the swift or the tall, or to the healthy BODY (although many may think otherwise), any more than to their opposites ; but the mean states of all these habits are by far the safest and most moderate ; for the one extreme makes the soul braggart and insolent, and the other, illiberal and base ; and money, and property, and distinction all go to the same tune. The excess of any of these things is apt to be a source of hatreds and divisions among states and individuals ; and the defect of them is commonly a cause of slavery. And, therefore, I would not have any one fond of heaping up riches for the sake of his children, in order that he may leave them as rich as possible. For the possession of great wealth is of no use, either to them or to the state. The condition of youth which is free from flattery, and at the same time not in need of the necessaries of life, is the best and most harmonious of all, being in accord and agreement with our nature, and making life to be most entirely free from sorrow. Let parents, then, bequeath to their children not a heap of riches, but the spirit of reverence. We, indeed, fancy that they will inherit reverence from us, if we rebuke them when they show a want of reverence. But this quality is not really imparted to them by the present style of admonition, which only tells them that the young ought always to be reverential. A sensible legislator will rather exhort the elders to reverence the younger, and above all to take heed that no young man sees or hears one of themselves doing or saying anything disgraceful ; for where old men have no shame, there young men will most certainly be devoid of reverence. The best way of training the young is to train yourself at the same time ; not to admonish them, but to be always carrying out your own admonitions in practice. He who honours his kindred, and reveres those who share in the same Gods and are of the same blood and family, may fairly expect that the Gods who preside over generation will be propitious to him, and will quicken his seed. And he who deems the services which his friends and acquaintances do for him, greater and more important than they themselves deem them, and his own favours to them less than theirs to him, will have their good-will in the intercourse of life. And surely in his relations to the state and his fellow citizens, he is by far the best, who rather than the Olympic or any other victory of peace or war, desires to win the palm of obedience to the laws of his country, and who, of all mankind, is the person reputed to have obeyed them best through life. In his relations to strangers, a man should consider that a contract is a most holy thing, and that all concerns and wrongs of strangers are more directly dependent on the protection of God, than wrongs done to citizens ; for the stranger, having no kindred and friends, is more to be pitied by Gods and men. Wherefore, also, he who is most able to avenge him is most zealous in his cause ; and he who is most able is the genius and the god of the stranger, who follow in the train of Zeus, the god of strangers. And for this reason, he who has a spark of caution in him, will do his best to pass through life without sinning against the stranger. And of offences committed, whether against strangers or fellow-countrymen, that against suppliants is the greatest. For the god who witnessed to the agreement made with the suppliant, becomes in a special manner the guardian of the sufferer ; and he will certainly not suffer unavenged. LAWS BOOK V

Now, what lives are they, and how many in which, having searched out and beheld the objects of will and desire and their opposites, and making of them a law, choosing, I say, the dear and the pleasant and the best and noblest, a man may live in the happiest way possible ? Let us say that the temperate life is one kind of life, and the rational another, and the courageous another, and the healthful another ; and to these four let us oppose four other lives — the foolish, the cowardly, the intemperate, the diseased. He who knows the temperate life will describe it as in all things gentle, having gentle pains and gentle pleasures, and placid desires and loves not insane ; whereas the intemperate life is impetuous in all things, and has violent pains and pleasures, and vehement and stinging desires, and loves utterly insane ; and in the temperate life the pleasures exceed the pains, but in the intemperate life the pains exceed the pleasures in greatness and number and frequency. Hence one of the two lives is naturally and necessarily more pleasant and the other more painful, and he who would live pleasantly cannot possibly choose to live intemperately. And if this is true, the inference clearly is that no man is voluntarily intemperate ; but that the whole multitude of men lack temperance in their lives, either from ignorance, or from want of self-control, or both. And the same holds of the diseased and healthy life ; they both have pleasures and pains, but in health the pleasure exceeds the pain, and in sickness the pain exceeds the pleasure. Now our intention in choosing the lives is not that the painful should exceed, but the life in which pain is exceeded by pleasure we have determined to be the more pleasant life. And we should say that the temperate life has the elements both of pleasure and pain fewer and smaller and less frequent than the intemperate, and the wise life than the foolish life, and the life of courage than the life of cowardice ; one of each pair exceeding in pleasure and the other in pain, the courageous surpassing the cowardly, and the wise exceeding the foolish. And so the one dass of lives exceeds the other class in pleasure ; the temperate and courageous and wise and healthy exceed the cowardly and foolish and intemperate and diseased lives ; and generally speaking, that which has any virtue, whether of BODY or soul, is pleasanter than the vicious life, and far superior in beauty and rectitude and excellence and reputation, and causes him who lives accordingly to be infinitely happier than the opposite. LAWS BOOK V

Further, the law enjoins that no private man shall be allowed to possess gold and silver, but only coin for daily use, which is almost necessary in dealing with artisans, and for payment of hirelings, whether slaves or immigrants, by all those persons who require the use of them. Wherefore our citizens, as we say, should have a coin passing current among themselves, but not accepted among the rest of mankind ; with a view, however, to expeditions and journeys to other lands — for embassies, or for any other occasion which may arise of sending out a herald, the state must also possess a common Hellenic currency. If a private person is ever obliged to go abroad, let him have the consent of the magistrates and go ; and if when he returns he has any foreign money remaining, let him give the surplus back to the treasury, and receive a corresponding sum in the local currency. And if he is discovered to appropriate it, let it be confiscated, and let him who knows and does not inform be subject to curse and dishonour equally him who brought the money, and also to a fine not less in amount than the foreign money which has been brought back. In marrying and giving in marriage, no one shall give or receive any dowry at all ; and no one shall deposit money with another whom he does not trust as a friend, nor shall he lend money upon interest ; and the borrower should be under no obligation to repay either capital or interest. That these principles are best, any one may see who compares them with the firsfirst principle and intention of a state. The intention, as we affirm, of a reasonable statesman, is not what the many declare to be the object of a good legislator, namely, that the state for the true interests of which he is advising should be as great and as rich as possible, and should possess gold and silver, and have the greatest empire by sea and land ; — this they imagine to be the real object of legislation, at the same time adding, inconsistently, that the true legislator desires to have the city the best and happiest possible. But they do not see that some of these things are possible, and some of them are impossible ; and he who orders the state will desire what is possible, and will not indulge in vain wishes or attempts to accomplish that which is impossible. The citizen must indeed be happy and good, and the legislator will seek to make him so ; but very rich and very good at the same time he cannot be, not, at least, in the sense in which the many speak of riches. For they mean by “the rich” the few who have the most valuable possessions, although the owner of them may quite well be a rogue. And if this is true, I can never assent to the doctrine that the rich man will be happy — he must be good as well as rich. And good in a high degree, and rich in a high degree at the same time, he cannot be. Some one will ask, why not ? And we shall answer — Because acquisitions which come from sources which are just and unjust indifferently, are more than double those which come from just sources only ; and the sums which are expended neither honourably nor disgracefully, are only half as great as those which are expended honourably and on honourable purposes. Thus, if the one acquires double and spends half, the other who is in the opposite case and is a good man cannot possibly be wealthier than he. The first — I am speaking of the saver and not of the spender — is not always bad ; he may indeed in some cases be utterly bad, but, as I was saying, a good man he never is. For he who receives money unjustly as well as justly, and spends neither nor unjustly, will be a rich man if he be also thrifty. On the other hand, the utterly bad is in general profligate, and therefore very poor ; while he who spends on noble objects, and acquires wealth by just means only, can hardly be remarkable for riches, any more than he can be very poor. Our statement, then, is true, that the very rich are not good, and, if they are not good, they are not happy. But the intention of our laws was that the citizens should be as happy as may be, and as friendly as possible to one another. And men who are always at law with one another, and amongst whom there are many wrongs done, can never be friends to one another, but only those among whom crimes and lawsuits are few and slight. Therefore we say that gold and silver ought not to be allowed in the city, nor much of the vulgar sort of trade which is carried on by lending money, or rearing the meaner kinds of live stock ; but only the produce of agriculture, and only so much of this as will not compel us in pursuing it to neglect that for the sake of which riches exist — I mean, soul and BODY, which without gymnastics, and without education, will never be worth anything ; and therefore, as we have said not once but many times, the care of riches should have the last place in our thoughts. For there are in all three things about which every man has an interest ; and the interest about money, when rightly regarded, is the third and lowest of them : midway comes the interest of the BODY ; and, first of all, that of the soul ; and the state which we are describing will have been rightly constituted if it ordains honours according to this scale. But if, in any of the laws which have been ordained, health has been preferred to temperance, or wealth to health and temperate habits, that law must clearly be wrong. Wherefore, also, the legislator ought often to impress upon himself the question — “What do I want ?” and “Do I attain my aim, or do I miss the mark ?” In this way, and in this way only, he ma acquit himself and free others from the work of legislation. LAWS BOOK V

Ath. This will be the method : — Sons of the Cretans, I shall say to them, inasmuch as the Cnosians have precedence over the other states, they should, in common with those who join this settlement, choose a BODY of thirty-seven in all, nineteen of them being taken from the settlers, and the remainder from the citizens of Cnosus. Of those latter the Cnosians shall make a present to your colony, and you yourself shall be one of the eighteen, and shall become a citizen of the new state ; and if you and they cannot be persuaded to go, the Cnosians may fairly use a little violence in order to make you. LAWS BOOK VI

These are the three first ordinances about the guardians of the law ; as the work of legislation progresses, each law in turn will assign to them their further duties. And now we may proceed in order to speak of the election of other officers ; for generals have to be elected, and these again must have their ministers, commanders, and colonels of horse, and commanders of brigades of foot, who would be more rightly called by their popular name of brigadiers. The guardians of the law shall propose as generals men who are natives of the city, and a selection from the candidates proposed shall be made by those who are or have been of the age for military service. And if one who is not proposed is thought by someBODY to be better than one who is, let him name whom he prefers in the place of whom, and make oath that he is better, and propose him ; and whichever of them is approved by vote shall be admitted to the final selection ; and the three who have the greatest number of votes shall be appointed generals, and superintendents of military affairs, after previously undergoing a scrutiny, like the guardians of the law. And let the generals thus elected propose twelve brigadiers, one for each tribe ; and there shall be a right of counterproposal as in the case of the generals, and the voting and decision shall take place in the same way. Until the prytanes and council are elected, the guardians of the law shall convene the assembly in some holy spot which is suitable to the purpose, placing the hoplites by themselves, and the cavalry by themselves, and in a third division all the rest of the army. All are to vote for the generals (and for the colonels of horse), but the brigadiers are to be voted for only by those who carry shields (i.e. the hoplites). Let the BODY of cavalry choose phylarchs for the generals ; but captains of light troops, or archers, or any other division of the army, shall be appointed by the generals for themselves. There only remains the appointment of officers of cavalry : these shall be proposed by the same persons who proposed the generals, and the election and the counter-proposal of other candidates shall be arranged in the same way as in the case of the generals, and let the cavalry vote and the infantry look on at the election ; the two who have the greatest number of votes shall be the leaders of all the horse. Disputes about the voting may be raised once or twice ; but if the dispute be raised a third time, the officers who preside at the several elections shall decide. LAWS BOOK VI

Thus, O my friends, and for the reasons given, should a state act which would endure and be saved. But as a ship sailing on the sea has to be watched night and day, in like manner a city also is sailing on a sea of politics, and is liable to all sorts of insidious assaults ; and therefore from morning to night, and from night to morning, rulers must join hands with rulers, and watchers with watchers, receiving and giving up their trust in a perpetual succession. Now a multitude can never fulfil a duty of this sort with anything like energy. Moreover, the greater number of the senators will have to be left during the greater part of the year to order their concerns at their own homes. They will therefore have to be arranged in twelve portions, answering to the twelve months, and furnish guardians of the state, each portion for a single month. Their business is to be at hand and receive any foreigner or citizen who comes to them, whether to give information, or to put one of those questions, to which, when asked by other cities, a city should give an answer, and to which, if she ask them herself, she should receive an answer ; or again, when there is a likelihood of internal commotions, which are always liable to happen in some form or other, they will, if they can, prevent their occurring ; or if they have already occurred, will lose time in making them known to the city, and healing the evil. Wherefore, also, this which is the presiding BODY of the state ought always to have the control of their assemblies, and of the dissolutions of them, ordinary as well as extraordinary. All this is to be ordered by the twelfth part of the council, which is always to keep watch together with the other officers of the state during one portion of the year, and to rest during the remaining eleven portions. LAWS BOOK VI

Ath. Let us assume, then, that there ought to be servants of the temples, and priests and priestesses. There must also be superintendents of roads and buddings, who will have a care of men, that they may do no harm, and also of beasts, both within the enclosure and in the suburbs. Three kinds of officers will thus have to be appointed, in order that the city may be suitably provided according to her needs. Those who have the care of the city shall be called wardens of the city ; and those who have the care of the agora shall be called wardens of the agora ; and those who have the care of the temples shall be called priests. Those who hold hereditary offices as priests or priestesses, shall not be disturbed ; but if there be few or none such, as is probable at the foundation of a new city, priests and priestesses shall be appointed to be servants of the Gods who have no servants. Some of our officers shall be elected, and others appointed by lot, those who are of the people and those who are not of the people mingling in a friendly manner in every place and city, that the state may be as far as possible of one mind. The officers of the temples shall be appointed by lot ; in this way their election will be committed to God, that he may do what is agreeable to him. And he who obtains a lot shall undergo a scrutiny, first, as to whether he is sound of BODY and of legitimate birth ; and in the second place, in order to show that he is of a perfectly pure family, not stained with homicide or any similar impiety in his own person, and also that his father and mother have led a similar unstained life. Now the laws about all divine things should be brought from Delphi, and interpreters appointed, under whose direction they should be used. The tenure of the priesthood should always be for a year and no longer ; and he who will duly execute the sacred office, according to the laws of religion, must be not less than sixty years of age — the laws shall be the same about priestesses. As for the interpreters, they shall be appointed thus : — Let the twelve tribes be distributed into groups of four, and let each group select four, one out of each tribe within the group, three times ; and let the three who have the greatest number of votes (out of the twelve appointed by each group), after undergoing a scrutiny, nine in all, be sent to Delphi, in order that the God may return one out of each triad ; their age shall be the same as that of the priests, and the scrutiny of them shall be conducted in the same manner ; let them be interpreters for life, and when any one dies let the four tribes select another from the tribe of the deceased. Moreover, besides priests and interpreters, there must be treasurers, who will take charge of the property of the several temples, and of the sacred domains, and shall have authority over the produce and the letting of them ; and three of them shall be chosen from the highest classes for the greater temples, and two for the lesser, and one for the least of all ; the manner of their election and the scrutiny of them shall be the same as that of the generals. This shall be the order of the temples. LAWS BOOK VI

