Seite - 475 - in The Complete Plato
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It cannot be true.
Once more, he said, what ruler is there of the elements of human nature
other than the soul, and especially the wise soul? Do you know of any?
Indeed, I do not.
And is the soul in agreement with the affections of the body? or is she at
variance with them? For example, when the body is hot and thirsty, does not
the soul incline us against drinking? and when the body is hungry, against
eating? And this is only one instance out of ten thousand of the opposition of
the soul to the things of the body.
Very true.
But we have already acknowledged that the soul, being a harmony, can
never utter a note at variance with the tensions and relaxations and vibrations
and other affections of the strings out of which she is composed; she can only
follow, she cannot lead them?
It must be so, he replied.
And yet do we not now discover the soul to be doing the exact opposite—
leading the elements of which she is believed to be composed; almost always
opposing and coercing them in all sorts of ways throughout life, sometimes
more violently with the pains of medicine and gymnastic; then again more
gently; now threatening, now admonishing the desires, passions, fears, as if
talking to a thing which is not herself, as Homer in the Odyssee represents
Odysseus doing in the words—
‘He beat his breast, and thus reproached his heart: Endure, my heart; far
worse hast thou endured!’
Do you think that Homer wrote this under the idea that the soul is a
harmony capable of being led by the affections of the body, and not rather of a
nature which should lead and master them—herself a far diviner thing than
any harmony?
Yes, Socrates, I quite think so.
Then, my friend, we can never be right in saying that the soul is a harmony,
for we should contradict the divine Homer, and contradict ourselves.
True, he said.
Thus much, said Socrates, of Harmonia, your Theban goddess, who has
graciously yielded to us; but what shall I say, Cebes, to her husband Cadmus,
and how shall I make peace with him?
I think that you will discover a way of propitiating him, said Cebes; I am
475
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Buch The Complete Plato"
The Complete Plato
- Titel
- The Complete Plato
- Autor
- Plato
- Datum
- ~347 B.C.
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- PD
- Abmessungen
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Seiten
- 1612
- Schlagwörter
- Philosophy, Antique, Philosophie, Antike, Dialogues, Metaphysik, Metaphysics, Ideologie, Ideology, Englisch
- Kategorien
- Geisteswissenschaften
- International