MENO
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disposed to dwell. There the Gods, and men following in their train, go
forth to contemplate the heavens, and are borne round in the revolutions of
them. There they see the divine forms of justice, temperance, and the
like, in their unchangeable beauty, but not without an effort more than
human. The soul of man is likened to a charioteer and two steeds, one
mortal, the other immortal. The charioteer and the mortal steed are in
fierce conflict; at length the animal principle is finally overpowered,
though not extinguished, by the combined energies of the passionate and
rational elements. This is one of those passages in Plato which, partaking
both of a philosophical and poetical character, is necessarily indistinct
and inconsistent. The magnificent figure under which the nature of the
soul is described has not much to do with the popular doctrine of the
ideas. Yet there is one little trait in the description which shows that
they are present to Plato's mind, namely, the remark that the soul, which
had seen truths in the form of the universal, cannot again return to the
nature of an animal.

In the Phaedo, as in the Meno, the origin of ideas is sought for in a
previous state of existence. There was no time when they could have been
acquired in this life, and therefore they must have been recovered from
another. The process of recovery is no other than the ordinary law of
association, by which in daily life the sight of one thing or person
recalls another to our minds, and by which in scientific enquiry from any
part of knowledge we may be led on to infer the whole. It is also argued
that ideas, or rather ideals, must be derived from a previous state of
existence because they are more perfect than the sensible forms of them
which are given by experience. But in the Phaedo the doctrine of ideas is
subordinate to the proof of the immortality of the soul. 'If the soul
existed in a previous state, then it will exist in a future state, for a
law of alternation pervades all things.' And, 'If the ideas exist, then
the soul exists; if not, not.' It is to be observed, both in the Meno and
the Phaedo, that Socrates expresses himself with diffidence. He speaks in