, and that the soul is a harmony. Which of them will you
retain?

I think, he replied, that I have a much stronger faith, Socrates, in the
first of the two, which has been fully demonstrated to me, than in
the latter, which has not been demonstrated at all, but rests only on
probable and plausible grounds; and is therefore believed by the many. I
know too well that these arguments from probabilities are impostors, and
unless great caution is observed in the use of them, they are apt to
be deceptive--in geometry, and in other things too. But the doctrine of
knowledge and recollection has been proven to me on trustworthy grounds;
and the proof was that the soul must have existed before she came into
the body, because to her belongs the essence of which the very name
implies existence. Having, as I am convinced, rightly accepted this
conclusion, and on sufficient grounds, I must, as I suppose, cease to
argue or allow others to argue that the soul is a harmony.

Let me put the matter, Simmias, he said, in another point of view: Do
you imagine that a harmony or any other composition can be in a state
other than that of the elements, out of which it is compounded?

Certainly not.

Or do or suffer anything other than they do or suffer?

He agreed.

Then a harmony does not, properly speaking, lead the parts or elements
which make up the harmony, but only follows them.

He assented.

For harmony cannot possibly have any motion, or sound, or other quality
which is opposed to its parts.

That would be impossible, he replied.

And does not the nature of every harmony depend upon the manner in which
the elements are harmonized?

I do not understand you, he said.

I mean to say that a harmony admits of degrees, and is more of a
harmony, and more completely a harmony, when more truly and fully
harmonized, to any extent which is possible; and less of a harmony, and
less completely a harmony, when less truly and fully harmonized.

True.

But does the soul admit of degrees? or is one soul in the very least
degree more or less, or more or less completely, a soul than another?

Not in the least.

Yet surely of two souls, one is said to have intelligence and virtue,
and to be good, and the other to have folly and vice, and to be an evil
soul: and this is said truly?

Yes, truly.

But what will those who maintain the soul to be a harmony say of this
presence of virtue and vice in the soul?--will they say that here is