[897a]
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,1 and, supervening on these, to heat and cold, heaviness and lightness,
[897b]
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?Clinias
By no means.Athenian
Which kind of soul, then, shall we say is in control of Heaven and earth and the whole circle? That which is wise and full of goodness, or that which
[897c]
has neither quality? To this shall we make reply as follows?Clinias
How?Athenian
If, my good sir, we are to assert that the whole course and motion of Heaven and of all it contains have a motion like to the motion and revolution and reckonings of reason,2 and proceed in a kindred manner, then clearly we must assert that the best soul regulates the whole cosmos and drives it on its course, which is of the kind described.Clinias
You are right.
[897d]
Athenian
But the bad soul, if it proceeds in a mad and disorderly way.Clinias
That also is right.Athenian
Then what is the nature of the motion of reason? Here, my friends, we come to a question that is difficult to answer wisely; consequently, it is fitting that you should now call me in to assist you with the answer.Clinias
Very good.Athenian
In making our answer let us not bring on night, as it were, at midday, by looking right in the eye of the sun,3 as though with mortal eyes we could ever behold reason and know it fully;
[897e]
the safer way to behold the object with which our question is concerned is by looking at an image of it.Clinias
How do you mean?Athenian
Let us take as an image that one of the ten motions which reason resembles; reminding ourselves of which4 I, along with you, will make answer.Clinias
You will probably speak admirably.Athenian
Do we still recollect thus much about the things then described, that we assumed that, of the total, some were in motion, others at rest?Clinias
Yes.Athenian
And further, that, of those in motion, some move in one place,
1 Cp. Plat. Laws 894b, Plat. Laws 894c.
2 i.e. the uniform revolution of a sphere in the same spot and on its own axis: cp. Plat. Laws 898a; Plat. Tim. 34a ff, Plat. Tim. 34b ff; Plat. 90c, d.
3 Cp.Plat. Rep. 516a ff.
4 Cp. Plat. Laws 893b.; the motion to which reason is likened is the first of the ten.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 10 & 11 translated by R.G. Bury. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967 & 1968.
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