But there is no harmony, he said, in the two propositions that
knowledge is recollection, and that the soul is a harmony. Which of
them, then, will you retain?
I think, he replied, that I have a much stronger faith, Socrates, in
the first of the two, which has been fully demonstrated to me, than in
the latter, which has not been demonstrated at all, but rests only
on probable and plausible grounds; and I know too well that these
arguments from probabilities are impostors, and unless great caution
is observed in the use of them they are apt to be deceptive-in
geometry, and in other things too. But the doctrine of knowledge and
recollection has been proven to me on trustworthy grounds; and the
proof was that the soul must have existed before she came into the
body, because to her belongs the essence of which the very name
implies existence. Having, as I am convinced, rightly accepted this
conclusion, and on sufficient grounds, I must, as I suppose, cease
to argue or allow others to argue that the soul is a harmony.
Let me put the matter, Simmias, he said, in another point of view:
Do you imagine that a harmony or any other composition can be in a
state other than that of the elements out of which it is compounded?
Certainly not.
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