Jowett: rational principle

Then we may fairly assume that they are two, and that they differ from one another ; the one with which a man reasons, we may call the rational principle of the soul ; the other, with which he loves, and hungers, and thirsts, and feels the flutterings of any other desire, may be termed the irrational or appetitive, the ally of sundry pleasures and satisfactions ? THE REPUBLIC   BOOK IV

You remember that passion or spirit appeared at first sight to be a kind of desire, but now we should say quite the contrary ; for in the conflict of the soul spirit is arrayed on the side of the rational principle. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

And ought not the rational principle, which is wise, and has the care of the whole soul, to rule, and the passionate or spirited principle to be the subject and ally ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

And you know, I said, that the old servants also, who are supposed to be attached to the family, from time to time talk privately in the same strain to the son ; and if they see anyone who owes money to his father, or is wronging him in any way, and he fails to prosecute them, they tell the youth that when he grows up he must retaliate upon people of this sort, and be more of a man than his father. He has only to walk abroad and he hears and sees the same sort of thing : those who do their own business in the city are called simpletons, and held in no esteem, while the busy-bodies are honored and applauded. The result is that the young man, hearing and seeing all these things — hearing, too, the words of his father, and having a nearer view of his way of life, and making comparisons of him and others — is drawn opposite ways : while his father is watering and nourishing the rational principle in his soul, the others are encouraging the passionate and appetitive ; and he being not originally of a bad nature, but having kept bad company, is at last brought by their joint influence to a middle point, and gives up the kingdom which is within him to the middle principle of contentiousness and passion, and becomes arrogant and ambitious. You seem to me to have described his origin perfectly. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

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 this, surely, must be the work of the calculating and rational principle in the soul ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK X

Then the imitative poet who aims at being popular is not by nature made, nor is his art intended, to please or to affect the rational principle in the soul ; but he will prefer the passionate and fitful temper, which is easily imitated ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK X