On the Greatness of the Soul 18–23

E. I do not know whether we have gone through all the things that usually trouble me, and not without cause; it may be that some escape my memory. But let us see what this is, which now comes to mind: that an infant child does not speak, and attains it as it grows. A. That is easy. For I believe it seems to you that each person speaks the language spoken by the people among whom he was born and brought up. E. No one is unaware of that. A. Suppose, then, someone born and raised where people did not speak, but signified their thoughts to one another by nods and movements of the limbs: do you not think he would do the same, and not speak, having heard no one speaking? E. Please do not ask me this, which cannot happen; for what such people are there, among whom I could imagine anyone being born? A. Did you not, then, see in Milan a young man of very fine bodily appearance and most elegant manners, yet mute, and so deaf that he understood others only by movements of the body, and himself signified what he wanted in no other way? For he is very well known. And I knew a certain countryman, who spoke and had a wife who spoke, who begot about four children, or more (for I do not remember well now), sons and daughters, all mute and deaf. For they were understood to be mute because they could not speak, and deaf because they took in signs only by the eyes. E. That young man I knew well, and about those others I believe you; but where does this lead? A. Because you said you could not imagine anyone being born among such people. E. Nor do I say otherwise now; for you grant, unless I am mistaken, that these were born among people who spoke. A. I would not deny it. But since we now agree that some such people can exist, consider, please: if a male and a female of this kind were joined, and, carried by some chance to some solitary place where they could nevertheless live, begot a son who was not deaf, how would he speak with his parents? E. How do you think, except that he would return signs by gesture as his parents gave them to him? Yet a small child could not do even this; so my argument remains intact. For what difference does it make whether he attains speaking or gesturing as he grows, since both belong to the soul, which we do not want to admit grows? A. Now you seem to me to believe even that when someone walks on a rope, he has a larger soul than those who cannot do it. E. That is different; for who does not see that this belongs to skill? A. Why, I ask, to skill? Because he learned it? E. Yes. A. Why then, if someone learns something else, does it not seem to you to belong to skill? E. I plainly do not deny that whatever is learned belongs to skill. A. Did not that boy, then, learn to make gestures from his parents? E. He certainly learned. A. Then you must grant that this too belongs not to a soul enlarged by growth but to a certain imitative skill. E. I cannot grant that. A. Then not everything that is learned belongs to skill, which you had just granted. E. Indeed it all belongs to skill. A. Then he did not learn gesture, which you had likewise granted. E. He learned it, but this does not belong to skill. A. But you said a little before that what is learned belongs to skill. E. Very well, I now grant that both speaking and gesturing, because we learned them, belong to skill. Yet there are some skills which we learn while we attend to others, and others which are implanted in us by teachers. A. Which of these, then, do you think the soul acquires because it becomes larger? All of them? E. Not all, I think, but the former. A. Does not walking on a rope seem to you to be of this kind? For, I think, those who do it attain it by watching. E. So I believe; yet not all who watch these things and observe them with great eagerness can attain it, but those who submit to teachers of this thing. A. You speak very well; and this is my answer to you about speech too. For many Greeks, and people of other languages, hear us speaking more often than they watch a rope-walker; and to learn our language they are often handed over to teachers, as we are when we want to know theirs. Since this is so, I wonder why you want to attribute to increases of the soul the fact that men speak, but not the fact that they walk on a rope. E. I do not know how you are confusing these things. For one who is handed over to a teacher to learn our language knows some other language of his own, which I think he learned because his soul grew; but when he learns a foreign one, I attribute it not to an enlarged soul but to skill. A. What if the one born and raised among the mute had come late, already a young man, upon other people and learned to speak, knowing no other language? Would you think his soul had grown at the time he learned to speak? E. I would never dare to say that; and I now yield to reason, and do not think that our speaking is an argument for an enlarged soul, lest I be forced to admit that the soul attained all other skills too by growing; and if I said that, the absurdity would follow that the soul decreases whenever it forgets something.

