onquer.

By reason of these affections the soul is at first without intelligence,
but as time goes on the stream of nutriment abates, and the courses
of the soul regain their proper motion, and apprehend the same and the
other rightly, and become rational. The soul of him who has education
is whole and perfect and escapes the worst disease, but, if a man's
education be neglected, he walks lamely through life and returns good
for nothing to the world below. This, however, is an after-stage--at
present, we are only concerned with the creation of the body and soul.

The two divine courses were encased by the gods in a sphere which is
called the head, and is the god and lord of us. And to this they gave
the body to be a vehicle, and the members to be instruments, having the
power of flexion and extension. Such was the origin of legs and arms.
In the next place, the gods gave a forward motion to the human body,
because the front part of man was the more honourable and had authority.
And they put in a face in which they inserted organs to minister in all
things to the providence of the soul. They first contrived the eyes,
into which they conveyed a light akin to the light of day, making it
flow through the pupils. When the light of the eye is surrounded by the
light of day, then like falls upon like, and they unite and form one
body which conveys to the soul the motions of visible objects. But when
the visual ray goes forth into the darkness, then unlike falls upon
unlike--the eye no longer sees, and we go to sleep. The fire or light,
when kept in by the eyelids, equalizes the inward motions, and there
is rest accompanied by few dreams; only when the greater motions remain
they engender in us corresponding visions of the night. And now we shall
be able to understand the nature of reflections in mirrors. The fires
from within and from without meet about the smooth and bright surface
of the mirror; and because they meet in a manner contrary to the usual
mode, the right and left sides of the object are transposed. In
a concave mirror the top and bottom are inverted, but this is no
transposition.

These are the second causes which God used as his ministers in
fashioning the world. They are thought by many to be the prime causes,
but they are not so; for they are destitute of mind and reason, and the
lover of mind will not allow that there are any prime causes other
than the rational and invisible ones--these he investigates fir