Let everything have a guard as far as possible. Let the defence of the city be commited to the generals, and taxiarchs, and hipparchs, and phylarchs, and prytanes, and the wardens of the city, and of the agora, when the election of them has been completed. The defence of the country shall be provided for as follows : — The entire land has been already distributed into twelve as nearly as possible equal parts, and let the tribe allotted to a division provide annually for it five wardens of the country and commanders of the watch ; and let each BODY of five have the power of selecting twelve others out of the youth of their own tribe — these shall be not less than twenty — five years of age, and not more than thirty. And let there be allotted to them severally every month the various districts, in order that they may all acquire knowledge and experience of the whole country. The term of service for commanders and for watchers shall continue during two years. After having had their stations allotted to them, they will go from place to place in regular order, making their round from left to right as their commanders direct them ; (when I speak of going to the right, I mean that they are to go to the east). And at the commencement of the second year, in order that as many as possible of the guards may not only get a knowledge of the country at any one season of the year, but may also have experience of the manner in which different places are affected at different seasons of the year, their then commanders shall lead them again towards the left, from place to place in succession, until they have completed the second year. In the third year other wardens of the country shall be chosen and commanders of the watch, five for each division, who are to be the superintendents of the bands of twelve. While on service at each station, their attention shall be directed to the following points : — In the first place, they shall see that the country is well protected against enemies ; they shall trench and dig wherever this is required, and, as far as they can, they shall by fortifications keep off the evil-disposed, in order to prevent them from doing any harm to the country or the property ; they shall use the beasts of burden and the labourers whom they find on the spot : these will be their instruments whom they will superintend, taking them, as far as possible, at the times when they are not engaged in their regular business. They shall make every part of the country inaccessible to enemies, and as accessible as possible to friends ; there shall be ways for man and beasts of burden and for cattle, and they shall take care to have them always as smooth as they can ; and shall provide against the rains doing harm instead of good to the land, when they come down from the mountains into the hollow dells ; and shall keep in the overflow by the help of works and ditches, in order that the valleys, receiving and drinking up the rain from heaven, and providing fountains and streams in the fields and regions which lie underneath, may furnish even to the dry places plenty of good water. The fountains of water, whether of rivers or of springs, shall be ornamented with plantations and buildings for beauty ; and let them bring together the streams in subterraneous channels, and make all things plenteous ; and if there be a sacred grove or dedicated precinct in the neighbourhood, they shall conduct the water to the actual temples of the Gods, and so beautify them at all seasons of the year. Everywhere in such places the youth shall make gymnasia for themselves, and warm baths for the aged, placing by them abundance of dry wood, for the benefit of those labouring under disease — there the weary frame of the rustic, worn with toil, will receive a kindly welcome, far better than he would at the hands of a not over-wise doctor. LAWS BOOK VI

Thus much of the courts of law, which, as I was saying, cannot be precisely defined either as being or not being offices ; a superficial sketch has been given of them, in which some things have been told and others omitted. For the right place of an exact statement of the laws respecting suits, under their several heads, will be at the end of the BODY of legislation ; — let us then expect them at the end. Hitherto our legislation has been chiefly occupied with the appointment of offices. Perfect unity and exactness, extending to the whole and every particular of political administration, cannot be attained to the full, until the discussion shall have a beginning, middle, and end, and is complete in every part. At present we have reached the election of magistrates, and this may be regarded as a sufficient termination of what preceded. And now there need no longer be any delay or hesitation in beginning the work of legislation. LAWS BOOK VI

The betrothal by a father shall be valid in the first degree, that by a grandfather in the second degree, and in the third degree, betrothal by brothers who have the same father ; but if there are none of these alive, the betrothal by a mother shall be valid in like manner ; in cases of unexampled fatality, the next of kin and the guardians shall have authority. What are to be the rites before marriages, or any other sacred acts, relating either to future, present, or past marriages, shall be referred to the interpreters ; and he who follows their advice may be satisfied. Touching the marriage festival, they shall assemble not more than five male and five female friends of both families ; and a like number of members of the family of either sex, and no man shall spend more than his means will allow ; he who is of the richest class may spend a mina — he who is of the second, half a mina, and in the same proportion as the census of each decreases : all men shall praise him who is obedient to the law ; but he who is disobedient shall be punished by the guardians of the law as a man wanting in true taste, and uninstructed in the laws of bridal song. Drunkenness is always improper, except at the festivals of the God who gave wine ; and peculiarly dangerous, when a man is engaged in the business of marriage ; at such a crisis of their lives a bride and bridegroom ought to have all their wits about them — they ought to take care that their offspring may be born of reasonable beings ; for on what day or night Heaven will give them increase, who can say ? Moreover, they ought not to begetting children when their bodies are dissipated by intoxication, but their offspring should be compact and solid, quiet and compounded properly ; whereas the drunkard is all abroad in all his actions, and beside himself both in BODY and soul. Wherefore, also, the drunken man is bad and unsteady in sowing the seed of increase, and is likely to beget offspring who will be unstable and untrustworthy, and cannot be expected to walk straight either in BODY or mind. Hence during the whole year and all his life long, and especially while he is begetting children, ought to take care and not intentionally do what is injurious to health, or what involves insolence and wrong ; for he cannot help leaving the impression of himself on the souls and bodies of his offspring, and he begets children in every way inferior. And especially on the day and night of marriage should a man abstain from such things. For the beginning, which is also a God dwelling in man, preserves all things, if it meet with proper respect from each individual. He who marries is further to consider that one of the two houses in the lot is the nest and nursery of his young, and there he is to marry and make a home for himself and bring up his children, going away from his father and mother. For in friendships there must be some degree of desire, in order to cement and bind together diversities of character ; but excessive intercourse not having the desire which is created by time, insensibly dissolves friendships from a feeling of satiety ; wherefore a man and his wife shall leave to his and her father and mother their own dwelling-places, and themselves go as to a colony and dwell there, and visit and be visited by their parents ; and they shall beget and bring up children, handing on the torch of life from one generation to another, and worshipping the Gods according to law for ever. LAWS BOOK VI

Athenian Stranger. Am I not right in maintaining that a good education is that which tends most, to the improvement of mind and BODY ? LAWS BOOK VII

Ath. Well, and is not rapid growth without proper and abundant exercise the source endless evils in the BODY ? LAWS BOOK VII

Ath. And the BODY should have the most exercise when it receives most nourishment ? LAWS BOOK VII

Ath. Let us assume, then, as a first principle in relation both to the BODY and soul of very young creatures, that nursing and moving about by day and night is good for them all, and that the younger they are, the more they will need it ; infants should live, if that were possible, as if they were always rocking at sea. This is the lesson which we may gather from the experience of nurses, and likewise from the use of the remedy of motion in the rites of the Corybantes ; for when mothers want their restless children to go to sleep they do not employ rest, but, on the contrary, motion-rocking them in their arms ; nor do they give them silence, but they sing to them and lap them in sweet strains ; and the Bacchic women are cured of their frenzy in the same manner by the use of the dance and of music. LAWS BOOK VII

Education has two branches — one of gymnastic, which is concerned with the BODY, and the other of music, which is designed for the improvement of the soul. And gymnastic has also two branches — dancing and wrestling ; and one sort of dancing imitates musical recitation, and aims at preserving dignity and freedom, the other aims at producing health, agility, and beauty in the limbs and parts of the BODY, giving the proper flexion and extension to each of them, a harmonious motion being diffused everywhere, and forming a suitable accompaniment to the dance. As regards wrestling, the tricks which Antaeus and Cercyon devised in their systems out of a vain spirit of competition, or the tricks of boxing which Epeius or Amycus invented, are useless and unsuitable for war, and do not deserve to have much said about them ; but the art of wrestling erect and keeping free the neck and hands and sides, working with energy and constancy, with a composed strength, and for the sake of health — these are always useful, and are not to be neglected, but to be enjoined alike on masters and scholars, when we reach that part of legislation ; and we will desire the one to give their instructions freely, and the others to receive them thankfully. Nor, again, must we omit suitable imitations of war in our choruses ; here in Crete you have the armed dances if the Curetes, and the Lacedaemonians have those of the Dioscuri. And our virgin lady, delighting in the amusement of the dance, thought it not fit to amuse herself with empty hands ; she must be clothed in a complete suit of armour, and in this attire go through the dance ; and youths and maidens should in every respect imitate her, esteeming highly the favour of the Goddess, both with a view to the necessities of war, and to festive occasions : it will be right also for the boys, until such time as they go out to war, to make processions and supplications to all the Gods in goodly array, armed and on horseback, in dances, and marches, fast or slow, offering up prayers to the Gods and to the sons of Gods ; and also engaging in contests and preludes of contests, if at all, with these objects : For these sorts of exercises, and no others, are useful both in peace and war, and are beneficial alike to states and to private houses. But other labours and sports and exercises of the BODY are unworthy of freemen, O Megillus and Cleinias. LAWS BOOK VII

Ath. What will be the manner of life among men who may be supposed to have their food and clothing provided for them in moderation, and who have entrusted the practice of the arts to others, and whose husbandry, committed to slaves paying a part of the produce, brings them a return sufficient for men living temperately ; who, moreover, have common tables in which the men are placed apart, and near them are the common tables of their families, of their daughters and mothers, which day by day, the officers, male and female, are to inspect — they shall see to the behaviour of the company, and so dismiss them ; after which the presiding magistrate and his attendants shall honour with libations those Gods to whom that day and night are dedicated, and then go home ? To men whose lives are thus ordered, is there no work remaining to be done which is necessary and fitting, but shall each one of them live fattening like a beast ? Such a life is neither just nor honourable, nor can he who lives it fail of meeting his due ; and the due reward of the idle fatted beast is that he should be torn in pieces by some other valiant beast whose fatness is worn down by brave deeds and toil. These regulations, if we duly consider them, will never be exactly carried into execution under present circumstances, nor as long as women and children and houses and all other things are the private property of individuals ; but if we can attain the second-best form of polity, we shall be very well off. And to men living under this second polity there remains a work to be accomplished which is far from being small or insignificant, but is the greatest of all works, and ordained by the appointment of righteous law. For the life which may be truly said to be concerned with the virtue of BODY and soul is twice, or more than twice, as full of toil and trouble as the pursuit after Pythian and Olympic victories, which debars a man from every employment of life. For there ought to be no bye-work interfering with the greater work of providing the necessary exercise and nourishment for the BODY, and instruction and education for the soul. Night and day are not long enough for the accomplishment of their perfection and consummation ; and therefore to this end all freemen ought to arrange the way in which they will spend their time during the whole course of the day, from morning till evening and from evening till the morning of the next sunrise. There may seem to be some impropriety in the legislator determining minutely the numberless details of the management of the house, including such particulars as the duty of wakefulness in those who are to be perpetual watchmen of the whole city ; for that any citizen should continue during the whole of any night in sleep, instead of being seen by all his servants, always the first to awake and get up — this, whether the regulation is to be called a law or only a practice, should be deemed base and unworthy of a freeman ; also that the mistress of the house should be awakened by her handmaidens instead of herself first awakening them, is what the slaves, male and female, and the serving-boys, and, if that were possible, everyBODY and everything in the house should regard as base. If they rise early, they may all of them do much of their public and of their household business, as magistrates in the city, and masters and mistresses in their private houses, before the sun is up. Much sleep is not required by nature, either for our souls or bodies, or for the actions which they perform. For no one who is asleep is good for anything, any more than if he were dead ; but he of us who has the most regard for life and reason keeps awake as long he can, reserving only so much time for sleep as is expedient for health ; and much sleep is not required, if the habit of moderation be once rightly formed. Magistrates in states who keep awake at night are terrible to the bad, whether enemies or citizens, and are honoured and reverenced by the just and temperate, and are useful to themselves and to the whole state. LAWS BOOK VII

Ath. Enough of wrestling ; we will now proceed to speak of other movements of the BODY. Such motion may be in general called dancing, and is of two kinds : one of nobler figures, imitating the honourable, the other of the more ignoble figures, imitating the mean ; and of both these there are two further subdivisions. Of the serious, one kind is of those engaged in war and vehement action, and is the exercise of a noble person and a manly heart ; the other exhibits a temperate soul in the enjoyment of prosperity and modest pleasures, and may be truly called and is the dance of peace. The warrior dance is different from the peaceful one, and may be rightly termed Pyrrhic ; this imitates the modes of avoiding blows and missiles by dropping or giving way, or springing aside, or rising up or falling down ; also the opposite postures which are those of action, as, for example, the imitation of archery and the hurling of javelins, and of all sorts of blows. And when the imitation is of brave bodies and souls, and the action is direct and muscular, giving for the most part a straight movement to the limbs of the BODY — that, I say, is the true sort ; but the opposite is not right. In the dance of peace what we have to consider is whether a man bears himself naturally and gracefully, and after the manner of men who duly conform to the law. But before proceeding I must distinguish the dancing about which there is any doubt, from that about which there is no doubt. Which is the doubtful kind, and how are the two to be distinguished ? There are dances of the Bacchic sort, both those in which, as they say, they imitate drunken men, and which are named after the Nymphs, and Pan, and Silenuses, and Satyrs ; and also those in which purifications are made or mysteries celebrated — all this sort of dancing cannot be rightly defined as having either a peaceful or a warlike character, or indeed as having any meaning whatever and may, I think, be most truly described as distinct from the warlike dance, and distinct from the peaceful, and not suited for a city at all. There let it lie ; and so leaving it to lie, we will proceed to the dances of war and peace, for with these we are undoubtedly concerned. Now the unwarlike muse, which honours in dance the Gods and the sons of the Gods, is entirely associated with the consciousness of prosperity ; this class may be subdivided into two lesser classes, of which one is expressive of an escape from some labour or danger into good, and has greater pleasures, the other expressive of preservation and increase of former good, in which the pleasure is less exciting ; — in all these cases, every man when the pleasure is greater, moves his BODY more, and less when the pleasure is less ; and, again, if he be more orderly and has learned courage from discipline he waves less, but if he be a coward, and has no training or self-control, he makes greater and more violent movements, and in general when he is speaking or singing he is not altogether able to keep his BODY still ; and so out of the imitation of words in gestures the whole art of dancing has arisen. And in these various kinds of imitation one man moves in an orderly, another in a disorderly manner ; and as the ancients may be observed to have given many names which are according to nature and deserving of praise, so there is an excellent one which they have given to the dances of men who in their times of prosperity are moderate in their pleasures — the giver of names, whoever he was, assigned to them a very true, and poetical, and rational name, when he called them Emmeleiai, or dances of order, thus establishing two kinds of dances of the nobler sort, the dance of war which he called the Pyrrhic, and the dance of peace which he called Emmeleia, or the dance of order ; giving to each their appropriate and becoming name. These things the legislator should indicate in general outline, and the guardian of the law should enquire into them and search them out, combining dancing with music, and assigning to the several sacrificial feasts that which is suitable to them ; and when he has consecrated all of them in due order, he shall for the future change nothing, whether of dance or song. Thenceforward the city and the citizens shall continue to have the same pleasures, themselves being as far as possible alike, and shall live well and happily. LAWS BOOK VII

Ath. Then we will first determine the number ; and let the whole number be 365 — one for every day — so that one magistrate at least will sacrifice daily to some God or demi-god on behalf of the city, and the citizens, and their possessions. And the interpreters, and priests, and priestesses, and prophets shall meet, and, in company with the guardians of the law, ordain those things which the legislator of necessity omits ; and I may remark that they are the very persons who ought to take note of what is omitted. The law will say that there are twelve feasts dedicated to the twelve Gods, after whom the several tribes are named ; and that to each of them they shall sacrifice every month, and appoint choruses, and musical and gymnastic contests, assigning them so as to suit the Gods and seasons of the year. And they shall have festivals for women, distinguishing those which ought to be separated from the men’s festivals, and those which ought not. Further, they shall not confuse the infernal deities and their rites with the Gods who are termed heavenly and their rites, but shall separate them, giving to Pluto his own in the twelfth month, which is sacred to him, according to the law. To such a deity warlike men should entertain no aversion, but they should honour him as being always the best friend of man. For the connection of soul and BODY is no way better than the dissolution of them, as I am ready to maintain quite seriously. Moreover, those who would regulate these matters rightly should consider, that our city among existing cities has fellow, either in respect of leisure or comin and of the necessaries of life, and that like an individual she ought to live happily. And those who would live happily should in the first place do no wrong to one another, and ought not themselves to be wronged by others ; to attain the first is not difficult, but there is great difficulty, in acquiring the power of not being wronged. No man can be perfectly secure against wrong, unless he has become perfectly good ; and cities are like individuals in this, for a city if good has a life of peace, but if evil, a life of war within and without. Wherefore the citizens ought to practise war — not in time of war, but rather while they are at peace. And every city which has any sense, should take the field at least for one day in every month ; and for more if the magistrates think fit, having no regard to winter cold or summer heat ; and they should go out en masse, including their wives and their children, when the magistrates determine to lead forth the whole people, or in separate portions when summoned by them ; and they should always provide that there should be games and sacrificial feasts, and they should have tournaments, imitating in as lively a manner as they can real battles. And they should distribute prizes of victory and valour to the competitors, passing censures and encomiums on one another according to the characters which they bear in the contests and their whole life, honouring him who seems to be the best, and blaming him who is the opposite. And let poets celebrate the victors — not however every poet, but only one who in the first place is not less than fifty years of age ; nor should he be one who, although he may have musical and poetical gifts, has never in his life done any noble or illustrious action ; but those who are themselves good and also honourable in the state, creators of noble actions — let their poems be sung, even though they be not very musical. And let the judgment of them rest with the instructor of youth and the other guardians of the laws, who shall give them this privilege, and they alone shall be free to sing ; but the rest of the world shall not have this liberty. Nor shall any one dare to sing a song which has not been approved by the judgment of the guardians of the laws, not even if his strain be sweeter than the songs of Thamyras and Orpheus ; but only and Orpheus ; but only such poems as have been judged sacred and dedicated to the Gods, and such as are the works of good men, which praise of blame has been awarded and which have been deemed to fulfil their design fairly. LAWS BOOK VIII

