just as they are. Because I never supposed that, having said they were ordered by Intelligence, he'd bring in any reason for them other than its being best for them to be just the way they are; and I b supposed that in assigning the reason for each individual thing, and for things in general, he'd go on to expound what was best for the individual, and what was the common good for all; nor would I have sold these hopes for a large sum, but I made all haste to get 5 hold of the books and read them as quickly as I could, so that I might know as quickly as possible what was best and what was worse.
'Well, my friend, these marvellous hopes of mine were dashed; because, as I went on with my reading, I beheld a man making no use of his Intelligence at all, nor finding in it any reasons for c the ordering of things, but imputing them to such things as air and aether and water and many other absurdities. In fact, he seemed to me to be in exactly the position of someone who said that all Socrates' actions were performed with his intelligence, and who then 5 tried to give the reasons for each of my actions by saying, first, that the reason why I'm now sitting here is that my body consists of bones and sinews, and the bones are hard and separated from each other by joints, whereas the sinews, which can be tightened and d relaxed, surround the bones, together with the flesh and the skin that holds them together; so that when the bones are turned in their sockets, the sinews by stretching and tensing enable me somehow to bend my limbs at this moment, and that's the reason why I'm 5 sitting here bent in this way; or again, by mentioning other reasons of the same kind for my talking with you, imputing it to vocal sounds, air currents, auditory sensations, and countless other such e things, yet neglecting to mention the true reasons: that Athenians judged it better to condemn me, and therefore I in my turn have judged it better to sit here, and thought it more just to stay 5 behind and submit to such penalty as they may ordain. Because, I 99 dare swear,60 these sinews and bones would long since have been off in Megara or Boeotia, impelled by their judgement of what was best, had I not thought it more just and honourable not to escape and run away, but to submit to whatever penalty the city might impose. 5 But to call such things "reasons" is quite absurd. It would be quite true to say that without possessing such things as bones and sinews,
and whatever else I possess, I shouldn't be able to do what I judged best; but to call these things the reasons for my actions, rather than my choice of what is best, and that too though I act with intelligence, b would be a thoroughly loose way of talking. Fancy being unable to distinguish two different things: the reason proper, and that without which the reason could never be a reason! Yet it's this latter that most people call a reason, appearing to me to be feeling it over blind- 5 fold,61 as it were, and applying a wrong name to it. That's why one man makes the earth stay in position by means of the heaven, putting a whirl around it; while another presses down the air as a base, as if with a flat kneading-trough.62 Yet the power by which they're now situated in the best way that they could be placed, this c they neither look for nor credit with any supernatural strength; but they think they'll one day discover an Atlas stronger and more immortal than this, who does more to hold everything together. That it's the good or binding, that genuinely does bind and hold 5 things together, they don't believe at all. Now I should most gladly have become anyone's pupil, to learn the truth about a reason of that sort; but since I was deprived of this, proving unable either to find it for myself or to learn it from anyone else, would you like me, Cebes, to give you a display of how I've conducted my second voyage in d quest of the reason?'
'Yes, I'd like that immensely,' he said.
'Well then, it seemed to me next, since I'd wearied of studying the things that are, that I must take care not to incur what happens 5 to people who observe and examine the sun during an eclipse; some of them, you know, ruin their eyes, unless they examine its image in water or something of that sort. I had a similar thought: I was e afraid I might be completely blinded in my soul, by looking at objects with my eyes and trying to lay hold of them with each of my senses. So I thought I should take refuge in theories, and study in 5 them the truth of the things that are. Perhaps my comparison is, in a certain way, inept; as I don't at all admit that one who examines 100 in theories the things that are is any more studying them in images than one who examines them in concrete. But anyhow, this was how I proceeded: hypothesizing on each occasion the theory I judge strongest, I put down as true whatever things seem to me to accord 5
with it, both about a reason and about everything else; and whatever do not, I put down as not true. But I'd like to explain my meaning more clearly; because I don't imagine you understand it as yet.'
'Not entirely, I must say!' said Cebes. b 'Well, this is what I mean: it's nothing new, but what I've spoken of incessantly in our earlier discussion as well as at other times. I'm going to set about displaying to you the kind of reason I've been 5 dealing with; and I'll go back to those much harped-on entities, and start from them, hypothesizing that a beautiful, itself by itself, is something, and so are a good and a large and all the rest. If you grant me that and agree that those things exist, I hope that from them I shall display to you the reason, and find out that soul is immortal.' c 'Well, you may certainly take that for granted,' said Cebes, 'so you couldn't be too quick to conclude.'
'Then look at what comes next to those things, and see if you think as I do. It seems to me that if anything else is beautiful besides 5 the beautiful itself, it is beautiful for no reason at all other than that it participates in that beautiful; and the same goes for all of them. Do you assent to a reason of that kind?'
'I do.'
'Then I no longer understand nor can I recognize those other wise 10 reasons; but if anyone gives me as the reason why a given thing is d beautiful either its having a blooming colour, or its shape, or something else like that, I dismiss those other things—because all those others confuse me—but in a plain, artless, and possibly simple- minded way, I hold this close to myself: nothing else makes it 5 beautiful except that beautiful itself, whether by its presence or communion or whatever the manner and nature of the relation may be;63 as I don't go so far as to affirm that, but only that it is by the beautiful that all beautiful things are beautiful. Because that seems to be the safest answer to give both to myself and to another, and if I e hang on to this, I believe I'll never falclass="underline" it's safe to answer both to myself and to anyone else that it is by the bear+iful that beautiful things are beautiful; or don't you agree?'
'I do.'
5 'Similarly it's by largeness that large things are large, and larger things larger, and by smallness that smaller things are smaller?'
'Yes.'