TES: And is the fire in the universe nourished and generated and
ruled by the fire in us, or is the fire in you and me, and in other
animals, dependent on the universal fire?

PROTARCHUS: That is a question which does not deserve an answer.

SOCRATES: Right; and you would say the same, if I am not mistaken, of
the earth which is in animals and the earth which is in the universe,
and you would give a similar reply about all the other elements?

PROTARCHUS: Why, how could any man who gave any other be deemed in his
senses?

SOCRATES: I do not think that he could--but now go on to the next step.
When we saw those elements of which we have been speaking gathered up in
one, did we not call them a body?

PROTARCHUS: We did.

SOCRATES: And the same may be said of the cosmos, which for the same
reason may be considered to be a body, because made up of the same
elements.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: But is our body nourished wholly by this body, or is this body
nourished by our body, thence deriving and having the qualities of which
we were just now speaking?

PROTARCHUS: That again, Socrates, is a question which does not deserve
to be asked.

SOCRATES: Well, tell me, is this question worth asking?

PROTARCHUS: What question?

SOCRATES: May our body be said to have a soul?

PROTARCHUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: And whence comes that soul, my dear Protarchus, unless the
body of the universe, which contains elements like those in our bodies
but in every way fairer, had also a soul? Can there be another source?

PROTARCHUS: Clearly, Socrates, that is the only source.

SOCRATES: Why, yes, Protarchus; for surely we cannot imagine that of the
four classes, the finite, the infinite, the composition of the two,
and the cause, the fourth, which enters into all things, giving to our
bodies souls, and the art of self-management, and of healing disease,
and operating in other ways to heal and organize, having too all the
attributes of wisdom;--we cannot, I say, imagine that whereas the
self-same elements exist, both in the entire heaven and in great
provinces of the heaven, only fairer and purer, this last should not
also in that higher sphere have designed the noblest and fairest things?

PROTARCHUS: Such a supposition is quite unreasonable.

SOCRATES: Then if this be denied, should we not be wise in adopting
the other view and maintaining that there is in the universe a mighty
infinite and an adequate limit, of whic