did, indeed, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Yet the answer is easy, since all philosophers assert with
one voice that mind is the king of heaven and earth--in reality they are
magnifying themselves. And perhaps they are right. But still I should
like to consider the class of mind, if you do not object, a little more
fully.

PHILEBUS: Take your own course, Socrates, and never mind length; we
shall not tire of you.

SOCRATES: Very good; let us begin then, Protarchus, by asking a
question.

PROTARCHUS: What question?

SOCRATES: Whether all this which they call the universe is left to the
guidance of unreason and chance medley, or, on the contrary, as our
fathers have declared, ordered and governed by a marvellous intelligence
and wisdom.

PROTARCHUS: Wide asunder are the two assertions, illustrious Socrates,
for that which you were just now saying to me appears to be blasphemy;
but the other assertion, that mind orders all things, is worthy of the
aspect of the world, and of the sun, and of the moon, and of the stars
and of the whole circle of the heavens; and never will I say or think
otherwise.

SOCRATES: Shall we then agree with them of old time in maintaining this
doctrine,--not merely reasserting the notions of others, without risk to
ourselves,--but shall we share in the danger, and take our part of the
reproach which will await us, when an ingenious individual declares that
all is disorder?

PROTARCHUS: That would certainly be my wish.

SOCRATES: Then now please to consider the next stage of the argument.

PROTARCHUS: Let me hear.

SOCRATES: We see that the elements which enter into the nature of the
bodies of all animals, fire, water, air, and, as the storm-tossed sailor
cries, 'land' (i.e., earth), reappear in the constitution of the world.

PROTARCHUS: The proverb may be applied to us; for truly the storm
gathers over us, and we are at our wit's end.

SOCRATES: There is something to be remarked about each of these
elements.

PROTARCHUS: What is it?

SOCRATES: Only a small fraction of any one of them exists in us, and
that of a mean sort, and not in any way pure, or having any power worthy
of its nature. One instance will prove this of all of them; there is
fire within us, and in the universe.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And is not our fire small and weak and mean? But the fire in
the universe is wonderful in quantity and beauty, and in every power
that fire has.

PROTARCHUS: Most true.

SOCRA