898
Athenian
Ath. So now there is no longer any difficulty in stating expressly that, inasmuch as soul is what we find driving everything round, we must affirm that this circumference of Heaven is of necessity driven round under the care and ordering of either the best soul or its opposite.
Clinias
Clin. But, Stranger, judging by what has now been said, it is actually impious to make any other assertion than that these things are driven round by one or more souls endowed with all goodness.
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Athenian
Ath. You have attended to our argument admirably, Clinias. Now attend to this further point.
Clinias
Clin. What is that?
Athenian
Ath. If soul drives round the sum total of sun, moon and all other stars, does it not also drive each single one of them?
Athenian
Ath. Then let us construct an argument about one of these stars which will evidently apply equally to them all.
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Clinias
Clin. About which one?
Athenian
Ath. The sun’s body is seen by everyone, its soul by no one. And the same is true of the soul of any other body, whether alive or dead, of living beings. There is, however, a strong suspicion that this class of object, which is wholly imperceptible to sense, has grown round all the senses of the body,i.e. envelopes the body and its sense-organs (like circum-ambient air). and is an object of reason alone. Therefore by reason and rational thought let us grasp this fact about it,—
Athenian
Ath. If soul drives round the sun, we shall be tolerably sure to be right in saying that it does one of three things.
Clinias
Clin. What things?
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