Ath. Certainly the most military of all qualities is general activity of BODY, whether of foot or hand. For escaping or for capturing an enemy, quickness of foot is required ; but hand-to-hand conflict and combat need vigour and strength. LAWS BOOK VIII

Ath. The friendship which arises from contraries is horrible and coarse, and has often no tie of communion ; but that which, arises from likeness is gentle, and has a tie of communion which lasts through life. As to the mixed sort which is made up of them both, there is, first of all, a in determining what he who is possessed by this third love desires ; moreover, he is drawn different ways, and is in doubt between the two principles ; the one exhorting him to enjoy the beauty of youth, and the other forbidding him. For the one is a lover of the BODY, and hungers after beauty, like ripe fruit, and would fain satisfy himself without any regard to the character of the beloved ; the other holds the desire of the BODY to be a secondary matter, and looking rather than loving and with his soul desiring the soul of the other in a becoming manner, regards the satisfaction of the bodily love as wantonness ; he reverences and respects temperance and courage and magnanimity and wisdom, and wishes to live chastely with the chaste object of his affection. Now the sort of love which is made up of the other two is that which we have described as the third. Seeing then that there are these three sorts of love, ought the law to prohibit and forbid them all to exist among us ? Is it not rather clear that we should wish to have in the state the love which is of virtue and which desires the beloved youth to be the best possible ; and the other two, if possible, we should hinder ? What do you say, friend Megillus ? LAWS BOOK VIII

Ath. Is a man more likely to abstain from the pleasures of love and to do what he is bidden about them, when his BODY is in a good condition, or when he is in an ill condition, and out of training ? LAWS BOOK VIII

Ath. Our citizens should not allow pleasures to strengthen with indulgence, but should by toil divert the aliment and exuberance of them into other parts of the BODY ; and this will happen if no immodesty be allowed in the practice of love. Then they will be ashamed of frequent intercourse, and they will find pleasure, if seldom enjoyed, to be a less imperious mistress. They should not be found out doing anything of the sort. Concealment shall be honourable, and sanctioned by custom and made law by unwritten prescription ; on the other hand, to be detected shall be esteemed dishonourable, but not, to abstain wholly. In this way there will be a second legal standard of honourable and dishonourable, involving a second notion of right. Three principles will comprehend all those corrupt natures whom we call inferior to themselves, and who form but one dass, and will compel them not to transgress. LAWS BOOK VIII

Ath. The principle of piety, the love of honour, and the desire of beauty, not in the BODY but in the soul. These are, perhaps, romantic aspirations ; but they are the noblest of aspirations, if they could only be realized in all states, and, God willing, in the matter of love we may be able to enforce one of two things — either that no one shall venture to touch any person of the freeborn or noble class except his wedded wife, or sow the unconsecrated and bastard seed among harlots, or in barren and unnatural lusts ; or at least we may abolish altogether the connection of men with men ; and as to women, if any man has to do with any but those who come into his house duly married by sacred rites, whether they be bought or acquired in any other way, and he offends publicly in the face of all mankind, we shall be right in enacting that he be deprived of civic honours and privileges, and be deemed to be, as he truly is, a stranger. Let this law, then, whether it is one, or ought rather to be called two, be laid down respecting love in general, and the intercourse of the sexes which arises out of the desires, whether rightly or wrongly indulged. LAWS BOOK VIII

Let us first of all, then, have a class of laws which shall be called the laws of husbandmen. And let the first of them be the law of Zeus, the god of boundaries. Let no one shift the boundary line either of a fellow-citizen who is a neighbour, or, if he dwells at the extremity of the land, of any stranger who is conterminous with him, considering that this is truly “to move the immovable,” and every one should be more willing to move the largest rock which is not a landmark, than the least stone which is the sworn mark of friendship and hatred between neighbours ; for Zeus, the god of kindred, is the witness of the citizen, and Zeus, the god of strangers, of the stranger, and when aroused, terrible are the wars which they stir up. He who obeys the law will never know the fatal consequences of disobedience, but he who despises the law shall be liable to a double penalty, the first coming from the Gods, and the second from the law. For let no one wilfully remove the boundaries of his neighbour’s land, and if any one does, let him who will inform the landowners, and let them bring him into court, and if he be convicted of re-dividing the land by stealth or by force, let the court determine what he ought to suffer or pay. In the next place, many small injuries done by neighbours to one another, through their multiplication, may cause a weight of enmity, and make neighbourhood a very disagreeable and bitter thing. Wherefore a man ought to be very careful of committing any offence against his neighbour, and especially of encroaching on his neighbour’s land ; for any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another. He who encroaches on his neighbour’s land, and transgresses his boundaries, shall make good the damage, and, to cure him of his impudence and also of his meanness, he shall pay a double penalty to the injured party. Of these and the like matters the wardens of the country shall take cognizance, and be the judges of them and assessors of the damage ; in the more important cases, as has been already said, the whole number of them belonging to any one of the twelve divisions shall decide, and in the lesser cases the commanders : or, again, if any one pastures his cattle on his neighbour’s land, they shall see the injury, and adjudge the penalty. And if any one, by decoying the bees, gets possession of another’s swarms, and draws them to himself by making noises, he shall pay the damage ; or if anyone sets fire to his own wood and takes no care of his neighbour’s property, he shall be fined at the discretion of the magistrates. And if in planting he does not leave a fair distance between his own and his neighbour’s land, he shall be punished, in accordance with the enactments of many law givers, which we may use, not deeming it necessary that the great legislator of our state should determine all the trifles which might be decided by any BODY ; for example, husbandmen have had of old excellent laws about waters, and there is no reason why we should propose to divert their course : who likes may draw water from the fountain-head of the common stream on to his own land, if he do not cut off the spring which clearly belongs to some other owner ; and he may take the water in any direction which he pleases, except through a house or temple or sepulchre, but he must be careful to do no harm beyond the channel. And if there be in any place a natural dryness of the earth, which keeps in the rain from heaven, and causes a deficiency in the supply of water, let him dig down on his own land as far as the clay, and if at this depth he finds no water, let him obtain water from his neighbours, as much, as is required for his servants’ drinking, and if his neighbours, too, are limited in their supply, let him have a fixed measure, which shall be determined by the wardens of the country. This he shall receive each day, and on these terms have a share of his neighbours’ water. If there be heavy rain, and one of those on the lower ground injures some tiller of the upper ground, or some one who has a common wall, by refusing to give the man outlet for water ; or, again, if some one living on the higher ground recklessly lets off the water on his lower neighbour, and they cannot come to terms with one another, let him who will call in a warden of the city, if he be in the city, or if he be in the country, warden of the country, and let him obtain a decision determining what each of them is to do. And he who will not abide by the decision shall suffer for his malignant and morose temper, and pay a fine to the injured party, equivalent to double the value of the injury, because he was unwilling to submit to the magistrates. LAWS BOOK VIII

Ath. Excellent. I was running on too fast, Cleinias, and you impinged upon me, and brought me to my senses, reminding me of what, indeed, had occurred to mind already, that legislation was never yet rightly worked out, as I may say in passing. — Do you remember the image in which I likened the men for whom laws are now made to slaves who are doctored by slaves ? For of this you may be very sure, that if one of those empirical physicians, who practise medicine without science, were to come upon the gentleman physician talking to his gentleman patient, and using the language almost of philosophy, beginning at the beginning of the disease and discoursing about the whole nature of the BODY, he would burst into a hearty laugh — he would say what most of those who are called doctors always have at their tongue’s end : — Foolish fellow, he would say, you are not healing the sick man, but you are educating him ; and he does not want to be made a doctor, but to get well. LAWS BOOK IX

Ath. I will endeavour to explain. If I am not mistaken, we are all agreed that justice, and just men and things and actions, are all fair, and, if a person were to maintain that just men, even when they are deformed in BODY, are still perfectly beautiful in respect of the excellent justice of their minds, no one would say that there was any inconsistency in this. LAWS BOOK IX

Ath. Let us first speak, as far as we are able, of their various kinds. The greatest cause of them is lust, which gets the mastery of the soul maddened by desire ; and this is most commonly found to exist where the passion reigns which is strongest and most prevalent among mass of mankind : I mean where the power of wealth breeds endless desires of never-to-be-satisfied acquisition, originating in natural disposition, and a miserable want of education. Of this want of education, the false praise of wealth which is bruited about both among Hellenes and barbarians is the cause ; they deem that to be the first of goods which in reality is only the third. And in this way they wrong both posterity and themselves, for nothing can be nobler and better than that the truth about wealth should be spoken in all states — namely, that riches are for the sake of the BODY, as the BODY is for the sake of the soul. They are good, and wealth is intended by nature to be for the sake of them, and is therefore inferior to them both, and third in order of excellence. This argument teaches us that he who would be happy ought not to seek to be rich, or rather he should seek to be rich justly and temperately, and then there would be no murders in states requiring to be purged away by other murders. But now, as I said at first, avarice is the chiefest cause and source of the worst trials for voluntary homicide. A second cause is ambition : this creates jealousies, which are troublesome companions, above all to the jealous man himself, and in a less degree to the chiefs of the state. And a third cause is cowardly and unjust fear, which has been the occasion of many murders. When a man is doing or has done something which he desires that no one should know him to be doing or to have done, he will take the life of those who are likely to inform of such things, if he have no other means of getting rid of them. Let this be said as a prelude concerning crimes of violence in general ; and I must not omit to mention a tradition which is firmly believed by many, and has been received by them from those who are learned in the mysteries : they say that such deeds will be punished in the world below, and also that when the perpetrators return to this world they will pay the natural penalty which is due to the sufferer, and end their lives in like manner by the hand of another. If he who is about to commit murder believes this, and is made by the mere prelude to dread such a penalty, there is no need to proceed with the proclamation of the law. But if he will not listen, let the following law be declared and registered against him : LAWS BOOK IX

If a man do not commit a murder with his own hand, but contrives the death of another, and is the author of the deed in intention and design, and he continues to dwell in the city, having his soul not pure of the guilt of murder, let him be tried in the same way, except in what relates to the sureties ; and also, if he be found guilty, his BODY after execution may have burial in his native land, but in all other respects his case shall be as the former ; and whether a stranger shall kill a citizen, or a citizen a stranger, or a slave a slave, there shall be no difference as touching murder by one’s own hand or by contrivance, except in the matter of sureties ; and these, as has been said, shall be required of the actual murderer only, and he who brings the accusation shall bind them over at the time. If a slave be convicted of slaying a freeman voluntarily, either by his own hand or by contrivance, let the public executioner take him in the direction of the sepulchre, to a place whence he can see the tomb of the dead man, and inflict upon him as many stripes as the person who caught him orders, and if he survive, let him put him to death. And if any one kills a slave who has done no wrong, because he is afraid that he may inform of some base and evil deeds of his own, or for any similar reason, in such a case let him pay the penalty of murder, as he would have done if he had slain a citizen. There are things about which it is terrible and unpleasant to legislate, but impossible not to legislate. If, for example, there should be murders of kinsmen, either perpetrated by the hands of kinsmen, or by their contrivance, voluntary and purely malicious, which most often happen in ill-regulated and ill-educated states, and may perhaps occur even in a country where a man would not expect to find them, we must repeat once more the tale which we narrated a little while ago, in the hope that he who hears us will be the more disposed to abstain voluntarily on these grounds from murders which are utterly abominable. For the myth, or saying, or whatever we ought to call it, has been plainly set forth by priests of old ; they have pronounced that the justice which guards and avenges the blood of kindred, follows the law of retaliation, and ordains that he who has done any murderous act should of necessity suffer that which he has done. He who has slain a father shall himself be slain at some time or other by his children — if a mother, he shall of necessity take a woman’s nature, and lose his life at the hands of his offspring in after ages ; for where the blood of a family has been polluted there is no other purification, nor can the pollution be washed out until the homicidal soul which the deed has given life for life, and has propitiated and laid to sleep the wrath of the whole family. These are the retributions of Heaven, and by such punishments men should be deterred. But if they are not deterred, and any one should be incited by some fatality to deprive his father or mother, or brethren, or children, of life voluntarily and of purpose, for him the earthly lawgiver legislates as follows : — There shall be the same proclamations about outlawry, and there shall be the same sureties which have been enacted in the former cases. But in his case, if he be convicted, the servants of the judges and the magistrates shall slay him at an appointed place without the city where three ways meet, and there expose his BODY naked, and each of the magistrates on behalf of the whole city shall take a stone and cast it upon the head of the dead man, and so deliver the city from pollution ; after that, they shall bear him to the borders of the land, and cast him forth unburied, according to law. And what shall he suffer who slays him who of all men, as they say, is his own best friend ? I mean the suicide, who deprives himself by violence of his appointed share of life, not because the law of the state requires him, nor yet under the compulsion of some painful and inevitable misfortune which has come upon him, nor because he has had to suffer from irremediable and intolerable shame, but who from sloth or want of manliness imposes upon himself an unjust penalty. For him, what ceremonies there are to be of purification and burial God knows, and about these the next of kin should enquire of the interpreters and of the laws thereto relating, and do according to their injunctions. They who meet their death in this way shall be buried alone, and none shall be laid by their side ; they shall be buried ingloriously in the borders of the twelve portions the land, in such places as are uncultivated and nameless, and no column or inscription shall mark the place of their interment. And if a beast of burden or other animal cause the death of any one, except in the case of anything of that kind happening to a competitor in the public contests, the kinsmen of the deceased shall prosecute the slayer for murder, and the wardens of the country, such, and so many as the kinsmen appoint, shall try the cause, and let the beast when condemned be slain by them, and let them cast it beyond the borders. And if any lifeless thing deprive a man of life, except in the case of a thunderbolt or other fatal dart sent from the Gods — whether a man is killed by lifeless objects, falling upon him, or by his falling upon them, the nearest of kin shall appoint the nearest neighbour to be a judge, and thereby acquit himself and the whole family of guilt. And he shall cast forth the guilty thing beyond the border, as has been said about the animals. LAWS BOOK IX

