Greek Texts & Translations

For whenever the humors which arise from acid and saline phlegms, and all humors that are bitter and bilious wander through the body and find no external vent 87abut are confined within, and mingle their vapor with the movement of the soul and are blended therewith, they implant diseases of the soul of all kinds, varying in intensity and in extent; and as these humors penetrate to the three regions ^note of the Soul, according to the region which they severally attack, they give rise to all varieties of bad temper and bad spirits, and they give rise to all manner of rashness and cowardice, and of forgetfulness also, as well as of stupidity. Furthermore, when, with men in such an evil condition, 87bthe political administration also is evil, and the speech in the cities, both public and private, is evil; and when, moreover, no lessons that would cure these evils are anywhere learnt from childhood,—thus it comes to pass that all of us who are wicked become wicked owing to two quite involuntary causes. And for these we must always blame the begetters more than the begotten, and the nurses more than the nurslings; yet each man must endeavor, as best he can, by means of nurture and by his pursuits and studies to flee the evil and to pursue the good. This, however, forms a separate subject of discussion.

87cAgain, it is reasonable and proper to set forth in turn the subject complementary to the foregoing, namely the remedial treatment of body and mind, and the causes which conserve this. For what is good merits description more than what is evil. All that is good is fair, and the fair is not void of due measure; wherefore also the living creature that is to be fair must be symmetrical. Of symmetries we distinguish and reason about such as are small, but of the most important and the greatest we have no rational comprehension. For with respect to health and disease, 87dvirtue and vice, there is no symmetry or want of symmetry greater than that which exists between the soul itself and the body itself. But as regards these, we wholly fail to perceive or reflect that, whenever a weaker and inferior type of body is the vehicle ^note of a soul that is strong and in all ways great,—or conversely, when each of these two is of the opposite kind,—then the creature as a whole is not fair, seeing that it is unsymmetrical in respect of the greatest of symmetries; whereas a creature in the opposite condition is of all sights, for him who has eyes to see, 87ethe fairest and most admirable. A body, for example, which is too long in the legs, or otherwise disproportioned owing to some excess, is not only ugly, but, when joint effort is required, it is also the source of much fatigue and many sprains and falls by reason of its clumsy motion, whereby it causes itself countless evils. So likewise we must conceive of that compound of soul and body which we call the “living creature.” Whenever the soul within it is stronger than the body 88aand is in a very passionate state, it shakes up the whole body from within and fills it with maladies; and whenever the soul ardently pursues some study or investigation, it wastes the body; and again, when the soul engages, in public or in private, in teachings and battles of words carried on with controversy and contention, it makes the body inflamed and shakes it to pieces, and induces catarrhs; and thereby it deceives the majority of so-called physicians and makes them ascribe the malady to the wrong cause.

And, on the other hand, when a large and overbearing body is united to a small 88band weak intellect, inasmuch as two desires naturally exist amongst men, —the desire of food for the body's sake, and the desire of wisdom for the sake of the most divine part we have,—the motions of the stronger part prevail and augment their own power, but they make that of the soul obtuse and dull of wit and forgetful, and thereby they produce within it that greatest of diseases, ignorance.

From both these evils the one means of salvation is this—neither to exercise the soul without the body nor the body without the soul, ^note so that they may be evenly matched and sound of health. Thus the student of mathematics,