“There ought,” said Simmias.

“This of yours, however,” he said, “is not in accordance.  Consider, then, which of these two statements do you prefer—­that knowledge is reminiscence, or the soul harmony?”

“The former by far, Socrates,” he replied; “for the latter occurred to me without demonstration, through a certain probability and speciousness whence most men derive their opinions.  But I am well aware that arguments which draw their demonstrations from probabilities are idle; and, unless one is on one’s guard against them, they are very deceptive, both in geometry and all other subjects.  But the argument respecting reminiscence and knowledge may be said to have been demonstrated by a satisfactory hypothesis.  For in this way it was said that our soul existed before it came into the body, because the essence that bears the appellation of ‘that which is’ belongs to it.  But of this, as I persuade myself, I am fully and rightly convinced.  It is therefore necessary, as it seems, that I should neither allow myself nor any one else to maintain that the soul is harmony.”

95.  “But what, Simmias,” said he, “if you consider it thus?  Does it appear to you to appertain to harmony, or to any other composition, to subsist in any other way than the very things do of which it is composed?”

“By no means.”

“And indeed, as I think, neither to do any thing, nor suffer any thing else, besides what they do or suffer.”

He agreed.

“It does not, therefore, appertain to harmony to take the lead of the things of which it is composed, but to follow them.”

He assented.

“It is, then, far from being the case that harmony is moved or sends forth sounds contrariwise, or is in any other respect opposed to its parts?”

“Far, indeed,” he said.

“What, then?  Is not every harmony naturally harmony, so far as it has been made to accord?”

“I do not understand you,” he replied.

“Whether,” he said, “if it should be in a greater degree and more fully made to accord, supposing that were possible, would the harmony be greater and more full; but if in a less degree and less fully, then would it be inferior and less full?”

“Certainly.”

“Is this, then, the case with the soul that, even in the smallest extent, one soul is more fully and in a greater degree, or less fully and in a less degree, this very thing, a soul, than another?”

“In no respect whatever,” he replied.

96.  “Well, then,” he said, “by Jupiter! is one soul said to possess intelligence and virtue, and to be good, and another folly and vice, and to be bad? and is this said with truth?”

“With truth, certainly.”

“Of those, then, who maintain that the soul is harmony, what will any one say that these things are in the soul, virtue and vice?  Will he call them another kind of harmony and discord, and say that the one, the good soul, is harmonized, and, being harmony, contains within itself another harmony, but that the other is discordant, and does not contain within itself another harmony?”