A. You understand well; and, to tell you the truth, the soul is rightly said to grow, as it were, by learning, and on the contrary to be diminished by unlearning, but by a transferred word, as we showed above. Yet we must beware lest, when it is said to grow, it seem to occupy a larger space of place; rather, the more skilled has a greater power for acting than the less skilled. But it matters greatly what sort of things it learns, by which it seems in some way to be increased. For just as in the body there are three kinds of growth—one necessary, by which the natural proportion of the members is filled out; a second superfluous, by which something, though health remains intact, differs from the other members by an increase, through which it sometimes happens that people are born with six fingers, and many other things which, being excessive beyond the usual, are called monstrous; a third harmful, which when it occurs is called a swelling, for members are said to grow in this way too, and they really do occupy a larger place, but with good health overthrown—so in the mind there are, as it were, natural increases, when it is said to be increased by honorable disciplines suited to living well and happily. But when we learn things that are more wonderful than useful, though often handy for some purposes, they are nevertheless superfluous and to be counted in that second kind. For if a certain flute player, as Varro reports, so delighted the people that he was made king, we ought not therefore to think that our mind should be increased by that art; just as we would not want to have teeth larger than human, even if we had heard that someone who had such teeth killed an enemy by biting. But the harmful kind of arts is that by which the health of the mind is wounded: for to judge dishes wonderfully by smell and taste, and to be able to tell in which lake a fish was caught, or how many years old a wine is, is a pitiable kind of skill; and when by these arts the soul seems to have grown, as it were—the soul which, neglecting the mind, has flowed away into the senses—it must be judged to have done nothing but swell, or even waste away.

E. I accept this and agree; and yet I am not a little distressed by the fact that the soul, as far as we can look into it in a newborn child, is unskilled in all things and dull. For why did it bring no skill with it, if it is eternal? A. A great question indeed, a great one, and I do not know whether any is greater, is the one you raise; and on it our opinions are so opposed that to you the soul seems to have brought no skill with it, while to me, on the contrary, it seems to have brought all skills, and what is called learning seems nothing but remembering and recollecting. But do you see that this is not the time to inquire whether this is so? For we are now trying to make it clear, if possible, that the soul is not called small or great according to spaces of place; its eternity, if it has any, we shall examine at the proper time, when we begin to treat, as far as is lawful, the question you put fourth: why it was given to the body. For what does it matter to such a quantity of it whether it always was or not, or always will be, or that it is now unskilled, now skilled? We proved above that long time does not give the cause of size even to bodies; and it is very well known that skill can be absent in those who are growing, and is often found in those who are growing old; and many other things have been said that are enough, I think, to show that the soul does not become larger with the size of the body which age brings.

So let us see, if you please, what your other argument amounts to: that touch is felt by the soul through the whole extent of the body, though we hold the soul to be of no extent. E. I would let us pass on to that now, if I did not think something should be said about strength. For what is this, that bodies increased by age give the soul greater strength, if the soul does not become greater with them? For although virtue is usually thought to belong to the soul and strength to the body, I would never deny strength to the soul, since I see that there is none in lifeless bodies. It must not be denied that the soul uses strength through the body, as it uses the senses; yet since these are functions of a living being, who would doubt that they belong rather to the soul? Since, then, we see greater strength in somewhat bigger boys than in infants, and then adolescents and young men excel in strength day by day, until it diminishes again as the body grows old, this is no slight indication, it seems to me, of a soul that grows with the body and then grows old with it. A. What you say is not altogether absurd. But I usually think that strength lies not so much in the size of the body and the increases of age as in a certain training and shaping of the members. To prove this to you, I ask whether you think that one who walks more persistently than another and tires less is of greater strength. E. So I hold. A. Why then, as a boy, did I cover much more distance without tiring, when I was trained in walking by my eagerness for fowling, than as a young man, when I had taken myself to other studies in which I was compelled more to sit, if greater strength is to be attributed to advancing age, and through it to a growing soul? Then, in the very bodies of wrestlers, trainers look most expertly not at bulk and size but at certain knots of the muscles, the tautness of the sinews, and the whole build of the body in proportion with itself, and from these rather they gather signs of strength. Yet all these count for little unless the force of skill and training is added. It has often been seen too that men of huge body are beaten by slight and short ones, whether in moving or in carrying weights, or even in wrestling itself. For who does not know that any Olympic victor tires on a journey sooner than some traveling peddler, who could be crushed by one of his fingers? Therefore, if we call strengths great not all alike, but some suited to one thing and others to another; and if the build and shape of bodies count for most, more than their size; and if training brings so much that it has been very widely believed that a man, by lifting a little calf every day, brought it about that he could lift and hold it even when it was a bull, without feeling the greater weight, which was being added little by little: then the strength of a more advanced age in no way shows that the soul has grown with the body.

But if the larger bodies of animals have somewhat more strength by the very fact that they are larger, the cause is that by the law of nature smaller weights yield to greater ones: not only when they are borne to their own place by their own tendency—as moist and earthy bodies move to the middle place of the world, which is the lowest, and airy and fiery bodies, in turn, upward—but also when, by some engine, or throw, or push, or repulse, they are forced by an outside force to go where they would not be borne of their own accord. For if you drop from on high two stones of unequal size, even at the same time, the larger reaches the ground sooner; but if the smaller is placed under it and is inevitably caught by it, it certainly yields and is carried down to the ground together with it. Again, if the larger is thrown down from above and the smaller is thrown upward against it, when they meet the smaller must be struck back and recoil. And lest you think this happens because the smaller was being forced upward against nature while the other sought its own place with greater impetus, have the larger thrown upward to meet the smaller thrown down toward the earth: you will see the smaller nonetheless repelled and forced toward the sky, but by the very rebound falling off to another side, so as to be carried down where the way is clear. Again, if both, not by natural motion but thrown against each other by two men fighting, as it were, on a field, collide in the middle of the space, who would doubt that the smaller will yield to the larger, back toward the side from which it came and toward which the other was moving? Though this is so—that is, though smaller weights, as was said, yield to greater—it matters greatly with what impetus they are driven at each other. For if the smaller, launched with greater impetus as if by some powerful engine, strikes a larger one that was thrown more weakly or is already losing force, although it bounces back from it, it nevertheless slows it or even drives it back, in proportion to the blows and weights. With these things set down and understood, as far as the present business requires, see now whether what are called strengths in animals agree with this reasoning. For who denies that the bodies of all animals are endowed with their own weight? This weight, moved by the impulse of the soul in whatever direction it inclines, counts for much by its own size. But the soul's impulse, to move the weight of the body, uses the sinews as its engines; and dryness and moderate heat invigorate the sinews and make them more mobile, while moist cold loosens and weakens them. So in sleep, which physicians say, and prove, is cold and moist, the limbs grow languid; the effort of those just awakened is much weaker; and therefore nothing is more broken and nerveless than the lethargic. But it is plain that some in frenzy, whose sinews are stretched and hardened beyond measure by sleeplessness, by the strength of wine, and by acute fevers—that is, by so many hot things—struggle and do many things with greater strength than in sound health, though their body is thinner and slighter from the illness. If, then, what are called strengths come about from the impulse of the soul, from a certain mechanism of the sinews, and from the weight of the body: the will supplies the impulse, which becomes readier through hope or daring, but is blunted by fear, and much more by despair (for in fear, when some hope remains, greater strength usually appears); the mechanism is fitted by a certain configuration of the body, regulated by the balance of health, and strengthened by diligent exercise; the weight is given by the bulk of the members, which age and nourishment acquire, but nourishment alone restores. One who excels equally in all these is admirable for strength, and one is weaker than another the more these fail him. And it often happens that one with a persistent impulse and a better mechanism, though he moves a small weight of body, conquers another endowed with greater bulk. And again, sometimes the bulk is so great that, even if moved with weaker effort, it nevertheless crushes a small adversary striving much more vigorously. But when it is not the weight of the body, nor the regulation of the sinews, but the impulse itself, that is, the mind, that yields—so that a man altogether stronger, but more timid, is overcome by one altogether weaker, but bolder—I do not know whether this should be attributed to strength. Unless someone says that the soul has certain strengths of its own, by which greater daring or confidence is produced in it; and when these are present in one and absent in the other, then it is understood how far the mind surpasses its body, even in what is done through the body. Therefore, in an infant child