t that the
soul is the cause of good and evil, base and honourable, just and
unjust, and of all other opposites, if we suppose her to be the cause of
all things?

CLEINIAS: We must.

ATHENIAN: And as the soul orders and inhabits all things that move,
however moving, must we not say that she orders also the heavens?

CLEINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: One soul or more? More than one--I will answer for you; at any
rate, we must not suppose that there are less than two--one the author
of good, and the other of evil.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Yes, very true; the soul then directs all things in heaven,
and earth, and sea by her movements, and these are described by the
terms--will, consideration, attention, deliberation, opinion true and
false, joy and sorrow, confidence, fear, hatred, love, and other primary
motions akin to these; which again receive the secondary motions of
corporeal substances, and guide all things to growth and decay, to
composition and decomposition, and to the qualities which accompany
them, such as heat and cold, heaviness and lightness, hardness and
softness, blackness and whiteness, bitterness and sweetness, and all
those other qualities which the soul uses, herself a goddess, when truly
receiving the divine mind she disciplines all things rightly to their
happiness; but when she is the companion of folly, she does the very
contrary of all this. Shall we assume so much, or do we still entertain
doubts?

CLEINIAS: There is no room at all for doubt.

ATHENIAN: Shall we say then that it is the soul which controls heaven
and earth, and the whole world? that it is a principle of wisdom and
virtue, or a principle which has neither wisdom nor virtue? Suppose that
we make answer as follows:

CLEINIAS: How would you answer?

ATHENIAN: If, my friend, we say that the whole path and movement of
heaven, and of all that is therein, is by nature akin to the movement
and revolution and calculation of mind, and proceeds by kindred laws,
then, as is plain, we must say that the best soul takes care of the
world and guides it along the good path.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: But if the world moves wildly and irregularly, then the evil
soul guides it.

CLEINIAS: True again.

ATHENIAN: Of what nature is the movement of mind? To this question it is
not easy to give an intelligent answer; and therefore I ought to assist
you in framing one.

CLEINIAS: Very good.

ATHENIAN: Then let us not answer a