Jowett: soul (Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman)

Soc. Well, my art of midwifery is in most respects like theirs ; but differs, in that I attend men and not women ; and look after their souls when they are in labour, and not after their bodies : and the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth. And like the mid-wives, I am barren, and the reproach which is often made against me, that I ask questions of others and have not the wit to answer them myself, is very just — the reason is, that the god compels me to be a midwife, but does not allow me to bring forth. And therefore I am not myself at all wise, nor have I anything to show which is the invention or birth of my own SOUL, but those who converse with me profit. Some of them appear dull enough at first, but afterwards, as our acquaintance ripens, if the god is gracious to them, they all make astonishing progress ; and this in the opinion of others as well as in their own. It is quite dear that they never learned anything from me ; the many fine discoveries to which they cling are of their own making. But to me and the god they owe their delivery. And the proof of my words is, that many of them in their ignorance, either in their self-conceit despising me, or falling under the influence of others, have gone away too soon ; and have not only lost the children of whom I had previously delivered them by an ill bringing up, but have stifled whatever else they had in them by evil communications, being fonder of lies and shams than of the truth ; and they have at last ended by seeing themselves, as others see them, to be great fools. Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus, is one of them, and there are many others. The truants often return to me, and beg that I would consort with them again — they are ready to go to me on their knees and then, if my familiar allows, which is not always the case, I receive them, and they begin to grow again. Dire are the pangs which my art is able to arouse and to allay in those who consort with me, just like the pangs of women in childbirth ; night and day they are full of perplexity and travail which is even worse than that of the women. So much for them. And there are others, Theaetetus  , who come to me apparently having nothing in them ; and as I know that they have no need of my art, I coax them into marrying some one, and by the grace of God I can generally tell who is likely to do them good. Many of them I have given away to Prodicus, and many to other inspired sages. I tell you this long story, friend Theaetetus, because I suspect, as indeed you seem to think yourself, that you are in labour — great with some conception. Come then to me, who am a midwife’s son and myself a midwife, and do your best to answer the questions which I will ask you. And if I abstract and expose your first-born, because I discover upon inspection that the conception which you have formed is a vain shadow, do not quarrel with me on that account, as the manner of women is when their first children are taken from them. For I have actually known some who were ready to bite me when I deprived them of a darling folly ; they did not perceive that I acted from good will, not knowing that no god is the enemy of man — that was not within the range of their ideas ; neither am I their enemy in all this, but it would be wrong for me to admit falsehood, or to stifle the truth. Once more, then, Theaetetus, I repeat my old question, “What is knowledge ?” — and do not say that you cannot tell ; but quit yourself like a man, and by the help of God you will be able to tell. THEAETETUS

Soc. And what of the mental habit ? Is not the SOUL informed, and improved, and preserved by study and attention, which are motions ; but when at rest, which in the SOUL only means want of attention and study, is uninformed, and speedily forgets whatever she has learned ? THEAETETUS

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

Soc. You see, then, that a doubt about the reality of sense is easily raised, since there may even be a doubt whether we are awake or in a dream. And as our time is equally divided between sleeping and waking, in either sphere of existence the SOUL contends that the thoughts which are present to our minds at the time are true ; and during one half of our lives we affirm the truth of the one, and, during the other half, of the other ; and are equally confident of both. THEAETETUS

Soc. In the leisure spoken of by you, which a freeman can always command : he has his talk, out in peace, and, like ourselves, he wanders at will from one subject to another, and from a second to a third, — if the fancy takes him he begins again, as we are doing now, caring not whether his words are many or few ; his only aim is to attain the truth. But the lawyer is always in a hurry ; there is the water of the clepsydra driving him on, and not allowing him to expatiate at will : and there is his adversary standing over him, enforcing his rights ; the indictment, which in their phraseology is termed the affidavit, is recited at the time : and from this he must not deviate. He is a servant, and is continually disputing about a fellow servant before his master, who is seated, and has the cause in his hands ; the trial is never about some indifferent matter, but always concerns himself ; and often the race is for his life. The consequence has been, that he has become keen and shrewd ; he has learned how to flatter his master in word and indulge him in deed ; but his SOUL is small and unrighteous. His condition, which has been that of a slave from his youth upwards, has deprived him of growth and uprightness and independence ; dangers and fears, which were too much for his truth and honesty, came upon him in early years, when the tenderness of youth was unequal to them, and he has been driven into crooked ways ; from the first he has practised deception and retaliation, and has become stunted and warped. And so he has passed out of youth into manhood, having no soundness in him ; and is now, as he thinks, a master in wisdom. Such is the lawyer, Theodorus. Will you have the companion picture of the philosopher, who is of our brotherhood ; or shall we return to the argument ? Do not let us abuse the freedom of digression which we claim. THEAETETUS