Thus much as to the nurture and education of the living soul of man, having which, he can, and without which, if he unfortunately be without them, he cannot live ; and also concerning the punishments : — which are to be inflicted for violent deaths, let thus much be enacted. Of the nurture and education of the BODY we have spoken before, and next in order we have to speak of deeds of violence, voluntary and involuntary, which men do to one another ; these we will now distinguish, as far as we are able, according to their nature and number, and determine what will be the suitable penalties of each, and so assign to them their proper place in the series of our enactments. The poorest legislator will have no difficulty in determining that wounds and mutilations arising out of wounds should follow next in order after deaths. Let wounds be divided as homicides were divided — into those which are involuntary, and which are given in passion or from fear, and those inflicted voluntarily and with premeditation. Concerning all this, we must make some such proclamation as the following : — Mankind must have laws, and conform to them, or their life would be as bad as that of the most savage beast. And the reason of this is that no man’s nature is able to know what is best for human society ; or knowing, always able and willing to do what is best. In the first place, there is a difficulty in apprehending that the true art or politics is concerned, not with private but with public good (for public good binds together states, but private only distracts them) ; and that both the public and private good as well of individuals as of states is greater when the state and not the individual is first considered. In the second place, although a person knows in the abstract that this is true, yet if he be possessed of absolute and irresponsible power, he will never remain firm in his principles or persist in regarding the public good as primary in the state, and the private good as secondary. Human nature will be always drawing him into avarice and selfishness, avoiding pain and pursuing Pleasure without any reason, and will bring these to the front, obscuring the juster and better ; and so working darkness in his soul will at last fill with evils both him and the whole city. For if a man were born so divinely gifted that he could naturally apprehend the truth, he would have no need of laws to rule over him ; for there is no law or order which is above knowledge, nor can mind, without impiety, be deemed the subject or slave of any man, but rather the lord of all. I speak of mind, true and free, and in harmony with nature. But then there is no such mind anywhere, or at least not much ; and therefore we must choose law and order, which are second best. These look at things as they exist for the most part only, and are unable to survey the whole of them. And therefore I have spoken as I have. LAWS BOOK IX

Ath. Nearly all of them, my friends, seem to be ignorant of the nature and power of the soul, especially in what relates to her origin : they do not know that she is among the first of things, and before all bodies, and is the chief author of their changes and transpositions. And if this is true, and if the soul is older than the BODY, must not the things which are of the soul’s kindred be of necessity prior to those which appertain to the BODY ? LAWS BOOK X

Ath. Because those who use the term mean to say that nature is the first creative power ; but if the soul turn out to be the primeval element, and not fire or air, then in the truest sense and beyond other things the soul may be said to exist by nature ; and this would be true if you proved that the soul is older than the BODY, but not otherwise. LAWS BOOK X

Ath. Let us be on our guard lest this most deceptive argument with its youthful looks, beguiling us old men, give us the slip and make a laughing-stock of us. Who knows but we may be aiming at the greater, and fail of attaining the lesser ? Suppose that we three have to pass a rapid river, and I, being the youngest of the three and experienced in rivers, take upon me the duty of making the attempt first by myself ; leaving you in safety on the bank, I am to examine whether the river is passable by older men like yourselves, and if such appears to be the case then I shall invite you to follow, and my experience will help to convey you across ; but if the river is impassable by you, then there will have been no danger to anyBODY but myself — would not that seem to be a very fair proposal ? I mean to say that the argument in prospect is likely to be too much for you, out of your depth and beyond your strength, and I should be afraid that the stream of my questions might create in you who are not in the habit of answering, giddiness and confusion of mind, and hence a feeling of unpleasantness and unsuitableness might arise. I think therefore that I had better first ask the questions and then answer them myself while you listen in safety ; in that way I can carry on the argument until I have completed the proof that the soul is prior to the BODY. LAWS BOOK X

Ath. And is not that motion which is produced in another, by reason of another, but never has any self-moving power at all, being in truth the change of an inanimate BODY, to be reckoned second, or by any lower number which you may prefer ? LAWS BOOK X

Ath. Then we are right, and speak the most perfect and absolute truth, when we say that the soul is prior to the BODY, and that the BODY is second and comes afterwards, and is born to obey the soul, which is the ruler ? LAWS BOOK X

Ath. Do you remember our old admission, that if the soul was prior to the BODY the things of the soul were also prior to those of the BODY ? LAWS BOOK X

Ath. Then characters and manners, and wishes and reasonings, and true opinions, and reflections, and recollections are prior to length and breadth and depth and strength of bodies, if the soul is prior to the BODY. LAWS BOOK X

Ath. Every one sees the BODY of the sun, but no one sees his soul, nor the soul of any other BODY living or dead ; and yet there is great reason to believe that this nature, unperceived by any of our senses, is circumfused around them all, but is perceived by mind ; and therefore by mind and reflection only let us apprehend the following point. LAWS BOOK X

Ath. Either the soul which moves the sun this way and that, resides within the circular and visible BODY, like the soul which carries us about every way ; or the soul provides herself with an external BODY of fire or air, as some affirm, and violently propels BODY by BODY ; or thirdly, she is without such aBODY, but guides the sun by some extraordinary and wonderful power. LAWS BOOK X

Ath. Let us say to the youth : — The ruler of the universe has ordered all things with a view to the excellence and preservation of the whole, and each part, as far as may be, has an action and passion appropriate to it. Over these, down to the least fraction of them, ministers have been appointed to preside, who have wrought out their perfection with infinitesimal exactness. And one of these portions of the universe is thine own, unhappy man, which, however little, contributes to the whole ; and you do not seem to be aware that this and every other creation is for the sake of the whole, and in order that the life of the whole may be blessed ; and that you are created for the sake of the whole, and not the whole for the sake of you. For every physician and every skilled artist does all things for the sake of the whole, directing his effort towards the common good, executing the part for the sake of the whole, and not the whole for the sake of the part. And you are annoyed because you are ignorant how what is best for you happens to you and to the universe, as far as the laws of the common creation admit. Now, as the soul combining first with one BODY and then with another undergoes all sorts of changes, either of herself, or through the influence of another soul, all that remains to the player of the game is that he should shift the pieces ; sending the better nature to the better place, and the worse to the worse, and so assigning to them their proper portion. LAWS BOOK X

Ath. I will explain : — When the king saw that our actions had life, and that there was much virtue in them and much vice, and that the soul and BODY, although not, like the Gods of popular opinion, eternal, yet having once come into existence, were indestructible (for if either of them had been destroyed, there would have been no generation of living beings) ; and when he observed that the good of the soul was ever by nature designed to profit men, and the evil to harm them — he, seeing all this, contrived so to place each of the parts that their position might in the easiest and best manner procure the victory of good and the defeat of evil in the whole. And he contrived a general plan by which a thing of a certain nature found a certain seat and room. But the formation of qualities he left to the wills of individuals. For every one of us is made pretty much what he is by the bent of his desires and the nature of his soul. LAWS BOOK X

Ath. Then all things which have a soul change, and possess in themselves a principle of change, and in changing move according to law and to the order of destiny : natures which have undergone a lesser change move less and on the earth’s surface, but those which have suffered more change and have become more criminal sink into the abyss, that is to say, into Hades and other places in the world below, of which the very names terrify men, and which they picture to themselves as in a dream, both while alive and when released from the BODY. And whenever the soul receives more of good or evil from her own energy and the strong influence of others — when she has communion with divine virtue and becomes divine, she is carried into another and better place, which is perfect in holiness ; but when she has communion with evil, then she also changes the Place of her life. LAWS BOOK X

Ath. And to what earthly rulers can they be compared, or who to them ? How in the less can we find an image of the greater ? Are they charioteers of contending pairs of steeds, or pilots of vessels ? Perhaps they might be compared to the generals of armies, or they might be likened to physicians providing against the diseases which make war upon the BODY, or to husbandmen observing anxiously the effects of the seasons on the growth of plants ; or I perhaps, to shepherds of flocks. For as we acknowledge the world to be full of many goods and also of evils, and of more evils than goods, there is, as we affirm, an immortal conflict going on among us, which requires marvellous watchfulness ; and in that conflict the Gods and demigods are our allies, and we are their property. Injustice and insolence and folly are the destruction of us, and justice and temperance and wisdom are our salvation ; and the place of these latter is in the life of the Gods, although some vestige of them may occasionally be discerned among mankind. But upon this earth we know that there dwell souls possessing an unjust spirit, who may be compared to brute animals, which fawn upon their keepers, whether dogs or shepherds, or the best and most perfect masters ; for they in like manner, as the voices of the wicked declare, prevail by flattery and prayers and incantations, and are allowed to make their gains with impunity. And this sin, which is termed dishonesty, is an evil of the same kind as what is termed disease in living bodies or pestilence in years or seasons of the year, and in cities and governments has another name, which is injustice. LAWS BOOK X

Any one who is of sound mind may arrest his own slave, and do with him whatever he will of such things as are lawful ; and he may arrest the runaway slave of any of his friends or kindred with a view to his safe-keeping. And if any one takes away him who is being carried off as a slave, intending to liberate him, he who is carrying him off shall let him go ; but he who takes him away shall give three sufficient sureties ; and if he give them, and not without giving them, he may take him away, but if he take him away after any other manner he shall be deemed guilty of violence, and being convicted shall pay as a penalty double the amount of the damages claimed to him who has been deprived of the slave. Any man may also carry off a freedman, if he do not pay respect or sufficient respect to him who freed him. Now the respect shall be, that the freedman go three times in the month to the hearth of the person who freed him and offer to do whatever he ought, so far as he can ; and he shall agree to make such a marriage as his former master approves. He shall not be permitted to have more property than he who gave him liberty, and what more he has shall belong to his master. The freedman shall not remain in the state more than twenty years, but like other foreigners shall go away, taking his entire property with him, unless he has the consent of the magistrates and of his former master to remain. If a freedman or any other stranger has a property greater than the census of the third class, at the expiration. of thirty days from the day on which this comes to pass, he shall take that which is his and go his way, and in this case he shall not be allowed to remain any longer by the magistrates. And if any one disobeys this regulation, and is brought into court and convicted, he shall be punished with death, his property shall be confiscated. Suits about these matters shall take place before the tribes, unless the plaintiff and defendant have got rid of the accusation either before their neighbours or before judges chosen by them. If a man lay claim to any animal or anything else which he declares to be his, let the possessor refer to the seller or to some honest and trustworthy person, who has given, or in some legitimate way made over the property to him ; if he be a citizen or a metic, sojourning in the city, within thirty days, or, if the property have been delivered to him by a stranger, within five months, of which the middle month shall include the summer solstice. When goods are exchanged by selling and buying, a man shall deliver them, and receive the price of them, at a fixed place in the agora, and have done with the matter ; but he shall not buy or sell anywhere else, nor give credit. And if in any other manner or in any other place there be an exchange of one thing for another, and the seller give credit to the man who buys fram him, he must do this on the understanding that the law gives no protection in cases of things sold not in accordance with these regulations. Again, as to contributions, any man who likes may go about collecting contributions as a friend among friends, but if any difference arises about the collection, he is to act on the understanding that the law gives no protection in such cases. He who sells anything above the value of fifty drachmas shall be required to remain in the city for ten days, and the purchaser shall be informed of the house of the seller, with a view to the sort of charges which are apt to arise in such cases, and the restitutions which the law allows. And let legal restitution be on this wise : — If a man sells a slave who is in a consumption, or who has the disease of the stone, or of strangury, or epilepsy, or some other tedious and incurable disorder of BODY or mind, which is not discernible to the ordinary man, if the purchaser be a physician or trainer, he shall have no right of restitution ; nor shall there be any right of restitution if the seller has told the truth beforehand to the buyer. But if a skilled person sells to another who is not skilled, let the buyer appeal for restitution within six months, except in the case of epilepsy, and then the appeal may be made within a year. The cause shall be determined by such physicians as the parties may agree to choose ; and the defendant, if he lose the suit, shall pay double the price at which he sold. If a private person sell to another private person, he shall have the right of restitution, and the decision shall be given as before, but the defendant, if he be cast, shall only pay back the price of the slave. If a person sells a homicide to another, and they both know of the fact, let there be no restitution in such a case, but if he do not know of the fact, there shall be a right of restitution, whenever the buyer makes the discovery ; and the decision shall rest with the five youngest guardians of the law, and if the decision be that the seller was cognisant the fact, he shall purify the house of the purchaser, according to the law of the interpreters, and shall pay back three times the purchase-money. LAWS BOOK XI

When a man makes an agreement which he does not fulfil, unless the agreement be of a nature which the law or a vote of the assembly does not allow, or which he has made under the influence of some unjust compulsion, or which he is prevented from fulfilling against his will by some unexpected chance, the other party may go to law with him in the courts of the tribes, for not having completed his agreement, if the parties are not able previously to come to terms before arbiters or before their neighbours. The class of craftsmen who have furnished human life with the arts is dedicated to Hephaestus and Athene ; and there is a class of craftsmen who preserve the works of all craftsmen by arts of defence, the votaries of Ares and Athene, to which divinities they too are rightly dedicated. All these continue through life serving the country and the people ; some of them are leaders in battle ; others make for hire implements and works, and they ought not to deceive in such matters, out of respect to the Gods who are their ancestors. If any craftsman through indolence omit to execute his work in a given time, not reverencing the God who gives him the means of life, but considering, foolish fellow, that he is his own God and will let him off easily, in the first place, he shall suffer at the hands of the God, and in the second place, the law shall follow in a similar spirit. He shall owe to him who contracted with him the price of the works which he has failed in performing, and he shall begin again and execute them gratis in the given time. When a man undertakes a work, the law gives him the same advice which was given to the seller, that he should not attempt to raise the price, but simply ask the value ; this the law enjoins also on the contractor ; for the craftsman assuredly knows the value of his work. Wherefore, in free states the man of art ought not to attempt to impose upon private individuals by the help of his art, which is by nature a true thing ; and he who is wronged in a matter of this sort, shall have a right of action against the party who has wronged him. And if any one lets out work to a craftsman, and does not pay him duly according to the lawful agreement, disregarding Zeus the guardian of the city and Athene, who are the partners of the state, and overthrows the foundations of society for the sake of a little gain, in his case let the law and the Gods maintain the common bonds of the state. And let him who, having already received the work in exchange, does not pay the price in the time agreed, pay double the price ; and if a year has elapsed, although interest is not to be taken on loans, yet for every drachma which he owes to the contractor let him pay a monthly interest of an obol. Suits about these matters are to be decided by the courts of the tribes ; and by the way, since we have mentioned craftsmen at all, we must not forget the other craft of war, in which generals and tacticians are the craftsmen, who undertake voluntarily the work of our safety, as other craftsmen undertake other public works ; — if they execute their work well the law will never tire of praising him who gives them those honours which are the just rewards of the soldier ; but if any one, having already received the benefit of any noble service in war, does not make the due return of honour, the law will blame him. Let this then be the law, having an ingredient of praise, not compelling but advising the great BODY of the citizens to honour the brave men who are the saviours of the whole state, whether by their courage or by their military skill ; — they should honour them, I say, in the second place ; for the first and highest tribute of respect is to be given to those who are able above other men to honour the words of good legislators. LAWS BOOK XI

He who makes a disposition in a testament, if he be the father of a family, shall first of all inscribe as his heir any one of his sons whom he may think fit ; and if he gives any of his children to be adopted by another citizen, let the adoption be inscribed. And if he has a son remaining over and above who has not been adopted upon any lot, and who may be expected to be sent out to a colony according to law, to him his father may give as much as he pleases of the rest of his property, with the exception of the paternal lot and the fixtures on the lot. And if there are other sons, let him distribute among them what there is more than the lot in such portions as he pleases. And if one of the sons has already a house of his own, he shall not give him of the money, nor shall he give money to a daughter who has been betrothed, but if she is not betrothed he may give her money. And if any of the sons or daughters shall be found to have another lot of land in the country, which has accrued after the testament has been made, they shall leave the lot which they have inherited to the heir of the man who has made the will. If the testator has no sons, but only daughters, let him choose the husband of any one of his daughters whom he pleases, and leave and inscribe him as his son and heir. And if a man have lost his son, when he was a child, and before he could be reckoned among grown-up men, whether his own or an adopted son, let the testator make mention of the circumstance and inscribe whom he will to be his second son in hope of better fortune. If the testator has no children at all, he may select and give to any one whom he pleases the tenth part of the property which he has acquired ; but let him not be blamed if he gives all the rest to his adopted son, and makes a friend of him according to the law. If the sons of a man require guardians, and : the father when he dies leaves a will appointing guardians, those have been named by him, whoever they are and whatever their number be, if they are able and willing to take charge of the children, shall be recognized according to the provisions of the will. But if he dies and has made no will, or a will in which he has appointed no guardians, then the next of kin, two on the father’s and two on the mother’s side, and one of the friends of the deceased, shall have the authority of guardians, whom the guardians of the law shall appoint when the orphans require guardians. And the fifteen eldest guardians of the law shall have the whole care and charge of the orphans, divided into threes according to seniority — a BODY of three for one year, and then another BODY of three for the next year, until the cycle of the five periods is complete ; and this, as far as possible, is to continue always. If a man dies, having made no will at all, and leaves sons who require the care of guardians, they shall share in the protection which is afforded by these laws. LAWS BOOK XI

