13.9 · Equal participation in harmony

“But it has already been agreed,” he said, “that one soul is neither more nor less a soul than another. Does that agreement mean that one harmony is neither more nor greater, neither less nor smaller, as a harmony, than another? Is that right?”

“Certainly.”

“And what is neither more nor less a harmony is neither more nor less attuned. Is that so?”

“It is.”

“And does what is neither more nor less attuned participate in harmony to any greater or smaller degree, or equally?”

“Equally.”¹³¹⁹

13.10 · Could a soul contain vice?

“Then, since one soul is neither more nor less a soul than another, neither is it more nor less attuned?”

“That is so.”

“And in that condition it would ⟨participate⟩ no more in lack of attunement or in harmony.”

“Certainly not.”

“And in that condition could one soul participate in vice or virtue more than another, if vice were lack of attunement and virtue harmony?”

“No more.”

“Rather, Simmias, following the argument strictly, no soul will participate in vice at all, if it is a harmony. For a harmony, being wholly just what it is, a harmony, could never participate in lack of attunement.”

“Certainly not.”

“Nor, surely, could a soul, being wholly a soul, participate in vice.”

“How could it, given what has been said?”¹³²⁰

13.11 · An unacceptable consequence

“Then according to this argument all souls of all living creatures will be equally good, if souls are equally constituted to be just this, souls.”

“So it seems to me, Socrates,” he said.

“And does it seem right for the account to be stated this way,” he said, “and would the argument have these consequences if the premise that soul is harmony were correct?”

“Not in any way,” he said.¹³²¹

13.12 · Soul resists bodily desires

“What, then?” he said. “Of everything in a human being, do you say that anything governs except soul, especially a wise soul?”

“I do not.”

“Does it yield to the body’s conditions, or does it also oppose them? I mean this sort of thing: when heat and thirst are present, it pulls in the opposite direction, toward not drinking; when hunger is present, toward not eating. And we shall describe countless other cases in which soul opposes what concerns the body, shall we not?”

“Certainly.”¹³²²

13.13 · A harmony cannot sing against its parts

“Yet did we not agree earlier that, if it were a harmony, it could never sing contrary to the tension, relaxation, plucking, or any other condition of the things of which it consists, but must follow them and could never lead?”

“We agreed,” he said. “Of course we did.”¹³²³

13.14 · Command, correction, and persuasion

“What, then, do we find now? Does it not appear to do the very opposite, leading all those things of which someone says it consists, opposing them in almost everything throughout life, and exercising mastery in every way? Some it disciplines more harshly and painfully, as in physical training and medicine; others more gently. Sometimes it threatens, sometimes admonishes, addressing desires, anger, and fears as one thing speaking to another. Homer too has represented something like this in the Odyssey, where he says of Odysseus:”¹³²⁴

13.15 · Homer: Odysseus addresses his heart

He struck his breast and rebuked his heart with words: “Endure, my heart: once you endured something still more dreadful.”¹³²⁵

13.16 · Agreement with Homer and ourselves

“Do you think he composed these lines with the thought that soul is a harmony, liable to be led by bodily conditions, rather than fitted to lead and master them, and itself something far more divine than a harmony?”

“Yes, by Zeus, Socrates, that is how it seems to me.”

“Then, my good friend, it is in no way right for us to say that soul is a kind of harmony. For, it seems, we would agree neither with Homer, the divine poet, nor with ourselves.”

“That is so,” he said.¹³²⁶

13.17 · From Harmonia to Cadmus

“Very well,” said Socrates. “It seems we have managed to make Theban Harmonia reasonably gracious toward us. But what of Cadmus, Cebes?” he said. “How shall we appease him, and with what argument?”

“I think you will find one,” said Cebes.¹³²⁷

14.1 · Plato: a question about causes

In the same work.

Socrates paused for a considerable time and considered something within himself. “What you are asking is no small matter, Cebes,” he said. “We must examine comprehensively the cause of coming into being and passing away. So, if you wish, I will recount my own experiences concerning these things. Then, if anything I say seems useful to you, you can use it to reach conviction about the matters you are discussing.”

“I certainly wish it,” said Cebes.

“Listen, then: I will tell you.”¹³²⁸

14.2 · The attraction of inquiry into nature

“When I was young, Cebes,” he said, “I had an extraordinary desire for that wisdom which they call inquiry into nature. It seemed to me a magnificent thing to know the causes of each thing: why it comes into being, why it perishes, and why it exists. I often shifted this way and that, first examining questions like these: is it when the hot and the cold undergo some kind of putrefaction, as certain people said, that living creatures take shape?”¹³²⁹

14.3 · Perception, memory, and knowledge

“And is blood that by which we think, or air, or fire? Or is it none of these, but the brain that provides the perceptions of hearing, seeing, and smelling, from which memory and opinion might arise, and from memory and opinion, once it has become stable in these respects, knowledge comes into being? Examining in turn the destruction of these things, and what happens concerning heaven and earth, I finally thought myself utterly without aptitude for this inquiry.”¹³³⁰

15.1 · Plato: a cause and its conditions

Plato.

For to be unable to distinguish that the real cause is one thing, and that without which the cause could never be a cause is another! Most people seem to me to grope at this latter thing as though in darkness and, applying a name that does not belong to it, call it the cause.¹³³¹