hem to such a degree that my eyes grew blind to things
which I had seemed to myself, and also to others, to know quite well; I
forgot what I had before thought self-evident truths; e.g. such a fact
as that the growth of man is the result of eating and drinking; for when
by the digestion of food flesh is added to flesh and bone to bone, and
whenever there is an aggregation of congenial elements, the lesser
bulk becomes larger and the small man great. Was not that a reasonable
notion?

Yes, said Cebes, I think so.

Well; but let me tell you something more. There was a time when I
thought that I understood the meaning of greater and less pretty well;
and when I saw a great man standing by a little one, I fancied that one
was taller than the other by a head; or one horse would appear to
be greater than another horse: and still more clearly did I seem to
perceive that ten is two more than eight, and that two cubits are more
than one, because two is the double of one.

And what is now your notion of such matters? said Cebes.

I should be far enough from imagining, he replied, that I knew the cause
of any of them, by heaven I should; for I cannot satisfy myself that,
when one is added to one, the one to which the addition is made becomes
two, or that the two units added together make two by reason of the
addition. I cannot understand how, when separated from the other, each
of them was one and not two, and now, when they are brought together,
the mere juxtaposition or meeting of them should be the cause of their
becoming two: neither can I understand how the division of one is the
way to make two; for then a different cause would produce the same
effect,--as in the former instance the addition and juxtaposition of one
to one was the cause of two, in this the separation and subtraction of
one from the other would be the cause. Nor am I any longer satisfied
that I understand the reason why one or anything else is either
generated or destroyed or is at all, but I have in my mind some confused
notion of a new method, and can never admit the other.

Then I heard some one reading, as he said, from a book of Anaxagoras,
that mind was the disposer and cause of all, and I was delighted at this
notion, which appeared quite admirable, and I said to myself: If mind
is the disposer, mind will dispose all for the best, and put each
particular in the best place; and I argued that if any one desired to
find out the cause of the generatio