[403d]
from boyhood through life, and the way of it is this, I believe; but
consider it yourself too. For I, for my part, do not believe that a sound
body by its excellence makes the soul good, but on the contrary that a good
soul by its virtue renders the body the best that is possible.1 What is your
opinion?” “I think so too.” “Then if
we should sufficiently train the mind and turn over to it the minutiae of
the care of the body,
1 The dependence of body on soul, whether in a mystical, a moral, or a medical sense, is a favorite doctrine of Plato and the Platonists. Cf. Charmides 156-157, Spenser, “An Hymn in Honour of Beauty”: “For of the soul the body form doth take, For soul is form, and doth the body make,” and Shelley, “The Sensitive Plant”: A lady, the wonder of her kind,/ Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind,/ Which dilating had moulded her mien and her motion/ Like a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean.” Cf. also Democr. fr. B. 187 Diels.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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