And still there is a track of him which has not yet been followed out by
us. Do not our household servants talk of sifting, straining, winnowing?
And they also speak of carding, spinning, and the like. All these are
processes of division; and of division there are two kinds,--one in
which like is divided from like, and another in which the good is
separated from the bad. The latter of the two is termed purification;
and again, of purification, there are two sorts,--of animate bodies
(which may be internal or external), and of inanimate. Medicine and
gymnastic are the internal purifications of the animate, and bathing the
external; and of the inanimate, fulling and cleaning and other humble
processes, some of which have ludicrous names. Not that dialectic is a
respecter of names or persons, or a despiser of humble occupations; nor
does she think much of the greater or less benefits conferred by them.
For her aim is knowledge; she wants to know how the arts are related to
one another, and would quite as soon learn the nature of hunting from
the vermin-destroyer as from the general. And she only desires to have
a general name, which shall distinguish purifications of the soul from
purifications of the body.
Now purification is the taking away of evil; and there are two kinds
of evil in the soul,--the one answering to disease in the body, and the
other to deformity. Disease is the discord or war of opposite principles
in the soul; and deformity is the want of symmetry, or failure in the
attainment of a mark or measure. The latter arises from ignorance, and
no one is voluntarily ignorant; ignorance is only the aberration of the
soul moving towards knowledge. And as medicine cures the diseases and
gymnastic the deformity of the body, so correction cures the injustice,
and education (which differs among the Hellenes from mere instruction in
the arts) cures the ignorance of the soul. Again, ignorance is twofold,
simple ignorance, and ignorance having the conceit of knowledge. And
education is also twofold: there is the old-fashioned moral training of
our forefathers, which was very troublesome and not very successful; and
another, of a more subtle nature, which proceeds upon a notion that
all ignorance is involuntary. The latter convicts a man out of his own
mouth, by pointing out to him his inconsistencies and contradictions;
and the consequence is that he quarrels with himself, instead of
quarrelling with his neighbours, and is cured of prejudices and
obstructions by a mode of treatment which is equally entertaining and
effectual. The physician of the soul is aware that his patient will
receive no nourishment unless he has been cleaned out; and the soul of
the Great King himself, if he has not undergone this purification, is
unclean and impure.