gest of the three and experienced in rivers,
take upon me the duty of making the attempt first by myself; leaving you
in safety on the bank, I am to examine whether the river is passable
by older men like yourselves, and if such appears to be the case then
I shall invite you to follow, and my experience will help to convey you
across; but if the river is impassable by you, then there will have been
no danger to anybody but myself--would not that seem to be a very fair
proposal? I mean to say that the argument in prospect is likely to be
too much for you, out of your depth and beyond your strength, and I
should be afraid that the stream of my questions might create in you who
are not in the habit of answering, giddiness and confusion of mind,
and hence a feeling of unpleasantness and unsuitableness might arise.
I think therefore that I had better first ask the questions and then
answer them myself while you listen in safety; in that way I can carry
on the argument until I have completed the proof that the soul is prior
to the body.

CLEINIAS: Excellent, Stranger, and I hope that you will do as you
propose.

ATHENIAN: Come, then, and if ever we are to call upon the Gods, let us
call upon them now in all seriousness to come to the demonstration of
their own existence. And so holding fast to the rope we will venture
upon the depths of the argument. When questions of this sort are asked
of me, my safest answer would appear to be as follows: Some one says to
me, 'O Stranger, are all things at rest and nothing in motion, or is the
exact opposite of this true, or are some things in motion and others at
rest?' To this I shall reply that some things are in motion and others
at rest. 'And do not things which move move in a place, and are not the
things which are at rest at rest in a place?' Certainly. 'And some move
or rest in one place and some in more places than one?' You mean to say,
we shall rejoin, that those things which rest at the centre move in one
place, just as the circumference goes round of globes which are said to
be at rest? 'Yes.' And we observe that, in the revolution, the motion
which carries round the larger and the lesser circle at the same time
is proportionally distributed to greater and smaller, and is greater and
smaller in a certain proportion. Here is a wonder which might be thought
an impossibility, that the same motion should impart swiftness and
slowness in due proportion to larger and lesser circles