SOCRATES: I do not think that he could--but now go on to the next step. When we saw those elements of which we have been speaking gathered up in one, did we not call them a body? PROTARCHUS: We did. SOCRATES: And the same may be said of the cosmos, which for the same reason may be considered to be a body, because made up of the same elements. PROTARCHUS: Very true. SOCRATES: But is our body nourished wholly by this body, or is this body nourished by our body, thence deriving and having the qualities of which we were just now speaking? PROTARCHUS: That again, Socrates, is a question which does not deserve to be asked. SOCRATES: Well, tell me, is this question worth asking? PROTARCHUS: What question? SOCRATES: May our body be said to have a soul? PROTARCHUS: Clearly. SOCRATES: And whence comes that soul, my dear Protarchus, unless the body of the universe, which contains elements like those in our bodies but in every way fairer, had also a soul? Can there be another source? PROTARCHUS: Clearly, Socrates, that is the only source. SOCRATES: Why, yes, Protarchus; for surely we cannot imagine that of the four classes, the finite, the infinite, the composition of the two, and the cause, the fourth, which enters into all things, giving to our bodies souls, and the art of self-management, and of healing disease, and operating in other ways to heal and organize, having too all the attributes of wisdom;--we cannot, I say, imagine that whereas the self-same elements exist, both in the entire heaven and in great provinces of the heaven, only fairer and purer, this last should not also in that higher sphere have designed the noblest and fairest things? PROTARCHUS: Such a supposition is quite unreasonable. SOCRATES: Then if this be denied, should we not be wise in adopting the other view and maintaining that there is in the universe a mighty infinite and an adequate limit, of which we have often spoken, as well as a presiding cause of no mean power, which orders and arranges years and seasons and months, and may be justly called wisdom and mind? PROTARCHUS: Most justly. SOCRATES: And wisdom and mind cannot exist without soul? PROTARCHUS: Certainly not. SOCRATES: And in the divine nature of Zeus would you not say that there is the soul and mind of a king, because there is in him the power of the cause? And other gods have other attributes, by which they are pleased to be called. PROTARCHUS: Very true. SOCRATES: Do not then suppose that these words are rashly spoken by us, O Protarchus, for they are in harmony with the testimony of those who said of old time that mind rules the universe. PROTARCHUS: True. SOCRATES: And they furnish an answer to my enquiry; for they imply that mind is the parent of that class of the four which we called the cause of all; and I think that you now have my answer. PROTARCHUS: I have indeed, and yet I did not observe that you had answered.