Ath. I mean to say, that a case may occur in which the nephew, having a rich father, will be unwilling to marry the daughter of his uncle ; he will have a feeling of pride, and he will wish to look higher. And there are cases in which the legislator will be imposing upon him the greatest calamity, and he will be compelled to disobey the law, if he is required, for example, to take a wife who is mad, or has some other terrible malady of soul or BODY, such as makes life intolerable to the sufferer. Then let what we are saying concerning these cases be embodied in a law : — If any one finds fault with the established laws respecting testaments, both as to other matters and especially in what relates to marriage, and asserts that the legislator, if he were alive and present, would not compel him to obey — that is to say, would not compel those who are by our law required to marry or be given in marriage, to do either — and some kinsman or guardian dispute this, the reply is that the legislator left fifteen of the guardians of the law to be arbiters and fathers of orphans, male or female, and to them let the disputants have recourse, and by their aid determine any matters of the kind, admitting their decision to be final. But if any one thinks that too great power is thus given to the guardians of the law, let him bring his adversaries into the court of the select judges, and there have the points in dispute determined. And he who loses the cause shall have censure and blame from the legislator, which, by a man of sense, is felt to be a penalty far heavier than a great loss of money. LAWS BOOK XI

Cases in which one man injures another by poisons, and which prove fatal, have been already discussed ; but about other cases in which a person intentionally and of malice harms another with meats, or drinks, or ointments, nothing has as yet been determined. For there are two kinds of poisons used among men, which cannot clearly be distinguished. There is the kind just now explicitly mentioned, which injures bodies by the use of other bodies according to a natural law ; there is also another kind which persuades the more daring class that they can do injury by sorceries, and incantations, and magic knots, as they are termed, and makes others believe that they above all persons are injured by the powers of the magician. Now it is not easy to know the nature of all these things ; nor if a man do know can he readily persuade others to believe him. And when men are disturbed in their minds at the sight of waxen images fixed either at their doors, or in a place where three ways meet, or on the sepulchres of parents, there is no use in trying to persuade them that they should despise all such things because they have no certain knowledge about them. But we must have a law in two parts, concerning poisoning, in whichever of the two ways the attempt is made, and we must entreat, and exhort, and advise men not to have recourse to such practices, by which they scare the multitude out of their wits, as if they were children, compelling the legislator and the judge to heal the fears which the sorcerer arouses, and to tell them in the first place, that he who attempts to poison or enchant others knows not what he is doing, either as regards the BODY (unless he has a knowledge of medicine), or as regards his enchantments (unless he happens to be a prophet or diviner). Let the law, then, run as follows about poisoning or witchcraft : — He who employs poison to do any injury, not fatal, to a man himself, or to his servants, or any injury, whether fatal or not, to his cattle or his bees, if he be a physician, and be convicted of poisoning, shall be punished with death ; or if he be a private person, the court shall determine what he is to pay or suffer. But he who seems to be the sort of man injures others by magic knots, or enchantments, or incantations, or any of the like practices, if he be a prophet or diviner, let him die ; and if, not being a prophet, he be convicted of witchcraft, as in the previous case, let the court fix what he ought to pay or suffer. LAWS BOOK XI

Now for expeditions of war much consideration and many laws are required ; the great principle of all is that no one of either sex should be without a commander ; nor should the mind of any one be accustomed to do anything, either in jest or earnest, of his own motion, but in war and in peace he should look to and follow his leader, even in the least things being under his guidance ; for example, he should stand or move, or exercise, or wash, or take his meals, or get up in the night to keep guard and deliver messages when he is bidden ; and in the hour of danger he should not pursue and not retreat except by order of his superior ; and in a word, not teach the soul or accustom her to know or understand how to do anything apart from others. Of all soldiers the life should be always and in all things as far as possible in common and together ; there neither is nor ever will be a higher, or better, or more scientific principle than this for the attainment of salvation and victory in war. And we ought in time of peace from youth upwards to practise this habit of commanding others, and of being commanded by others ; anarchy should have no place in the life of man or of the beasts who are subject to man. I may add that all dances ought to be performed with view to military excellence ; and agility and ease should be cultivated for the same object, and also endurance of the want of meats and drinks, and of winter cold and summer heat, and of hard couches ; and, above all, care should be taken not to destroy the peculiar qualities of the head and the feet by surrounding them with extraneous coverings, and so hindering their natural growth of hair and soles. For these are the extremities, and of all the parts of the BODY, whether they are preserved or not is of the greatest consequence ; the one is the servant of the whole BODY, and the other the master, in whom all the ruling senses are by nature set. Let the young man imagine that he hears in what has preceded the praises of the military life ; the law shall be as follows : — He shall serve in war who is on the roll or appointed to some special service, and if any one is absent from cowardice, and without the leave of the generals ; he shall be indicted before the military commanders for failure of service when the army comes home ; and the soldiers shall be his judges ; the heavy armed, and the cavalry, and the other arms of the service shall form separate courts ; and they shall bring the heavy-armed before the heavy-armed, and the horsemen before the horsemen, and the others in like manner before their peers ; and he who is found guilty shall never be allowed to compete for any prize of valour, or indict another for not serving on an expedition, or be an accuser at all in any military matters. Moreover, the court shall further determine what punishment he shall suffer, or what penalty he shall pay. When the suits for failure of service are completed, the leaders of the several kinds of troops shall again hold an assembly, and they shall adjudge the prizes of valour ; and he who likes shall give judgment in his own branch of the service, saying nothing about any former expedition, nor producing any proof or witnesses to confirm his statement, but speaking only of the present occasion. The crown of victory shall be an olive wreath which the victor shall offer up the temple of any war-god whom he likes, adding an inscription for a testimony to last during life, that such an one has received the first, the second, or prize. If any one goes on an expedition, and returns home before the appointed time, when the generals. have not withdrawn the army, be shall be indicted for desertion before the same persons who took cognisance of failure of service, and if he be found guilty, the same punishment shall be inflicted on him. LAWS BOOK XII

Athenian Stranger. In this way : In the first place, our spectator shall be of not less than fifty years of age ; he must be a man of reputation, especially in war, if he is to exhibit to other cities a model of the guardians of the law, but when he is more than sixty years of age he shall no longer continue in his office of spectator, And when he has carried on his inspection during as many out of the ten years of his office as he pleases, on his return home let him go to the assembly of those who review the laws. This shall be a mixed BODY of young and old men, who shall be required to meet daily between the hour of dawn and the rising of the sun. They shall consist, in the first place, of the priests who have obtained the rewards of virtue ; and in the second place, of guardians of the law, the ten eldest being chosen ; the general superintendent of education shall also be member, as well the last appointed as those who have been released from the office ; and each of them shall take with him as his companion young man, whomsoever he chooses, between the ages of thirty and forty. These shall be always holding conversation and discourse about the laws of their own city or about any specially good ones which they may hear to be existing elsewhere ; also about kinds of knowledge which may appear to be of use and will throw light upon the examination, or of which the want will make the subject of laws dark and uncertain to them. Any knowledge of this sort which the elders approve, the younger men shall learn with all diligence ; and if any one of those who have been invited appear to be unworthy, the whole assembly shall blame him who invited him. The rest of the city shall watch over those among the young men who distinguish themselves, having an eye upon them, and especially honouring them if they succeed, but dishonouring them above the rest if they turn out to be inferior. This is the assembly to which he who has visited the institutions of other men, on his return home shall straightway go, and if he have discovered any one who has anything to say about the enactment of laws or education or nurture, or if he have himself made any observations, let him communicate his discoveries to the whole assembly. And if he be seen to have come home neither better nor worse, let him be praised at any rate for his enthusiasm ; and if he be much better, let him be praised so much the more ; and not only while he lives but after his death let the assembly honour him with fitting honours. But if on his return home he appear to have been corrupted, pretending to be wise when he is not, let him hold no communication with any one, whether young or old ; and if he will hearken to the rulers, then he shall be permitted to live as a private individual ; but if he will not, let him die, if he be convicted in a court of law of interfering about education and the laws, And if he deserve to be indicted, and none of the magistrates indict him, let that be counted as a disgrace to them when the rewards of virtue are decided. LAWS BOOK XII

Touching offerings to the Gods, a moderate man should observe moderation in what he offers. Now the land and the hearth of the house of all men is sacred to all Gods ; wherefore let no man dedicate them a second time to the Gods. Gold and silver, whether possessed by private persons or in temples, are in other cities provocative of envy, and ivory, the product of a dead BODY, is not a proper offering ; brass and iron, again, are instruments of war ; but of wood let a man bring what offerings he likes, provided it be a single block, and in like manner of stone, to the public temples ; of woven work let him not offer more than one woman can execute in a month. White is a colour suitable to the Gods, especially in woven works, but dyes should only be used for the adornments of war. The most divine of gifts are birds and images, and they should be such as one painter can execute in a single day. And let all other offerings follow a similar rule. LAWS BOOK XII

Thus a man is born and brought up, and after this manner he begets and brings up his own children, and has his share of dealings with other men, and suffers if he has done wrong to any one, and receives satisfaction if he has been wronged, and so at length in due time he grows old under the protection of the laws, and his end comes in the order of nature. Concerning the dead of either sex, the religious ceremonies which may fittingly be performed, whether appertaining to the Gods of the underworld or of this, shall be decided by the interpreters with absolute authority. Their sepulchres are not to be in places which are fit for cultivation, and there shall be no monuments in such spots, either large or small, but they shall occupy that part of the country which is naturally adapted for receiving and concealing the bodies of the dead with as little hurt as possible to the living. No man, living or dead, shall deprive the living of the sustenance which the earth, their foster-parent, is naturally inclined to provide for them. And let not the mound be piled higher than would be the work of five men completed in five days ; nor shall the stone which is placed over the spot be larger than would be sufficient to receive the praises of the dead included in four heroic lines. Nor shall the laying out of the dead in the house continue for a longer time than is sufficient to distinguish between him who is in a trance only and him who is really dead, and speaking generally, the third day after death will be a fair time for carrying out the BODY to the sepulchre. Now we must believe the legislator when he tells us that the soul is in all respects superior to the BODY, and that even in life what makes each one us to be what we are is only the soul ; and that the BODY follows us about in the likeness of each of us, and therefore, when we are dead, the bodies of the dead are quite rightly said to be our shades or images ; for the true and immortal being of each one of us which is called the soul goes on her way to other Gods, before them to give an account — which is an inspiring hope to the good, but very terrible to the bad, as the laws of our fathers tell us ; and they also say that not much can be done in the way of helping a man after he is dead. But the living — he should be helped by all his kindred, that while in life he may be the holiest and justest of men, and after death may have no great sins to be punished in the world below. If this be true, a man ought not to waste his substance under the idea that all this lifeless mass of flesh which is in process of burial is connected with him ; he should consider that the son, or brother, or the beloved one, whoever he may be, whom he thinks he is laying in the earth, has gone away to complete and fulfil his own destiny, and that his duty is rightly to order the present, and to spend moderately on the lifeless altar of the Gods below. But the legislator does not intend moderation to be take, in the sense of meanness. Let the law, then, be as follows : — The expenditure on the entire funeral of him who is of the highest class shall not exceed five minae ; and for him who is of the second class, three minae, and for him who is of the third class, two minae, and for him, who is of the fourth class, one mina, will be a fair limit of expense. The guardians of the law ought to take especial care of the different ages of life, whether childhood, or manhood, or any other age. And at the end of all, let there be some one guardian of the law presiding, who shall be chosen by the friends of the deceased to superintend, and let it be glory to him to manage with fairness and moderation what relates to the dead, and a discredit to him if they are not well managed. Let the laying out and other ceremonies be in accordance with custom, but to the statesman who adopts custom as his law we must give way in certain particulars. It would be monstrous for example that he should command any man to weep or abstain from weeping over the dead ; but he may forbid cries of lamentation, and not allow the voice of the mourner to be heard outside the house ; also, he may forbid the bringing of the dead BODY into the open streets, or the processions of mourners in the streets, and may require that before daybreak they should be outside the city. Let these, then, be our laws relating to such matters, and let him who obeys be free from penalty ; but he who disobeys even a single guardian of the law shall be punished by them all with a fitting penalty. Other modes of burial, or again the denial of burial, which is to be refused in the case of robbers of temples and parricides and the like, have been devised and are embodied in the preceding laws, so that now our work of legislation is pretty nearly at an end ; but in all cases the end does not consist in doing something or acquiring something or establishing something — the end will be attained and finally accomplished, when we have provided for the perfect and lasting continuance of our institutions until then our creation is incomplete. LAWS BOOK XII

Ath. The saying that Lachesis or the giver of the lots is the first of them, and that Clotho or the spinster is the second of them, and that Atropos or the unchanging one is the third of them ; and that she is the preserver of the things which we have spoken, and which have been compared in a figure to things woven by fire, they both (i.e., Atropos and the fire) producing the quality of unchangeableness. I am speaking of the things which in a state and government give not only health and salvation to the BODY, but law, or rather preservation of the law, in the soul ; and, if I am not mistaken, this seems to be still wanting in our laws : we have still to see how we can implant in them this irreversible nature. LAWS BOOK XII

Ath. Does not the general aim at victory and superiority in war, and do not the physician and his assistants aim at producing health in the BODY ? LAWS BOOK XII

Ath. And a physician who is ignorant about the BODY, that is to say, who knows not that which we just now called health, or a general who knows not victory, or any others who are ignorant of the particulars of the arts which we mentioned, cannot be said to have understanding about any of these matters. LAWS BOOK XII

Ath. Just the opposite, as I said, of the opinion which once prevailed among men, that the sun and stars are without soul. Even in those days men wondered about them, and that which is now ascertained was then conjectured by some who had a more exact knowledge of them — that if they had been things without soul, and had no mind, they could never have moved with numerical exactness so wonderful ; and even at that time some ventured to hazard the conjecture that mind was the orderer of the universe. But these same persons again mistaking the nature of the soul, which they conceived to be younger and not older than the BODY, once more overturned the world, or rather, I should say, themselves ; for the bodies which they saw moving in heaven all appeared to be full of stones, and earth, and many other lifeless substances, and to these they assigned the causes of all things. Such studies gave rise to much atheism and perplexity, and the poets took occasion to be abusive — comparing the philosophers to she-dogs uttering vain howlings, and talking other nonsense of the same sort. But now, as I said, the case is reversed. LAWS BOOK XII

