Jowett: higher principle

Again, would you not be cautious of affirming that the addition of one to one, or the division of one, is the cause of two ? And you would loudly asseverate that you know of no way in which anything comes into existence except by participation in its own proper essence, and consequently, as far as you know, the only cause of two is the participation in duality ; that is the way to make two, and the participation in one is the way to make one. You would say : I will let alone puzzles of division and addition — wiser heads than mine may answer them ; inexperienced as I am, and ready to start, as the proverb says, at my own shadow, I cannot afford to give up the sure ground of a principle. And if anyone assails you there, you would not mind him, or answer him until you had seen whether the consequences which follow agree with one another or not, and when you are further required to give an explanation of this principle, you would go on to assume a higher principle, and the best of the higher ones, until you found a resting-place ; but you would not refuse the principle and the consequences in your reasoning like the Eristics — at least if you wanted to discover real existence. Not that this confusion signifies to them who never care or think about the matter at all, for they have the wit to be well pleased with themselves, however great may be the turmoil of their ideas. But you, if you are a philosopher, will, I believe, do as I say. PHAEDO  

But when a man’s pulse is healthy and temperate, and when before going to sleep he has awakened his rational powers, and fed them on noble thoughts and inquiries, collecting himself in meditation ; after having first indulged his appetites neither too much nor too little, but just enough to lay them to sleep, and prevent them and their enjoyments and pains from interfering with the higher principle — which he leaves in the solitude of pure abstraction, free to contemplate and aspire to the knowledge of the unknown, whether in past, present, or future : when again he has allayed the passionate element, if he has a quarrel against anyone — I say, when, after pacifying the two irrational principles, he rouses up the third, which is reason, before he takes his rest, then, as you know, he attains truth most nearly, and is least likely to be the sport of fantastic and lawless visions. THE REPUBLIC   BOOK IX

And why are mean employments and manual arts a reproach ? Only because they imply a natural weakness of the higher principle ; the individual is unable to control the creatures within him, but has to court them, and his great study is how to flatter them. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

Yes, I said ; and the higher principle is ready to follow this suggestion of reason ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK X