Athenian Stranger. Listen, all ye who have just now heard the lawsabout Gods, and about our dear forefathers:-Of all the things whicha man has, next to the Gods, his soul is the most divine and mosttruly his own. Now in every man there are two parts: the better andsuperior, which rules, and the worse and inferior, which serves; andthe ruling part of him is always to be preferred to the subject.
Wherefore I am right in bidding every one next to the Gods, who areour masters, and those who in order follow them [i.e., the demons], tohonour his own soul, which every one seems to honour, but no onehonours as he ought; for honour is a divine good, and no evil thing ishonourable; and he who thinks that he can honour the soul by word orgift, or any sort of compliance, without making her in any way better,seems to honour her, but honours her not at all. For example, everyman, from his very boyhood, fancies that he is able to knoweverything, and thinks that he honours his soul by praising her, andhe is very ready to let her do whatever she may like. But I mean tosay that in acting thus he injures his soul, and is far from honouringher; whereas, in our opinion, he ought to honour her as second only tothe Gods. Again, when a man thinks that others are to be blamed, andnot himself, for the errors which he has committed from time totime, and the many and great evils which befell him in consequence,and is always fancying himself to be exempt and innocent, he isunder the idea that he is honouring his soul; whereas the very reverseis the fact, for he is really injuring her. And when, disregarding theword and approval of the legislator, he indulges in pleasure, thenagain he is far from honouring her; he only dishonours her, andfills her full of evil and remorse; or when he does not endure tothe end the labours and fears and sorrows and pains which thelegislator approves, but gives way before them, then, by yielding,he does not honour the soul, but by all such conduct he makes her tobe dishonourable; nor when he thinks that life at any price is a good,does he honour her, but yet once more he dishonours her; for thesoul having a notion that the world below is all evil, he yields toher, and does not resist and teach or convince her that, for aught sheknows, the world of the Gods below, instead of being evil, may bethe greatest of all goods. Again, when any one prefers beauty tovirtue, what is this but the real and utter dishonour of the soul? Forsuch a preference implies that the body is more honourable than thesoul; and this is false, for there is nothing of earthly birth whichis more honourable than the heavenly, and he who thinks otherwise ofthe soul has no idea how greatly he undervalues this wonderfulpossession; nor, again, when a person is willing, or not unwilling, toacquire dishonest gains, does he then honour his soul with gifts-farotherwise; he sells her glory and honour for a small piece of gold;but all the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough togive in exchange for virtue. In a word, I may say that he who does notestimate the base and evil, the good and noble, according to thestandard of the legislator, and abstain in every possible way from theone and practise the other to the utmost of his power, does not knowthat in all these respects he is most foully and disgracefully abusinghis soul, which is the divinest part of man; for no one, as I may say,ever considers that which is declared to be the greatest penalty ofevil-doing--namely, to grow into the likeness of bad men, andgrowing like them to fly from the conversation of the good, and be cutoff from them, and cleave to and follow after the company of thebad. And he who is joined to them must do and suffer what such menby nature do and say to one another-a suffering which is not justicebut retribution; for justice and the just are noble, whereasretribution is the suffering which waits upon injustice; and whether aman escape or endure this, he is miserable-in the former case, becausehe is not cured; while in the latter, he perishes in order that therest of mankind may be saved.