Theaet. You are thinking of being and not being, likeness and unlikeness, sameness and difference, and also of unity and other numbers which are applied to objects of sense ; and you mean to ask, through what bodily organ the SOUL perceives odd and even numbers and other arithmetical conceptions. THEAETETUS

Soc. You are a beauty, Theaetetus, and not ugly, as Theodorus was saying ; for he who utters the beautiful is himself beautiful and good. And besides being beautiful, you have done me a kindness in releasing me from a very long discussion, if you are clear that the SOUL views some things by herself and others through the bodily organs. For that was my own opinion, and I wanted you to agree with me. THEAETETUS

Theaet. I should say, to that class which the SOUL aspires to know of herself. THEAETETUS

Theaet. These I conceive to be notions which are essentially relative, and which the SOUL also perceives by comparing in herself things past and present with the future. THEAETETUS

Soc. But their essence and what they are, and their opposition to one another, and the essential nature of this opposition, the SOUL herself endeavours to decide for us by the review and comparison of them ? 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. I mean the conversation which the SOUL holds with herself in considering of anything. I speak of what I scarcely understand ; but the SOUL when thinking appears to me to be just talking — asking questions of herself and answering them, affirming and denying. And when she has arrived at a decision, either gradually or by a sudden impulse, and has at last agreed, and does not doubt, this is called her opinion. I say, then, that to form an opinion is to speak, and opinion is a word spoken, — I mean, to oneself and in silence, not aloud or to another : What think you ? THEAETETUS

Soc. But if thinking is talking to oneself, no one speaking and thinking of two objects, and apprehending them both in his SOUL, will say and think that the one is the other of them, and I must add, that even you, lover of dispute as you are, had better let the word “other” alone [i.e., not insist that “one” and “other” are the same]. I mean to say, that no one thinks the noble to be base, or anything of the kind. THEAETETUS

Soc. And the origin of truth and error is as follows : — When the wax in the SOUL of any one is deep and abundant, and smooth and perfectly tempered, then the impressions which pass through the senses and sink into the heart of the SOUL, as Homer says in a parable, meaning to indicate the likeness of the SOUL to wax (Kerh Kerhos) ; these, I say, being pure and clear, and having a sufficient depth of wax, are also lasting, and minds, such as these, easily learn and easily retain, and are not liable to confusion, but have true thoughts, for they have plenty of room, and having clear impressions of things, as we term them, quickly distribute them into their proper places on the block. And such men are called wise. Do you agree ? THEAETETUS

Soc. But when the heart of any one is shaggy — a quality which the all-wise poet commends, or muddy and of impure wax, or very soft, or very hard, then there is a corresponding defect in the mind — the soft are good at learning, but apt to forget ; and the hard are the reverse ; the shaggy and rugged and gritty, or those who have an admixture of earth or dung in their composition, have the impressions indistinct, as also the hard, for there is no depth in them ; and the soft too are indistinct, for their impressions are easily confused and effaced. Yet greater is the indistinctness when they are all jostled together in a little SOUL, which has no room. These are the natures which have false opinion ; for when they see or hear or think of anything, they are slow in assigning the right objects to the right impressions — in their stupidity they confuse them, and are apt to see and hear and think amiss — and such men are said to be deceived in their knowledge of objects, and ignorant. THEAETETUS

Soc. We are supposed to acquire a right opinion of the differences which distinguish one thing from another when we have already a right opinion of them, and so we go round and round : — the revolution of the scytal, or pestle, or any other rotatory machine, in the same circles, is as nothing compared with such a requirement ; and we may be truly described as the blind directing the blind ; for to add those things which we already have, in order that we may learn what we already think, is like a SOUL utterly benighted. THEAETETUS

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

Str. You want to know what is the meaning of food for the SOUL ; the other kind you surely understand. SOPHIST