Now in our inquiry about laws, you know we decided that all other things that are best for men are easy to discover, and that everyone may become competent both to understand and to perform what he is told, if he discovers what is that which is likely to profit him, and what is not profitable : well, we decided, and we are still of the same mind, that all other studies (979c) are not very difficult, but that this of learning in what way we should become good men is one of the utmost difficulty. Everything else, again, that is good, as they say, is both possible and not difficult to acquire, and the amount of property that is wanted or not wanted, and the kind of BODY that is wanted or not : everyone agrees that a good soul is wanted, and agrees, moreover, as to the manner of its goodness, that for this again it must be just and temperate and brave ; but whereas everyone says it must be wise, no one any longer agrees at all with anyone else, in most cases — we have just now (979d) explained — as to what its wisdom should be. So now we are discovering, besides all those former kinds, a wisdom of no mean worth for this very purpose of showing how he is wise who has learnt the things that we have explained. And if he is wise who has knowledge of these things and is good at them, we must now take account of him. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

Athenian : It is necessary, then, it seems, that I should first portray in better terms, according to our previous statement, the generation of gods and of living creatures, which has been ill portrayed by those before us ; I must resume the statement which I have attempted (980d) in speaking against the impious, declaring that there are gods who have a care for all things, small and greater, and who are well-nigh inexorable in what relates to the justice of things : that is, if you remember, Cleinias ; for you did take memoranda besides, and indeed what then was spoken was very true. And the most important part of it was that every soul was senior to each BODY : do you remember ? Or in any case, surely, this must be so ? For that which is better and more ancient and more godlike is credibly so (980e) in comparison with the young, the junior, and the less emancipated ; and altogether, a thing governing is senior to a thing governed, and the driver every way senior to the driven. So much, then, let us conclude — that soul is senior to BODY ; and if this is the case, (981a) what came first in that which first was born will more credibly seem almost to have been original. So let us take it that the beginning of the beginning is more august in state, and that we are most correctly entering upon wisdom in the greatest matters relating to the generation of the gods. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

Athenian : Come then, shall we say that a living creature is most truly described by its nature, as a case of one combination of soul and BODY so uniting as to beget one shape ? EPINOMIS BOOK XII

Athenian : On the most likely account there are to be reckoned five solid bodies, from which one might fashion things fairest and best ; but all the rest of creation has a single shape, for there is nothing that could come to be without a BODY and never possessing any color at all, except only that really most divine creature, the soul. And this alone, one may say, has the business of fashioning and manufacturing, (981c) whereas the BODY, as we call it, has that of being fashioned and produced and seen. But the other — let us repeat it, for not once only be it said — has to be invisible even to the inquiring, and merely thought, if he has got a share of memory and reckoning by both odd and even variations. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

The bodies, then, being five, we must name them as fire, water, and thirdly air, earth fourth, and ether fifth ; and by predominance of these are each of the many varieties of creatures perfected. We should learn this by single instances in the following way. (981d) Let us take as earthy our first single element — all men, all things that have many feet or none, and those that move along and that stay still, held in place by roots ; but we must conceive its unity thus, though all these things are the outcome of all kinds, yet for the most part it is of earth and of solid nature. And another kind of creature we must regard as second in birth as well as one that can be seen : for its greatest part is of fire, though it has some earth and (981e) air, and has slight portions of all the others also, wherefore we must say that all sorts of creatures are born of them, and things seen, and here again we must conceive the heavenly kinds of creatures, which altogether, we must agree, have been born as the divine race of stars, endowed with the fairest BODY as also with the happiest and best soul. One or other of two lots we may very well, in our judgement, assign to them : for each of them is either imperishable (982a) and immortal, and by all necessity wholly divine, or has a certain longevity sufficient for the life of each, such that nothing could ever require a longer one. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

And now, to see how justly we speak of their living spirit, (983a) let us first consider their great size. For they are not actually those small things that they appear to be, but each of them is immense in its bulk ; we should do well to believe this, because there are ample proofs of such a conclusion. For we can rightly consider the whole of the sun as larger than the whole of the earth, and all the travelling stars are of amazing size. Let us conclude then whether it can possibly be that any natural force revolves this great mass that is now being revolved, continually and at the same time. (983b) God, then, I say, will be the cause, and never in any other way is it possible. For never can a thing get living spirit by any other means than by the act of God, as we have explained ; and when God is able to do this, he has found it a perfectly easy matter, firstly that all BODY and all mass should be made a living creature, and secondly to move it in the course he considers best. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

So now I trust we may make one true statement about all these things : it cannot be that earth and heaven and all the (983c) stars and all the masses they comprise, without soul attached to each or resident in each, should pass along as they do, so exactly to every year and month and day, and that all the things that happen should happen for the good of us all.And according as man is a meaner creature, he should show himself, not a babbler, but a speaker of clear sense. If, then, anyone shall speak of onrushes or natural forces or the like as in a sort the causes of bodies, he will say nothing clear : but we must firmly recall what we have said, and see whether (983d) our statement is reasonable or is utterly at fault — namely, in the first place, that existence is of two kinds, the one<one soul, and the other BODY, and that many things are in either, though all are different from each other and those of the one kind from those of the other, and that there is no other third thing common to any of them ; but soul differs from BODY. Intelligent, of course, we shall hold it to be, and the other unintelligent ; the one governs, the other is governed ; and the one is cause of all things, while the other is incapable of causing any of its experiences : so that to assert that the heavenly bodies (983e) have come into existence through anything else, and are not the offspring, as we have said, of soul and BODY, is great folly and unreason. However, if our statements on all such existences are to prevail, and the whole order of them is to be convincingly shown to be divine by their origin, we must certainly class them as one or the other of two things : either we must in all correctness glorify them as actual gods, (984a) or suppose them to be images produced as likenesses of the gods, creations of the gods themselves. For they are the work of no mindless or inconsiderable beings but, as we have said, we must class them as one or other of these things ; and, if classed as the latter, we must honor them far above all images : for never will fairer or more generally-known images be found among all mankind, none established in more various places, more pre-eminent in purity, majesty, and (984b) life altogether, than in the way in which their existence is altogether fashioned. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

And indeed there is much good reason to suppose that formerly, (988c) when men had their first conceptions of how the gods came to exist and with what qualities, and whence, and to what kind of actions they proceeded, they were spoken of in a manner not approved or welcomed by the wise, nor were even the views of those who came later, among whom the greatest dignity was given to fire and water and the other elements, while the wonderful soul was accounted inferior ; and higher and more honored with them was a motion assigned to the BODY for moving itself by heat and chills and everything of that kind, (988d) instead of that which the soul had for moving both the BODY and itself. But now that we account it no marvel that the soul, once it is in the BODY, should stir and move about this and itself, neither does our soul on any reckoning mistrust her power of moving about any weight. And therefore, since we now claim that, as the soul is cause of the whole, and all good things are causes of like things, while on the other hand evil things are causes of other things like them, it is no marvel (988e) that soul should be cause of all motion and stirring — that the motion and stirring towards the good are the function of the best soul, and those to the opposite are the opposite — it must be that good things have conquered and conquer things that are not their like. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

In this way then let all these things come to pass, and so let them be. But as to their crowning point, we must go to divine generation and therewith the fairest and divinest nature of visible things, so far as God granted the vision of it to men ; a vision that none of us may ever boast of having received at his leisure (991c) without the conditions here laid down. And besides these requirements, one must refer the particular thing to its generic form in our various discussions, questioning and disproving what has been wrongly stated ; for it is rightly found to be altogether the finest and first of tests for the use of men, while any that pretend to be tests, without being so, are the vainest of all labors. And further, we must mark the exactness of time, how exactly it completes all the processes of the heavens, in order that he who is convinced of (991d) the truth of the statement which has been made — that the soul is at once older and more divine than the BODY — might believe it a most admirable and satisfactory saying that all things are full of gods, and that we have never been disregarded in the least through any forgetfulness or neglect in our superiors. And our view about all such matters must be that, if one conceives of each of them aright, it turns out a great boon to him who receives it in a proper way ; but failing this, he had better always call it God. The way is this — (991e) for it is necessary to explain it thus far : every diagram, and system of number, and every combination of harmony, and the agreement of the revolution of the stars must be made manifest as one through all to him who learns in the proper way, and will be made manifest if, as we say, a man learns aright by keeping his gaze on unity ; (992a) for it will be manifest to us, as we reflect, that there is one bond naturally uniting all these things : but if one goes about it in some other way, one must call it Fortune, as we also put it. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

Holding these views, whenever anyone consults me about any of the weightiest matters affecting his own life, as, for instance, the acquisition of property or the proper treatment of BODY or mind, if it seems to me that his daily life rests on any system, or if he seems likely to listen to advice about the things on which he consults me, I advise him with readiness, and do not content myself with giving him a merely perfunctory answer. But if a man does not consult me at all, or evidently does not intend to follow my advice, I do not take the initiative in advising such a man, and will not use compulsion to him, even if he be my own son. I would advise a slave under such circumstances, and would use compulsion to him if he were unwilling. To a father or mother I do not think that piety allows one to offer compulsion, unless they are suffering from an attack of insanity ; and if they are following any regular habits of life which please them but do not please me, I would not offend them by offering useless, advice, nor would I flatter them or truckle to them, providing them with the means of satisfying desires which I myself would sooner die than cherish. The wise man should go through life with the same attitude of mind towards his country. If she should appear to him to be following a policy which is not a good one, he should say so, provided that his words are not likely either to fall on deaf ears or to lead to the loss of his own life. But force against his native land he should not use in order to bring about a change of constitution, when it is not possible for the best constitution to be introduced without driving men into exile or putting them to death ; he should keep quiet and offer up prayers for his own welfare and for that of his country. LETTERS LETTER VII

These are the lessons which I tried to teach, first to Dion, secondly to Dionysios, and now for the third time to you. Do you obey me thinking of Zeus the Preserver, the patron of third ventures, and looking at the lot of Dionysios and Dion, of whom the one who disobeyed me is living in dishonour, while he who obeyed me has died honourably. For the one thing which is wholly right and noble is to strive for that which is most honourable for a man’s self and for his country, and to face the consequences whatever they may be. For none of us can escape death, nor, if a man could do so, would it, as the vulgar suppose, make him happy. For nothing evil or good, which is worth mentioning at all, belongs to things soulless ; but good or evil will be the portion of every soul, either while attached to the BODY or when separated from it. LETTERS LETTER VII

And we should in very truth always believe those ancient and sacred teachings, which declare that the soul is immortal, that it has judges, and suffers the greatest penalties when it has been separated from the BODY. Therefore also we should consider it a lesser evil to suffer great wrongs and outrages than to do them. The covetous man, impoverished as he is in the soul, turns a deaf ear to this teaching ; or if he hears it, he laughs it to scorn with fancied superiority, and shamelessly snatches for himself from every source whatever his bestial fancy supposes will provide for him the means of eating or drinking or glutting himself with that slavish and gross pleasure which is falsely called after the goddess of love. He is blind and cannot see in those acts of plunder which are accompanied by impiety what heinous guilt is attached to each wrongful deed, and that the offender must drag with him the burden of this impiety while he moves about on earth, and when he has travelled beneath the earth on a journey which has every circumstance of shame and misery. LETTERS LETTER VII

After this Dionysios and I went on with our daily life, I with my eyes turned abroad like a bird yearning to fly from its perch, and he always devising some new way of scaring me back and of keeping a tight hold on Dion’s property. However, we gave out to all Sicily that we were friends. Dionysios, now deserting the policy of his father, attempted to lower the pay of the older members of his BODY guard. The soldiers were furious, and, assembling in great numbers, declared that they would not submit. He attempted to use force to them, shutting the gates of the acropolis ; but they charged straight for the walls, yelling out an unintelligible and ferocious war cry. Dionysios took fright and conceded all their demands and more to the peltasts then assembled. LETTERS LETTER VII

