Book 10
896
Ath. We recollect, of course, that we previously agreedPlat. Laws 892a, Plat. Laws 892b. that if soul could be shown to be older than body, then the things of soul also will be older than those of body.
896
Clin. Certainly we do.
896
Ath. Moods and dispositions and wishes and calculations and true opinions and considerations and memories will be prior to bodily length, breadth, depth and strength, if soul is prior to body.
896
Clin. Necessarily.
896
Ath. Must we then necessarily agree, in the next place, that soul is the cause of things good and bad, fair and foul, just and unjust, and all the opposites, if we are to assume it to be the cause of all things?
896
Clin. Of course we must.
896
Ath. And as soul thus controls and indwells in all things everywhere that are moved, must we not necessarily affirm that it controls Heaven also?
896
Clin. Yes.
896
Ath. One soul, is it, or several? I will answer for you—several. Anyhow, let us assume not less than two—the beneficent soul and that which is capable of effecting results of the opposite kind.
896
Clin. You are perfectly right.
897
Ath. Very well, then. Soul drives all things in Heaven and earth and sea by its own motions, of which the names are wish, reflection, forethought, counsel, opinion true and false, joy, grief, confidence, fear, hate, love, and all the motions that are akin to these or are prime-working motions; these, when they take over the secondary motions of bodies, drive them all to increase and decrease and separation and combination,Cp. Plat. Laws 894b, Plat. Laws 894c. and, supervening on these, to heat and cold, heaviness and lightness, hardness and softness, whiteness and blackness, bitterness and sweetness, and all those qualities which soul employs, both when it governs all things rightly and happily as a true goddess, in conjunction with reason, and when, in converse with unreason, it produces results which are in all respects the opposite. Shall we postulate that this is so, or do we still suspect that it may possibly be otherwise?