Str. Take music in general and painting and marionette playing and many other things, which are purchased in one city, and carried away and sold in another — wares of the SOUL which are hawked about either for the sake of instruction or amusement ; — may not he who takes them about and sells them be quite as truly called a merchant as he who sells meats and drinks ? SOPHIST

Str. Of this merchandise of the SOUL, may not one part be fairly termed the art of display ? And there is another part which is certainly not less ridiculous, but being a trade in learning must be called by some name germane to the matter ? SOPHIST

Str. No other ; and so this trader in virtue again turns out to be our friend the Sophist, whose art may now be traced from the art of acquisition through exchange, trade, merchandise, to a merchandise of the SOUL which is concerned with speech and the knowledge of virtue. SOPHIST

Str. There can be no doubt that they are thought ridiculous, Theaetetus ; but then the dialectical art never considers whether the benefit to be derived from the purge is greater or less than that to be derived from the sponge, and has not more interest in the one than in the other ; her endeavour is to know what is and is not kindred in all arts, with a view to the acquisition of intelligence ; and having this in view, she honours them all alike, and when she makes comparisons, she counts one of them not a whit more ridiculous than another ; nor does she esteem him who adduces as his example of hunting, the general’s art, at all more decorous than another who cites that of the vermin-destroyer, but only as the greater pretender of the two. And as to your question concerning the name which was to comprehend all these arts of purification, whether of animate or inanimate bodies, the art of dialectic is in no wise particular about fine words, if she maybe only allowed to have a general name for all other purifications, binding them up together and separating them off from the purification of the SOUL or intellect. For this is the purification at which she wants to arrive, and this we should understand to be her aim. 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. Do we admit that virtue is distinct from vice in the SOUL ? SOPHIST

Str. Then any taking away of evil from the SOUL may be properly called purification ? SOPHIST

Str. And in the SOUL there are two kinds of evil. SOPHIST

Str. Then we shall be right in calling vice a discord and disease of the SOUL ? SOPHIST

Str. But surely we know that no SOUL is voluntarily ignorant of anything ? SOPHIST

Str. Then we are to regard an unintelligent SOUL as deformed and devoid of symmetry ? SOPHIST

Str. Then there are these two kinds of evil in the SOUL — the one which is generally called vice, and is obviously a disease of the SOUL... SOPHIST

Str. And there is the other, which they call ignorance, and which, because existing only in the SOUL, they will not allow to be vice. SOPHIST

Theaet. I certainly admit what I at first disputed — that there are two kinds of vice in the SOUL, and that we ought to consider cowardice, intemperance, and injustice to be alike forms of disease in the SOUL, and ignorance, of which there are all sorts of varieties, to be deformity. 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. Let us grant, then, that from the discerning art comes purification, and from purification let there be separated off a part which is concerned with the SOUL ; of this mental purification instruction is a portion, and of instruction education, and of education, that refutation of vain conceit which has been discovered in the present argument ; and let this be called by you and me the nobly-descended art of Sophistry. SOPHIST

Str. In the second place, he was a merchant in the goods of the SOUL. SOPHIST

Str. When we say that he deceives us with an illusion, and that his art is illusory, do we mean that our SOUL is led by his art to think falsely, or what do we mean ? SOPHIST

Str. And do they not acknowledge this to be a body having a SOUL ? SOPHIST

Str. Meaning to say the SOUL is something which exists ? SOPHIST

Str. And do they not say that one SOUL is just, and another unjust, and that one SOUL is wise, and another foolish ? SOPHIST

Str. And that the just and wise SOUL becomes just and wise by the possession of justice and wisdom, and the opposite under opposite circumstances ? SOPHIST

Str. And, allowing that justice, wisdom, the other virtues, and their opposites exist, as well as a SOUL in which they inhere, do they affirm any of them to be visible and tangible, or are they all invisible ? 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. Yes ; but our reply will be that we want to ascertain from them more distinctly, whether they further admit that the SOUL knows, and that being or essence is known. SOPHIST

Str. And, O heavens, can we ever be made to believe that motion and life and SOUL and mind are not present with perfect being ? Can we imagine that, being is devoid of life and mind, and exists in awful unmeaningness an everlasting fixture ? SOPHIST

Str. Or shall we say that both inhere in perfect being, but that it has no SOUL which contains them ? SOPHIST

Str. Or that being has mind and life and SOUL, but although endowed with SOUL remains absolutely unmoved ? SOPHIST

Str. Are not thought and speech the same, with this exception, that what is called thought is the unuttered conversation of the SOUL with herself ? SOPHIST

Str. And seeing that language is true and false, and that thought is the conversation of the SOUL with herself, and opinion is the end of thinking, and imagination or phantasy is the union of sense and opinion, the inference is that some of them, since they are akin to language, should have an element of falsehood as well as of truth ? SOPHIST

Str. Where shall we discover the path of the Statesman   ? We must find and separate off, and set our seal upon this, and we will set the mark of another class upon all diverging paths. Thus the SOUL will conceive of ail kinds of knowledge under two classes. STATESMAN

In the fulness of time, when the change was to take place, and the earth-born race had all perished, and every SOUL had completed its proper cycle of births and been sown in the earth her appointed number of times, the pilot of the universe let the helm go, and retired to his place of view ; and then Fate and innate desire reversed the motion of the world. Then also all the inferior deities who share the rule of the supreme power, being informed of what was happening, let go the parts of the world which were under their control. And the world turning round with a sudden shock, being impelled in an opposite direction from beginning to end, was shaken by a mighty earthquake, which wrought a new destruction of all manner of animals. Afterwards, when sufficient time had elapsed, the tumult and confusion and earthquake ceased, and the universal creature, once more at peace attained to a calm, and settle down into his own orderly and accustomed course, having the charge and rule of himself and of all the creatures which are contained in him, and executing, as far as he remembered them, the instructions of his Father and Creator, more precisely at first, but afterwords with less exactness. The reason of the falling off was the admixture of matter in him ; this was inherent in the primal nature, which was full of disorder, until attaining to the present order. From God, the constructor ; the world received all that is good in him, but from a previous state came elements of evil and unrighteousness, which, thence derived, first of all passed into the world, and were then transmitted to the animals. While the world was aided by the pilot in nurturing the animals, the evil was small, and great the good which he produced, but after the separation, when the world was let go, at first all proceeded well enough ; but, as time went there was more and more forgetting, and the old discord again held sway and burst forth in full glory ; and at last small was the good, and great was the admixture of evil, and there was a danger of universal ruin to the world, and the things contained in him. Wherefore God, the orderer of all, in his tender care, seeing that the world was in great straits, and fearing that all might be dissolved in the storm and disappear in infinite chaos, again seated himself at the helm ; and bringing back the elements which had fallen into dissolution and disorder to the motion which had prevailed under his dispensation, he set them in order and restored them, and made the world imperishable and immortal. STATESMAN

Str. Can we wonder, then, that the SOUL has the same uncertainty about the alphabet of things, and sometimes and in some cases is firmly fixed by the truth in each particular, and then, again, in other cases is altogether at sea ; having somehow or other a correction of combinations ; but when the elements are transferred into the long and difficult language (syllables) of facts, is again ignorant of them ? STATESMAN

Str. Still less would any rational man seek to analyse the notion of weaving for its own sake. But people seem to forget that some things have sensible images, which are readily known, and can be easily pointed out when any one desires to answer an enquirer without any trouble or argument ; whereas the greatest and highest truths have no outward image of themselves visible to man, which he who wishes to satisfy the SOUL of the enquirer can adapt to the eye of sense, and therefore we ought to train ourselves to give and accept a rational account of them ; for immaterial things, which are the noblest and greatest, are shown only in thought and idea, and in no other way, and all that we are now saying is said for the sake of them. Moreover, there is always less difficulty in fixing the mind on small matters than on great. 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. First of all, she takes the eternal element of the SOUL and binds it with a divine cord, to which it is akin, and then the animal nature, and binds that with human cords. STATESMAN

Str. The meaning is, that the opinion about the honourable and the just and good and their opposites, which is true and confirmed by reason, is a divine principle, and when implanted in the SOUL, is implanted, as I maintain, in a nature of heavenly birth. STATESMAN

Str. The courageous SOUL when attaining this truth becomes civilized, and rendered more capable of partaking of justice ; but when not partaking, is inclined to brutality. Is not that true ? STATESMAN

Str. And then, again, the SOUL which is over-full of modesty and has no element of courage in many successive generations, is apt to grow too indolent, and at last to become utterly paralyzed and useless. STATESMAN