only the impulse to pull or push something is intact, while the sinews are unfit because of their new and less perfect formation, flabby because of the moisture which abounds at that age, and weak for lack of all exercise, and the weight is so small that it does not press heavily even when thrown by another, and is more suited to receiving harm than to inflicting it. Who, then, having seen that the years have supplied all these things that were lacking, and recognized that strength was given through them, would rightly and prudently think that the soul has grown because it uses them as they become greater day by day? For such a man, if he saw small, light reeds, shot as far as possible with a slack bow by some young man whom he could not see because of a curtain between them, go not far and soon fall back; and a little later saw arrows, now heavy with iron and lively with their feathers, shot from a fully stretched string, seek the most distant sky; and if he were assured that both were done with equal effort by the man, he would think that the man had grown in so short a time and been increased in strength. What could be said more perverse? Then, if the soul grows, see how ignorant it is to believe that its increases come from the strength of the body, and not to believe that they come from abundance of learning; since to the former it only supplies the impulse, while the latter it alone possesses. But if we think the soul grows when strength is added, it must be thought to diminish when strength is taken away. And strength is taken away in old age, taken away in the labor of studies; and at these very times learning is usually heaped up and built up; and in no way can anything be increased and diminished at the same time. So greater strength at a greater age is no argument for a growing soul. Many other things can be said; but if you are already satisfied, I set a limit, so that we may pass on to other matters. E. I am fully persuaded that greater strength does not come from the soul's having grown. For, to omit the other things you have subtly said, not even a frenzied man would say that the soul grows through madness and bodily disease while the body itself diminishes—though everyone knows that he has much greater strength than a healthy man usually has. Hence it seems to me that all we wonder at, when strength beyond expectation is found in someone, lies chiefly in the sinews. So, I pray you, now take up the question to which I am wholly directed: why does the soul, if it does not have a size of as great extent as the body, feel everywhere in it when it is touched?

A. Very well, let us take up what you wish; but I need you to be much more attentive than you perhaps think you need to be. So be as present as you can, and answer me: what does this sense seem to you to be which the soul uses through the body? For it is called sense in the proper meaning of the word. E. I usually hear that there are five senses: of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching; more than that I do not know what to answer. A. That division is very old and much repeated in public speeches. But I would like you to define for me what sense itself is, so that by the same definition all of those would be included, and nothing else that was not sense would be understood in it; but if you cannot, I do not press you. For you can certainly do what is enough: either refute or approve my definition. E. In this way perhaps I shall not fail you, as far as I am able; though even this is not always easy. A. Attend, then: I think that sense is the soul's not being unaware of what the body undergoes. E. I like this definition. A. Stand by it, then, as if it were yours, and defend it while I refute it for a little while. E. I will defend it, certainly, if you help me; if not, I already dislike it, for it was not without reason that you thought it needed refuting. A. Do not depend too much on authority, especially mine, which is none; and, as Horace says, “Dare to be wise” (Epist. 1.2.40), lest fear subdue you before reason does. E. I fear nothing at all, however the matter proceeds; for you will not let me err. But begin now, if you have anything, so that I am not worn out by delay rather than by opposition. A. Tell me, then, what does your body undergo when you see me? E. It certainly undergoes something; for my eyes, unless I am mistaken, are parts of my body; and if they underwent nothing, how would I see you? A. But it is not enough to persuade me that your eyes undergo something unless you also show what they undergo. E. What else but sight itself? For they see. If you asked me what a sick man undergoes, I would answer sickness; what one who desires undergoes, desire; one who fears, fear; one who rejoices, joy. Why then, when you ask what