The policy which would best serve to secure your real “well-doing” is that which I shall now endeavor as best I can to describe to you. And I hope that my advice will not only be salutary to you (though to you in special), but also (8.352c) to all the Syracusans, in the second place, and, in the third, to your enemies and your foes, unless any of them be a doer of impious deeds ; for such deeds are irremediable and none could ever wash out their stain. Mark, then, what I now say. Now that the tyranny is broken down over the whole of Sicily all your fighting rages round this one subject of dispute, the one party desiring to recover the headship, and the other to put the finishing touch to the expulsion of the tyrants. Now the majority of men always believe that the right advice about these matters (8.352d) is the advising of such action as will do the greatest possible harm to one’s enemies and the greatest possible good to one’s friends ; whereas it is by no means easy to do much harm to others without also suffering in turn much harm oneself. And without going far afield one may see such consequences clearly in the recent events in Sicily itself, where the one faction is trying to inflict injury and the other to ward off the injurers ; and the tale thereof, if ever you told it to others, (8.352e) would inevitably prove a most impressive lesson. Of such policies, one may say, there is no lack ; but as for a policy which would prove beneficial to all alike, foes as well as friends, or at least as little detrimental as possible to either, such a policy is neither easy to discern, nor, when discerned, easy to carry out ; and to advise such a policy or attempt to describe it is much like saying a prayer. Be it so, then, that this is nothing but a prayer (and in truth every man ought always (8.353a) to begin his speaking and his thinking with the gods) ; yet may it attain fulfilment in indicating some such counsel as this : — Now and almost ever since the war began both you and your enemies have been ruled continuously by that one family which your fathers set on the throne in the hour of their greatest distress, when Greek Sicily was in the utmost danger of being entirely overrun by the Carthaginians and barbarized. On that occasion they chose Dionysius because of his youth and warlike prowess to take charge of (8.353b) the military operations for which he was suited, with Hipparinus, who was older, as his fellow-counsellor, appointing them dictators for the safeguarding of Sicily, with the title, as men say, of “tyrants.” But whether one prefers to suppose that the cause which ultimately brought about their salvation was divine Fortune and the Deity, or the virtue of the rulers, or possibly the combination of both assisted by the citizens of that age — as to this let everyone form his own notion ; in any case this was the way in which salvation for the men of that generation came about. Seeing, then, that they proved themselves men of such a quality, (8.353c) it is surely right that they should be repaid with gratitude by all those whom they saved. But if in after times the tyrant’s house has wrongly abused the bounty of the city, the penalty for this it has suffered in part, and in part it will have to pay. What, then, is the penalty rightly to be exacted from them under existing circumstances ? If you were able to get quit of them easily, without serious dangers and trouble, or if they were able to regain the empire without difficulty, then, in either case, it would not have been possible for me so much as to offer the advice which I am now about to utter ; but as it is, both of you ought to bear in mind (8.353d) and remember how many times each party has hopefully imagined that it lacked but a little of achieving complete success almost every time ; and, what is more, that it is precisely this little deficiency which is always turning out to be the cause of great and numberless evils. And of these evils no limit is ever reached, but what seems to be the end of the old is always being linked on to the beginning of a new brood ; and because of this endless chain of evil (8.353e) the whole tribe of tyrants and democrats alike will be in danger of destruction. But should any of these consequences — likely as they are though lamentable — come to pass, hardly a trace of the Greek tongue will remain in all Sicily, since it will have been transformed into a province or dependency of Phoenicians or Opicians. Against this all the Greeks must with all zeal provide a remedy. If, therefore, any man knows of a remedy that is truer and better than that which I am now about to propose, (8.354a) and puts it openly before us, he shall have the best right to the title “Friend of Greece.” The remedy, however, which commends itself to me I shall now endeavor to explain, using the utmost freedom of speech and a tone of impartial justice. For indeed I am speaking somewhat like an arbitrator, and addressing to the two parties, the former despot and his subjects, as though each were a single person, the counsel I gave of old. And now also my word of advice to every despot would be that he should shun the despot’s title and his task, and change his despotism for kingship. (8.354b) That this is possible has been actually proved by that wise and good man Lycurgus ; for when he saw that the family of his kinsmen in Argos and in Messene had in both cases destroyed both themselves and their city by advancing from kingship to despotic power, he was alarmed about his own city as well as his own family, and as a remedy he introduced the authority of the Elders and of the Ephors to serve as a bond of safety for the kingly power ; and because of this they have already been kept safe (8.354c) and glorious all these generations since Law became with them supreme king over men instead of men being despots over the laws. And now also I urgently admonish you all to do the same. Those of you who are rushing after despotic power I exhort to change their course and to flee betimes from what is counted as “bliss” by men of insatiable cravings and empty heads, and to try to transform themselves into the semblance of a king, and to become subject to kingly laws, owing their possession of the highest honors to the voluntary goodwill of the citizens and to the laws. And (8.354d) I should counsel those who follow after the ways of freedom, and shun as a really evil thing the yoke of bondage, to beware lest by their insatiable craving for an immoderate freedom they should ever fall sick of their forefathers’ disease, which the men of that time suffered because of their excessive anarchy, through indulging an unmeasured love of freedom. For the Siceliots of the age before Dionysius and Hipparinus began to rule were living blissfully, as they supposed, being in luxury and ruling also over their rulers ; and they even stoned to death the ten generals (8.354e) who preceded Dionysius, without any legal trial, to show that they were no slaves of any rightful master, nor of any law, but were in all ways altogether free. Hence it was that the rule of the despots befell them. For as regards both slavery and freedom, when either is in excess it is wholly evil, but when in moderation wholly good ; and moderate slavery consists in being the slave of God, immoderate, in being the slave of men ; (8.355a) and men of sound sense have Law for their God, but men without sense Pleasure. Since these things are naturally ordained thus, I exhort Dion’s friends to declare what I am advising to all the Syracusans, as being the joint advice both of Dion and myself ; and I will be the interpreter of what he would have said to you now, were he alive and able to speak. “Pray then,” someone might say, “what message does the advice of Dion declare to us concerning the present situation ?” It is this : “Above all else, O ye Syracusans, accept such laws (8.355b) as do not appear to you likely to turn your minds covetously to money-making and wealth ; but rather — since there are three objects, the soul, the BODY, and money besides, — accept such laws as cause the virtue of the soul to be held first in honor, that of the BODY second, subordinate to that of the soul, and the honor paid to money to come third and last, in subjection to both the BODY and the soul. The ordinance which effects this (8.355c) will be truly laid down by you as law, since it really makes those who obey it blessed ; whereas the phrase which terms the rich “blessed” is not only a miserable one in itself, being the senseless phrase of women and children, but also renders those who believe it equally miserable. That this exhortation of mine is true you will learn by actual experience if you make trial of what I am now saying concerning laws ; for in all matters experience is held to be the truest test. And when you have accepted laws of this kind, inasmuch as (8.355d) Sicily is beset with dangers, and you are neither complete victors nor utterly vanquished, it will be, no doubt, both just and profitable for you all to pursue a middle course — not only those of you who flee from the harshness of the tyranny, but also those who crave to win back that tyranny — the men whose ancestors in those days performed the mightiest deed in saving the Greeks from the barbarians, with the result that it is possible for us now to talk about constitutions ; whereas, if they had then been ruined, no place would have been left at all for either talk or hope. So, then, let the one party of you gain freedom by the aid of kingly rule, (8.355e) and the other gain a form of kingly rule that is not irresponsible, with the laws exercising despotic sway over the kings themselves as well as the rest of the citizens, in case they do anything illegal. On these conditions set up kings for all of you, by the help of the gods and with honest and sound intent, — my own son first in return for twofold favors, namely that conferred by me and that conferred by my father ; for he delivered the city from barbarians in his own day, while I, in the present day, have twice delivered it from tyrants, (8.356a) whereof you yourselves are witnesses. And as your second king create the man who possesses the same name as my father and is son to Dionysius, in return for his present assistance and for his pious disposition ; for he, though he is sprung from a tyrant’s loins, is in act of delivering the city of his own free will, gaining thereby for himself and for his race everlasting honor in place of a transitory and unrighteous tyranny. And, thirdly, you ought to invite to become king of Syracuse — as willing king of a willing city — him who is now (8.356b) commander of your enemies’ army, Dionysius, son of Dionysius, if so be that he is willing of his own accord to transform himself into a king, being moved thereto by fear of fortune’s changes, and by pity for his country and the untended state of her temples and her tombs, lest because of his ambition he utterly ruin all and become a cause of rejoicing to the barbarians. And these three, — whether you grant them the power of the Laconian kings or curtail that power by a common agreement, — you should establish as kings in some such manner as the following, (8.356c) which indeed has been described to you before, yet listen to it now again. If you find that the family of Dionysius and Hipparinus is willing to make an end of the evils now occurring in order to secure the salvation of Sicily provided that they receive honors both in the present and for the future for themselves and for their family, then on these terms, as was said before, convoke envoys empowered to negotiate a pact, such men as they may choose, whether they come from Sicily or from abroad or both, and in such numbers as may be mutually agreed. (8.356d) And these men, on their arrival, should first lay down laws and a constitution which is so framed as to permit the kings to be put in control of the temples and of all else that fitly belongs to those who once were benefactors. And as controllers of war and peace they should appoint Law-wardens, thirty-five in number, in conjunction with the People and the Council. And there should be various courts of law for various suits, but in matters involving death or exile the Thirty-five should form the court ; and in addition to these there should be judges selected (8.356e) from the magistrates of each preceding year, one from each magistracy — the one, that is, who is approved as the most good and just ; and these should decide for the ensuing year all cases which involve the death, imprisonment or transportation of citizens ; and it should not be permissible for a king to be a judge of such suits, but he, like a priest, (8.357a) should remain clean from bloodshed and imprisonment and exile. This is what I planned for you when I was alive, and it is still my plan now. With your aid, had not Furies in the guise of guests prevented me, I should then have overcome our foes, and established the State in the way I planned ; and after this, had my intentions been realized, I should have resettled the rest of Sicily by depriving the barbarians of the land they now hold — excepting those who fought in defence of the common liberty against the tyranny — (8.357b) and restoring the former occupiers of the Greek regions to their ancient and ancestral homes. And now likewise I counsel you all with one accord to adopt and execute these same plans, and to summon all to this task, and to count him who refuses as a common enemy. Nor is such a course impossible ; for when plans actually exist in two souls, and when they are readily perceived upon reflection to be the best, he who pronounces such plans impossible is hardly a man of understanding. And by the “two souls” (8.357c) I mean the soul of Hipparinus the son of Dionysius and that of my own son ; for should these agree together, I believe that all the rest of the Syracusans who have a care for their city will consent. Well then, when you have paid due honor, with prayer, to all the gods and all the other powers to whom, along with the gods, it is due, cease not from urging and exhorting both friends and opponents by gentle means and every means, until, like a heaven-sent dream presented to waking eyes, (8.357d) the plan which I have pictured in words be wrought by you into plain deeds and brought to a happy consummation.” LETTERS LETTER VIII

You don’t come to see me, Socrates, as often as you ought : If I were still able to go and see you I would not ask you to come to me. But at my age I can hardly get to the city, and therefore you should come oftener to the Piraeus. For, let me tell you that the more the pleasures of the BODY fade away, the greater to me are the pleasure and charm of conversation. Do not, then, deny my request, but make our house your resort and keep company with these young men ; we are old friends, and you will be quite at home with us. THE REPUBLIC BOOK I

I mean what I may illustrate negatively by the example of the BODY. Suppose you were to ask me whether the BODY is selfsufficing or has wants, I should reply : Certainly the BODY has wants ; for the BODY may be ill and require to be cured, and has therefore interests to which the art of medicine ministers ; and this is the origin and intention of medicine, as you will acknowledge. Am I not right ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK I

Then medicine does not consider the interest of medicine, but the interest of the BODY ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK I

Then, I continued, no physician, in so far as he is a physician, considers his own good in what he prescribes, but the good of his patient ; for the true physician is also a ruler having the human BODY as a subject, and is not a mere money-maker ; that has been admitted ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK I

Yet is not the power which injustice exercises of such a nature that wherever she takes up her abode, whether in a city, in an army, in a family, or in any other BODY, that BODY is, to begin with, rendered incapable of united action by reason of sedition and distraction ? and does it not become its own enemy and at variance with all that opposes it, and with the just ? Is not this the case ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK I

Now that those who practise justice do so involuntarily and because they have not the power to be unjust will best appear if we imagine something of this kind : having given both to the just and the unjust power to do what they will, let us watch and see whither desire will lead them ; then we shall discover in the very act the just and unjust man to be proceeding along the same road, following their interest, which all natures deem to be their good, and are only diverted into the path of justice by the force of law. The liberty which we are supposing may be most completely given to them in the form of such a power as is said to have been possessed by Gyges, the ancestor of Croesus the Lydian. According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the King of Lydia ; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he, stooping and looking in, saw a dead BODY of stature, as appeared to him, more than human and having nothing on but a gold ring ; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Now the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the King ; into their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present. He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the collet outward and reappeared ; he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result — when he turned the collet inward he became invisible, when outward he reappeared. Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court ; where as soon as he arrived he seduced the Queen, and with her help conspired against the King and slew him and took the kingdom. Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other ; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with anyone at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a god among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust ; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever anyone thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine anyone obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another’s, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another’s faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice. Enough of this. THE REPUBLIC BOOK II

Then, as we have many wants, and many persons are needed to supply them, one takes a helper for one purpose and another for another ; and when these partners and helpers are gathered together in one habitation the BODY of inhabitants is termed a State. THE REPUBLIC BOOK II

And what shall be their education ? Can we find a better than the traditional sort ? — and this has two divisions, gymnastics for the BODY, and music for the soul. THE REPUBLIC BOOK II

Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject the bad ; and we will desire mothers and nurses to tell their children the authorized ones only. Let them fashion the mind with such tales, even more fondly than they mould the BODY with their hands ; but most of those which are now in use must be discarded. THE REPUBLIC BOOK II

Neither is Phoenix, the tutor of Achilles, to be approved or deemed to have given his pupil good counsel when he told him that he should take the gifts of the Greeks and assist them ; but that without a gift he should not lay aside his anger. Neither will we believe or acknowledge Achilles himself to have been such a lover of money that he took Agamemnon’s gifts, or that when he had received payment he restored the dead BODY of Hector, but that without payment he was unwilling to do so. THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

If then we adhere to our original notion and bear in mind that our guardians, setting aside every other business, are to dedicate themselves wholly to the maintenance of freedom in the State, making this their craft, and engaging in no work which does not bear on this end, they ought not to practise or imitate anything else ; if they imitate at all, they should imitate from youth upward only those characters which are suitable to their profession — the courageous, temperate, holy, free, and the like ; but they should not depict or be skilful at imitating any kind of illiberality or baseness, lest from imitation they should come to be what they imitate. Did you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature, affecting BODY, voice, and mind ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

Certainly. Gymnastics as well as music should begin in early years ; the training in it should be careful and should continue through life. Now my belief is — and this is a matter upon which I should like to have your opinion in confirmation of my own, but my own belief is — not that the good BODY by any bodily excellence improves the soul, but, on the contrary, that the good soul, by her own excellence, improves the BODY as far as this may be possible. What do you say ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

Then, to the mind when adequately trained, we shall be right in handing over the more particular care of the BODY ; and in order to avoid prolixity we will now only give the general outlines of the subject. THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

And will the habit of BODY of our ordinary athletes be suited to them ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

I am afraid, I said, that a habit of BODY such as they have is but a sleepy sort of thing, and rather perilous to health. Do you not observe that these athletes sleep away their lives, and are liable to most dangerous illnesses if they depart, in ever so slight a degree, from their customary regimen ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

There complexity engendered license, and here disease ; whereas simplicity in music was the parent of temperance in the soul ; and simplicity in gymnastics of health in the BODY. THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

Of that, he replied, there can be no doubt ; such excessive care of the BODY, when carried beyond the rules of gymnastics, is most inimical to the practice of virtue. THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

Yes, indeed, I replied, and equally incompatible with the management of a house, an army, or an office of state ; and, what is most Important of all, irreconcileable with any kind of study or thought or self-reflection — there is a constant suspicion that headache and giddiness are to be ascribed to philosophy, and hence all practising or making trial of virtue in the higher sense is absolutely stopped ; for a man is always fancying that he is being made ill, and is in constant anxiety about the state of his BODY. THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

Why, I said, you join physicians and judges. Now the most skilful physicians are those who, from their youth upward, have combined with the knowledge of their art the greatest experience of disease ; they had better not be robust in health, and should have had all manner of diseases in their own persons. For the BODY, as I conceive, is not the instrument with which they cure the BODY ; in that case we could not allow them ever to be or to have been sickly ; but they cure the BODY with the mind, and the mind which has become and is sick can cure nothing. THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

This is the sort of medicine, and this is the sort of law, which you will sanction in your State. They will minister to better natures, giving health both of soul and of BODY ; but those who are diseased in their bodies they will leave to die, and the corrupt and incurable souls they will put an end to themselves. THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

Neither are the two arts of music and gymnastics really designed, as is often supposed, the one for the training of the soul, the other for the training of the BODY. THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

And so in gymnastics, if a man takes violent exercise and is a great feeder, and the reverse of a great student of music and philosophy, at first the high condition of his BODY fills him with pride and spirit, and he becomes twice the man that he was. THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

And as there are two principles of human nature, one the spirited and the other the philosophical, some god, as I should say, has given mankind two arts answering to them (and only indirectly to the soulsoul and BODY), in order that these two principles (like the strings of an instrument) may be relaxed or drawn tighter until they are duly harmonized. THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

If we proceed along the old path, my belief, I said, is that we shall find the answer. And our answer will be that, even as they are, our guardians may very likely be the happiest of men ; but that our aim in founding the State was not the disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole ; we thought that in a State which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find justice, and in the ill-ordered State injustice : and, having found them, we might then decide which of the two is the happier. At present, I take it, we are fashioning the happy State, not piecemeal, or with a view of making a few happy citizens, but as a whole ; and by and by we will proceed to view the opposite kind of State. Suppose that we were painting a statue, and someone came up to us and said : Why do you not put the most beautiful colors on the most beautiful parts of the BODY — the eyes ought to be purple, but you have made them black — to him we might fairly answer : Sir, you would not surely have us beautify the eyes to such a degree that they are no longer eyes ; consider rather whether, by giving this and the other features their due proportion, we make the whole beautiful. And so I say to you, do not compel us to assign to the guardians a sort of happiness which will make them anything but guardians ; for we too can clothe our husbandmen in royal apparel, and set crowns of gold on their heads, and bid them till the ground as much as they like, and no more. Our potters also might be allowed to repose on couches, and feast by the fireside, passing round the wine-cup, while their wheel is conveniently at hand, and working at pottery only as much as they like ; in this way we might make every class happy — and then, as you imagine, the whole State would be happy. But do not put this idea into our heads ; for, if we listen to you, the husbandman will be no longer a husbandman, the potter will cease to be a potter, and no one will have the character of any distinct class in the State. Now this is not of much consequence where the corruption of society, and pretension to be what you are not, are confined to cobblers ; but when the guardians of the laws and of the government are only seeming and not real guardians, then see how they turn the State upside down ; and on the other hand they alone have the power of giving order and happiness to the State. We mean our guardians to be true saviours and not the destroyers of the State, whereas our opponent is thinking of peasants at a festival, who are enjoying a life of revelry, not of citizens who are doing their duty to the State. But, if so, we mean different things, and he is speaking of something which is not a State. And therefore we must consider whether in appointing our guardians we would look to their greatest happiness individually, or whether this principle of happiness does not rather reside in the State as a whole. But if the latter be the truth, then the guardians and auxiliaries, and all others equally with them, must be compelled or induced to do their own work in the best way. And thus the whole State will grow up in a noble order, and the several classes will receive the proportion of happiness which nature assigns to them. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

Both together will they not be the best defenders of the whole soul and the whole BODY against attacks from without ; the one counselling, and the other fighting under his leader, and courageously executing his commands and counsels ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned, however, not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of man : for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others — he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself ; and when he has bound together the three principles within him, which may be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, and the intermediate intervals — when he has bound all these together, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treatment of the BODY, or in some affair of politics or private business ; always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it wisdom, and that which at any time impairs this condition he will call unjust action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

