'I don't doubt it,' said Simmias; 'but I do need to undergo just what the argument is about, to be "reminded". Actually, from the way Cebes set about stating it, I do almost recall it and am nearly convinced; but I'd like, none the less, to hear now how you set about 10 stating it yourself.'
c 'I'll put it this way. We agree, I take it, that if anyone is to be reminded of a thing, he must have known that thing at some time previously.'
'Certainly.'
'Then do we also agree on this point: that whenever knowledge 5 comes to be present in this sort of way, it is recollection? I mean in some such way as this:20 if someone, on seeing a thing, or hearing it, or getting any other sense-perception of it, not only recognizes that thing, but also thinks of something else, which is the object not of the same knowledge but of another, don't we then rightly say that d he's been "reminded" of the object of which he has got the thought?'
'What do you mean?'
'Take the following examples: knowledge of a man, surely, is other than that of a lyre?'
'Of course.'
5 'Well now, you know what happens to lovers, whenever they see a lyre or cloak or anything else their loves are accustomed to use: they recognize the lyre, and they get in their mind, don't they, the form of the boy whose lyre it is? And that is recollection. Likewise, someone seeing Simmias is often reminded of Cebes, and there'd 10 surely be countless other such cases.'
'Countless indeed!' said Simmias. e 'Then is something of that sort a kind of recollection? More especially, though, whenever it happens to someone in connection with things he's since forgotten, through lapse of time or inattention?'
'Certainly.'
5 'Again now, is it possible, on seeing a horse depicted or. a lyre depicted, to be reminded of a man; and on seeing Simmias depicted,
to be reminded of Cebes?' 'Certainly.'
10 74
'And also, on seeing Simmias depicted, to be reminded of
Simmias himself?' 'Yes, that's possible.'
'In all these cases, then, doesn't it turn out that there is recollection from similar things, but also from dissimilar things?'
'It does.'
'But whenever one is reminded of something from similar things, 5 mustn't one experience something further: mustn't one think whether or not the thing is lacking at all, in its similarity, in relation to what one is reminded of?'
'One must.'
'Then consider whether this is the case. We say, don't we, that there is something equal—I don't mean a log to a log, or a stone to a 10 stone, or anything else of that sort, but some further thing beyond all those, the equal itself: are we to say that there is something or nothing?'
'We most certainly are to say that there is,' said Simmias; b 'unquestionably!'
'And do we know what it is?'21
'Certainly.'
'Where did we get the knowledge of it? Wasn't it from the things we were just mentioning: on seeing logs or stones or other 5 equal things, wasn't it from these that we thought of that object, it being different from them? Or doesn't it seem different to you? Look at it this way: don't equal stones and logs, the very same ones, sometimes seem equal to one, but not to another?'22
'Yes, certainly.' 10
'But now, did the equals themselves ever seem to you unequal, or c equality inequality?'
'Never yet, Socrates.'
'Then those equals, and the equal itself, are not the same.' 5
'By no means, Socrates, in my view.'
'But still, it is from those equals, different as they are from that equal, that you have thought of and got the knowledge of it?'
'That's perfectly true.' . 10
'It being either similar to them or dissimilar?'
'Certainly.'
'Anyway, it makes no difference; so long as23 on seeing one thing, d one does, from this sight, think of another, whether it be similar or dissimilar, this must be recollection.'
'Certainly.'
'Well now, with regard to the instances in the logs, and, in general, 5 the equals we mentioned just now, are we affected in some way as this: do they seem to us to be equal in the same way as what it is itself?24 Do they fall short of it at all in being like the equal, or not?'
'Very far short of it.'
'Then whenever anyone, on seeing a thing, thinks to himself, "this 10 thing that I now see seeks to be like another of the things that e are, but falls short, and cannot be like that object: it is inferior", do we agree that the man who thinks this must previously have known the object he says it resembles but falls short of?' 5 'He must.'
'Now then, have we ourselves been affected in just this way, or not, with regard to the equals and the equal itself?'
'Indeed we have.'
'Then we must previously have known the equal, before that time 75 when we first, on seeing the equals, thought that all of them were striving to be like the equal but fell short of it.'
'That is so.'
5 'Yet we also agree on this: we haven't derived the thought of it, nor could we do so, from anywhere but seeing or touching or some other of the senses—I'm counting all these as the same.'
'Yes, they are the same, Socrates, for what the argument seeks 10 to show.'
'But of course it is from one's sense-perceptions that one must b think that all the things in the sense-perceptions are striving for what equal is,25 yet are inferior to it; or how shall we put it?'
'Like that.'
'Then it must, surely, have been before we began to see and hear 5 and use the other senses that we got knowledge of the equal itself, of what it is,26 if we were going to refer the equals from our sense- perceptions to it, supposing that27 all things are doing their best to
be like it, but are inferior to it.'
'That must follow from what's been said before, Socrates.'
'Now we were seeing and hearing, and were possessed of our 10 other senses, weren't we, just as soon as we were born?'
'Certainly.'
'But we must, we're saying, have got our knowledge of the equal c before these?'
'Yes.'
'Then it seems that we must have got it before we were born.' 5
'It seems so.'
'Now if, having got it before birth, we were born in possession of it, did we know, both before birth and as soon as we were born, not only the equal, the larger and the smaller, but everything of that 10 sort? Because our present argument concerns the beautiful itself, and the good itself, and just and holy, no less than the equal; in fact, d as I say, it concerns everything on which we set this seal, "what it is",2& in the questions we ask and in the answers we give. And so we must have got pieces of knowledge29 of all those things before birth.' 5
'That is so.'
'Moreover, if having got them, we did not on each occasion forget them, we must always be born knowing, and must continue to know throughout life: because this is knowing—to possess knowledge one has got of something, and not to have lost it; or isn't loss 10 of knowledge what we mean by "forgetting", Simmias?'
'Certainly it is, Socrates.' e
'But on the other hand, I suppose that if, having got them before birth, we lost them on being born, and later on, using the senses about the things in question, we regain those pieces of knowledge that we possessed at some former time, in that case wouldn't what we call "learning" be the regaining of knowledge belonging to us? 5 And in saying that this was being reminded, shouldn't we be speaking correctly?'
'Certainly.'
'Yes, because it did seem possible, on sensing an object, whether 76 by seeing or hearing or getting some other sense-perception of it, to think from this of some other thing one had forgotten—either a thing to which the object, though dissimilar to it, was related, or