one who sees undergoes, should I not rightly answer, sight itself? A. But one who rejoices feels joy. Or will you deny it? E. No, I agree. A. I would say this of the other passions too. E. So I hold. A. But whatever the eyes feel, they see. E. I would in no way grant that: for who sees pain, which the eyes often feel? A. It is clear that you are talking about the eyes: you are well awake. So see whether, as one who rejoices feels joy by rejoicing, so one who sees feels sight by seeing. E. Could it be otherwise? A. But whatever one who sees feels by seeing, he must also see. E. He need not: for what if he feels love by seeing—does he also see love? A. Most cautiously and most shrewdly said; I am glad you are hard to deceive. But now attend: since we have agreed that not everything the eyes feel, nor everything that is felt by seeing, is seen, do you think this at least is true, that everything that is seen is felt? E. Unless I grant this, how can what we see be called sense? A. What? Do we not also undergo everything we feel? E. Yes. A. Then if we feel everything we see, and undergo everything we feel, we undergo everything we see. E. I do not resist. A. So you undergo me, and I in turn you, when we see each other. E. So I think, and reason forces me to this insistently. A. Hear the rest: for I believe it would seem to you most absurd and most foolish if someone affirmed that you undergo some body there where the body you undergo is not. E. It seems absurd, and I think it is as you say. A. What of this? Is it not plain that my body is in one place, yours in another? E. It is plain. A. But your eyes feel my body; and if they feel it, they certainly undergo it; and they cannot undergo it where what they undergo is not; and yet they are not where my body is: so they undergo it where they are not. E. I granted all those things which I saw it would be absurd not to grant; but this last, which was concluded from them, is so much more absurd that I would rather agree that I granted one of them rashly than that this is true; for I would not dare to say even in my sleep that my eyes feel where they are not. A. See, then, where you fell asleep: for what could have slipped past you so unguardedly, if you were awake as you were a little before? E. Indeed, I am carefully going over this very thing and turning it over in my mind; yet nothing appears clearly enough that I regret having granted, unless perhaps that our eyes feel when we see; for perhaps it is sight itself that feels. A. Indeed it is so: for sight stretches itself outward and darts out through the eyes as far as it can in every direction, to survey what we perceive. Hence it sees rather where the thing it sees is, not where it bursts out from in order to see. So it is not you who see, when you see me? E. What madman would say that? I certainly see, but I see by sight sent out through the eyes. A. But if you see, you feel; if you feel, you undergo; and you cannot undergo anything where you are not; but you see me where I am; therefore you undergo where I am. But if you are not where I am, I do not know at all how you dare to say that I am seen by you. E. By sight, I say, stretched out to the place where you are, I see you where you are; but I admit that I am not there. But just as, if I touched you with a rod, it would certainly be I who touched, and I would feel it, and yet I would not be where I touched you; so, when I say that I see by sight, although I am not there, I am not therefore forced to admit that it is not I who see. A. So you granted nothing rashly: for your eyes too can be defended in this way, whose rod, as it were, is sight, as you say; and that conclusion is not absurd, that your eyes see where they are not. Or do you think otherwise? E. It is just as you say; for I have now also noticed that if the eyes saw where they are, they would also see themselves. A. You would say more correctly not “also themselves” but “only themselves.” For where they are, that is, the place they hold, they alone hold; neither is the nose where they are, nor anything near them; otherwise you too would be where I am, because we are next to each other. Since this is so, if the eyes saw only where they are, they would see nothing but themselves. But since they do not see themselves, we are compelled to agree not only that they can see where they are not, but that they cannot see at all except where they are not. E. There is nothing here that makes me doubt. A. So you do not doubt that they undergo where they are not. For where they see, there they feel: for seeing itself is feeling, and feeling is undergoing; therefore where they feel, there they undergo. But they see elsewhere than where they are: therefore they undergo where they are not. E. It is wonderful how true I think this is.