There is not a word we could wish altered in the above, except, indeed, that 'a path of speculation which seems to bring us _and the argument_ to the conclusion,' should rather have been, 'a kind of path which carries us on, _with reason for our guide_ (μετὰ τοῦ λόγου), in the speculation.' A little below (67, B.), μὴ καθαρῷ καθαροῦ ἐφάπτεσθαι, is not exactly, 'no impure thing is allowed to approach the pure'--a version that savours too much of the language of Christian theology--but, 'to realize the pure with that faculty which is not itself pure,' _i.e._, with νοῦς not entirely dissociated from σῶμα. The abstract, he says, cannot be realized by the intellect while bound up with the concrete. In p. 80, B., τὸ νοητὸν and τὸ ἀνόητον are not 'the intelligible and the unintelligible;' nor, in p. 81, D., is τὸ ὁρατὸν, 'sight.' Everyone knows that τὰ αἰσθητὰ, 'the sensuous,' or things which are the objects of sense, are opposed to τὰ νοητὰ, those which are abstract, and can be realized only by the mind; and a soul, or ghost, is said μετέχειν τοῦ ὁρατοῦ, not as 'cloyed with sight,' but as 'having yet something of the visible,' or concrete, _i.e._, some lingering remnants of _body_, which render it visible. The passage in p. 82, E., is rather difficult, and has been misunderstood by others. Mr. Jowett's rendering is, 'the soul is only able to view existence through the bars of a prison, and not in her own nature; she is wallowing in the mire of all ignorance; and philosophy, seeing the horrible nature of her confinement, and that the captive through desire is led to conspire in her own captivity,' &c. We think that τοῦ εἱργμοῦ ἡ δεινότης means, 'the strong tie, or hold, that the prison--_i.e._, the body--has on the soul;' and that ὅτι δι' ἐπιθυμίας ἐστὶ means, 'that it, the prison, is actually _liked_.' Thus, says Plato, attached as the soul is to the allurements and pleasures of the body, the latter 'helps the captive to remain in captivity.' Thus, in Æsch., Prom. v. 39: Τὸ συγγενές τοι δεινὸν ἥ θ' ὁμιλία, and elsewhere, δεινὸν, 'a serious matter,' is opposed to φαῦλον, what is trifling and unimportant.