INTRODUCTION.
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SOCRATES: And the user of the body is the soul?
ALCIBIADES: Yes, the soul.
SOCRATES: And the soul rules?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Let me make an assertion which will, I think, be universally admitted.
ALCIBIADES: What is it?
SOCRATES: That man is one of three things.
ALCIBIADES: What are they?
SOCRATES: Soul, body, or both together forming a whole.
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: But did we not say that the actual ruling principle of the body is man?
ALCIBIADES: Yes, we did.
SOCRATES: And does the body rule over itself?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: It is subject, as we were saying?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then that is not the principle which we are seeking?
ALCIBIADES: It would seem not.
SOCRATES: But may we say that the union of the two rules over the body, and consequently that this is man?
ALCIBIADES: Very likely.
SOCRATES: The most unlikely of all things; for if one of the members is subject, the two united cannot possibly rule.
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: But since neither the body, nor the union of the two, is man, either man has no real existence, or the soul is man?
ALCIBIADES: Just so.
SOCRATES: Is anything more required to prove that the soul is man?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not; the proof is, I think, quite sufficient.
SOCRATES: And if the proof, although not perfect, be sufficient, we shall be satisfied;—more precise proof will be supplied when we have discovered that which we were led to omit, from a fear that the enquiry would be too much protracted.
ALCIBIADES: What was that?
SOCRATES: What I meant, when I said that absolute existence must be first considered; but now, instead of absolute existence, we have been considering the nature of individual existence, and this may, perhaps, be sufficient; for surely there is nothing which may be called more properly ourselves than the soul?
ALCIBIADES: There is nothing.
SOCRATES: Then we may truly conceive that you and I are conversing with one another, soul to soul?
ALCIBIADES: Very true.
SOCRATES: And that is just what I was saying before—that I, Socrates, am not arguing or talking with the face of Alcibiades, but with the real Alcibiades; or in other words, with his soul.
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: Then he who bids a man know himself, would have him know his soul?
ALCIBIADES: That appears to be true.
SOCRATES: He whose knowledge only extends to the body, knows the things of a man, and not the man himself?
ALCIBIADES: That is true.
SOCRATES: Then neither the physician regarded as a physician, nor the trainer regarded as a trainer, knows himself?
ALCIBIADES: He does not.