Why, I said, they are like disease and health ; being in the soul just what disease and health are in the BODY. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

And the creation of health is the institution of a natural order and government of one by another in the parts of the BODY ; and the creation of disease is the production of a state of things at variance with this natural order ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

Let us say to him : Come now, and we will ask you a question : When you spoke of a nature gifted or not gifted in any respect, did you mean to say that one man will acquire a thing easily, another with difficulty ; a little learning will lead the one to discover a great deal, whereas the other, after much study and application, no sooner learns than he forgets ; or again, did you mean, that the one has a BODY which is a good servant to his mind, while the BODY of the other is a hinderance to him ? — would not these be the sort of differences which distinguish the man gifted by nature from the one who is ungifted ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Because, I said, our rulers will often have to practise upon the BODY corporate with medicines. Now you know that when patients do not require medicines, but have only to be put under a regimen, the inferior sort of practitioner is deemed to be good enough ; but when medicine has to be given, then the doctor should be more of a man. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Or that again which most nearly approaches to the condition of the individual — as in the BODY, when but a finger of one of us is hurt, the whole frame, drawn toward the soul as a centre and forming one kingdom under the ruling power therein, feels the hurt and sympathizes all together with the part affected, and we say that the man has a pain in his finger ; and the same expression is used about any other part of the BODY, which has a sensation of pain at suffering or of pleasure at the alleviation of suffering. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

And this unity of feeling we admitted to be the greatest good, as was implied in our comparison of a well-ordered State to the relation of the BODY and the members, when affected by pleasure or pain ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

And is there not illiberality and avarice in robbing a corpse, and also a degree of meanness and womanishness in making an enemy of the dead BODY when the real enemy has flown away and left only his fighting gear behind him — is not this rather like a dog who cannot get at his assailant, quarrelling with the stones which strike him instead ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already ; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole BODY, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or, in other words, of the good. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VII

There was gymnastics, which presided over the growth and decay of the BODY, and may therefore be regarded as having to do with generation and corruption ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VII

But the release of the prisoners from chains, and their translation from the shadows to the images and to the light, and the ascent from the underground den to the sun, while in his presence they are vainly trying to look on animals and plants and the light of the sun, but are able to perceive even with their weak eyes the images in the water (which are divine), and are the shadows of true existence (not shadows of images cast by a light of fire, which compared with the sun is only an image) — this power of elevating the highest principle in the soul to the contemplation of that which is best in existence, with which we may compare the raising of that faculty which is the very light of the BODY to the sight of that which is brightest in the material and visible world — this power is given, as I was saying, by all that study and pursuit of the arts which have been described. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VII

Such gifts as keenness and ready powers of acquisition ; for the mind more often faints from the severity of study than from the severity of gymnastics : the toil is more entirely the mind’s own, and is not shared with the BODY. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VII

All these things, then, will have to be carefully considered by us ; and if only those whom we introduce to this vast system of education and training are sound in BODY and mind, justice herself will have nothing to say against us, and we shall be the saviours of the constitution and of the State ; but, if our pupils are men of another stamp, the reverse will happen, and we shall pour a still greater flood of ridicule on philosophy than she has to endure at present. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VII

Because a freeman ought not to be a slave in the acquisition of knowledge of any kind. Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the BODY ; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VII

After this manner : A city which is thus constituted can hardly be shaken ; but, seeing that everything which has a beginning has also an end, even a constitution such as yours will not last forever, but will in time be dissolved. And this is the dissolution : In plants that grow in the earth, as well as in animals that move on the earth’s surface, fertility and sterility of soul and BODY occur when the circumferences of the circles of each are completed, which in short-lived existences pass over a short space, and in long-lived ones over a long space. But to the knowledge of human fecundity and sterility all the wisdom and education of your rulers will not attain ; the laws which regulate them will not be discovered by an intelligence which is alloyed with sense, but will escape them, and they will bring children into the world when they ought not. Now that which is of divine birth has a period which is contained in a perfect number, but the period of human birth is comprehended in a number in which first increments by involution and evolution (or squared and cubed) obtaining three intervals and four terms of like and unlike, waxing and waning numbers, make all the terms commensurable and agreeable to one another. The base of these (3) with a third added (4), when combined with five (20) and raised to the third power, furnishes two harmonies ; the first a square which is 100 times as great (400 = 4 x 100), and the other a figure having one side equal to the former, but oblong, consisting of 100 numbers squared upon rational diameters of a square (i.e., omitting fractions), the side of which is five (7 x 7 = 49 x 100 = 4900), each of them being less by one (than the perfect square which includes the fractions, sc. 50) or less by two perfect squares of irrational diameters (of a square the side of which is five = 50 + 50 = 100) ; and 100 cubes of three (27 x 100 = 2700 + 4900 + 400 = 8000). Now this number represents a geometrical figure which has control over the good and evil of births. For when your guardians are ignorant of the law of births, and unite bride and bridegroom out of season, the children will not be goodly or fortunate. And though only the best of them will be appointed by their predecessor, still they will be unworthy to hold their father’s places, and when they come into power as guardians they will soon be found to fail in taking care of us, the muses, first by undervaluing music ; which neglect will soon extend to gymnastics ; and hence the young men of your State will be less cultivated. In the succeeding generation rulers will be appointed who have lost the guardian power of testing the metal of your different races, which, like Hesiod’s, are of gold and silver and brass and iron. And so iron will be mingled with silver, and brass with gold, and hence there will arise dissimilarity and inequality and irregularity, which always and in all places are causes of hatred and war. This the muses affirm to be the stock from which discord has sprung, wherever arising ; and this is their answer to us. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

But think again : In his wealthy days, while he was spending his money, was a man of this sort a whit more good to the State for the purposes of citizenship ? Or did he only seem to be a member of the ruling BODY, although in truth he was neither ruler nor subject, but just a spendthrift ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

At present the governors, induced by the motives which I have named, treat their subjects badly ; while they and their adherents, especially the young men of the governing class, are habituated to lead a life of luxury and idleness both of BODY and mind ; they do nothing, and are incapable of resisting either pleasure or pain. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

And, as in a BODY which is diseased the addition of a touch from without may bring on illness, and sometimes even when there is no external provocation, a commotion may arise within — in the same way wherever there is weakness in the State there is also likely to be illness, of which the occasion may be very slight, the one party introducing from without their oligarchical, the other their democratical allies, and then the State falls sick, and is at war with herself ; and may be at times distracted, even when there is no external cause. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

And the desire which goes beyond this, of more delicate food, or other luxuries, which might generally be got rid of, if controlled and trained in youth, and is hurtful to the BODY, and hurtful to the soul in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, may be rightly called unnecessary ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

These two classes are the plagues of every city in which they are generated, being what phlegm and bile are to the BODY. And the good physician and lawgiver of the State ought, like the wise bee-master, to keep them at a distance and prevent, if possible, their ever coming in ; and if they have anyhow found a way in, then he should have them and their cells cut out as speedily as possible. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

Yes, I said, not the sort of purgation which the physicians make of the BODY ; for they take away the worse and leave the better part, but he does the reverse. If he is to rule, I suppose that he cannot help himself. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

Still, the more numerous and violent pleasures which reach the soul through the BODY are generally of this sort — they are reliefs of pain. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

Then, in general, those kinds of things which are in the service of the BODY have less of truth and essence than those which are in the service of the soul ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

And has not the BODY itself less of truth and essence than the soul ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

What shall he profit, if his injustice be undetected and unpunished ? He who is undetected only gets worse, whereas he who is detected and punished has the brutal part of his nature silenced and humanized ; the gentler element in him is liberated, and his whole soul is perfected and ennobled by the acquirement of justice and temperance and wisdom, more than the BODY ever is by receiving gifts of beauty, strength, and health, in proportion as the soul is more honorable than the BODY. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

In the next place, he will regulate his bodily habit and training, and so far will he be from yielding to brutal and irrational pleasures, that he will regard even health as quite a secondary matter ; his first object will be not that he may be fair or strong or well, unless he is likely thereby to gain temperance, but he will always desire so to attemper the BODY as to preserve the harmony of the soul ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

I will explain : The BODY which is large when seen near, appears small when seen at a distance ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK X

And you admit that everything has a good and also an evil ; as ophthalmia is the evil of the eyes and disease of the whole BODY ; as mildew is of corn, and rot of timber, or rust of copper and iron : in everything, or in almost everything, there is an inherent evil and disease ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK X

But does any of these dissolve or destroy her ? — and here do not let us fall into the error of supposing that the unjust and foolish man, when he is detected, perishes through his own injustice, which is an evil of the soul. Take the analogy of the BODY : The evil of the BODY is a disease which wastes and reduces and annihilates the BODY ; and all the things of which we were just now speaking come to annihilation through their own corruption attaching to them and inhering in them and so destroying them. Is not this true ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK X

Consider the soul in like manner. Does the injustice or other evil which exists in the soul waste and consume her ? Do they by attaching to the soul and inhering in her at last bring her to death, and so separate her from the BODY ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK X

Consider, I said, Glaucon, that even the badness of food, whether staleness, decomposition, or any other bad quality, when confined to the actual food, is not supposed to destroy the BODY ; although, if the badness of food communicates corruption to the BODY, then we should say that the BODY has been destroyed by a corruption of itself, which is disease, brought on by this ; but that the BODY, being one thing, can be destroyed by the badness of the food, which is another, and which does not engender any natural infection — this we shall absolutely deny ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK X

Yes, he said, there is reason in that. Either, then, let us refute this conclusion, or, while it remains unrefuted, let us never say that fever, or any other disease, or the knife put to the throat, or even the cutting up of the whole BODY into the minutest pieces, can destroy the soul, until she herself is proved to become more unholy or unrighteous in consequence of these things being done to the BODY ; but that the soul, or anything else if not destroyed by an internal evil, can be destroyed by an external one, is not to be affirmed by any man. THE REPUBLIC BOOK X

True, I said ; if the inherent natural vice or evil of the soul is unable to kill or destroy her, hardly will that which is appointed to be the destruction of some other BODY, destroy a soul or anything else except that of which it was appointed to be the destruction. THE REPUBLIC BOOK X

Her immortality is demonstrated by the previous argument, and there are many other proofs ; but to see her as she really is, not as we now behold her, marred by communion with the BODY and other miseries, you must contemplate her with the eye of reason, in her original purity ; and then her beauty will be revealed, and justice and injustice and all the things which we have described will be manifested more clearly. Thus far, we have spoken the truth concerning her as she appears at present, but we must remember also that we have seen her only in a condition which may be compared to that of the sea-god Glaucus, whose original image can hardly be discerned because his natural members are broken off and crushed and damaged by the waves in all sorts of ways, and incrustations have grown over them of sea-weed and shells and stones, so that he is more like some monster than he is to his own natural form. And the soul which we behold is in a similar condition, disfigured by ten thousand ills. But not there, Glaucon, not there must we look. Where, then ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK X

Well, I said, I will tell you a tale ; not one of the tales which Odysseus tells to the hero Alcinous, yet this, too, is a tale of a hero, Er the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth. He was slain in battle, and ten days afterward, when the bodies of the dead were taken up already in a state of corruption, his BODY was found unaffected by decay, and carried away home to be buried. And on the twelfth day, as he was lying on the funeral pyre, he returned to life and told them what he had seen in the other world. He said that when his soul left the BODY he went on a journey with a great company, and that they came to a mysterious place at which there were two openings in the earth ; they were near together, and over against them were two other openings in the heaven above. In the intermediate space there were judges seated, who commanded the just, after they had given judgment on them and had bound their sentences in front of them, to ascend by the heavenly way on the right hand ; and in like manner the unjust were bidden by them to descend by the lower way on the left hand ; these also bore the symbols of their deeds, but fastened on their backs. He drew near, and they told him that he was to be the messenger who would carry the report of the other world to them, and they bade him hear and see all that was to be heard and seen in that place. Then he beheld and saw on one side the souls departing at either opening of heaven and earth when sentence had been given on them ; and at the two other openings other souls, some ascending out of the earth dusty and worn with travel, some descending out of heaven clean and bright. And arriving ever and anon they seemed to have come from a long journey, and they went forth with gladness into the meadow, where they encamped as at a festival ; and those who knew one another embraced and conversed, the souls which came from earth curiously inquiring about the things above, and the souls which came from heaven about the things beneath. And they told one another of what had happened by the way, those from below weeping and sorrowing at the remembrance of the things which they had endured and seen in their journey beneath the earth (now the journey lasted a thousand years), while those from above were describing heavenly delights and visions of inconceivable beauty. The story, Glaucon, would take too long to tell ; but the sum was this : He said that for every wrong which they had done to anyone they suffered tenfold ; or once in a hundred years — such being reckoned to be the length of man’s life, and the penalty being thus paid ten times in a thousand years. If, for example, there were any who had been the cause of many deaths, or had betrayed or enslaved cities or armies, or been guilty of any other evil behavior, for each and all of their offences they received punishment ten times over, and the rewards of beneficence and justice and holiness were in the same proportion. I need hardly repeat what he said concerning young children dying almost as soon as they were born. Of piety and impiety to gods and parents, and of murderers, there were retributions other and greater far which he described. He mentioned that he was present when one of the spirits asked another, “Where is Ardiaeus the Great ?” (Now this Ardiaeus lived a thousand years before the time of Er : he had been the tyrant of some city of Pamphylia, and had murdered his aged father and his elder brother, and was said to have committed many other abominable crimes.) The answer of the other spirit was : “He comes not hither, and will never come.” And this, said he, was one of the dreadful sights which we ourselves witnessed. We were at the mouth of the cavern, and, having completed all our experiences, were about to reascend, when of a sudden Ardiaeus appeared and several others, most of whom were tyrants ; and there were also, besides the tyrants, private individuals who had been great criminals : they were just, as they fancied, about to return into the upper world, but the mouth, instead of admitting them, gave a roar, whenever any of these incurable sinners or someone who had not been sufficiently punished tried to ascend ; and then wild men of fiery aspect, who were standing by and heard the sound, seized and carried them off ; and Ardiaeus and others they bound head and foot and hand, and threw them down and flayed them with scourges, and dragged them along the road at the side, carding them on thorns like wool, and declaring to the passers-by what were their crimes, and that they were being taken away to be cast into hell. And of all the many terrors which they had endured, he said that there was none like the terror which each of them felt at that moment, lest they should hear the voice ; and when there was silence, one by one they ascended with exceeding joy. These, said Er, were the penalties and retributions, and there were blessings as great. THE REPUBLIC BOOK X

All the souls had now chosen their lives, and they went in the order of their choice to Lachesis, who sent with them the genius whom they had severally chosen, to be the guardian of their lives and the fulfiller of the choice : this genius led the souls first to Clotho, and drew them within the revolution of the spindle impelled by her hand, thus ratifying the destiny of each ; and then, when they were fastened to this, carried them to Atropos, who spun the threads and made them irreversible, whence without turning round they passed beneath the throne of Necessity ; and when they had all passed, they marched on in a scorching heat to the plain of Forgetfulness, which was a barren waste destitute of trees and verdure ; and then toward evening they encamped by the river of Unmindfulness, whose water no vessel can hold ; of this they were all obliged to drink a certain quantity, and those who were not saved by wisdom drank more than was necessary ; and each one as he drank forgot all things. Now after they had gone to rest, about the middle of the night there were a thunderstorm and earthquake, and then in an instant they were driven upward in all manner of ways to their birth, like stars shooting. He himself was hindered from drinking the water. But in what manner or by what means he returned to the BODY he could not say ; only, in the morning, awaking suddenly, he found himself lying on the pyre. THE REPUBLIC BOOK X