The Timaeus of Plato

88 A] TIMAIO2. 329
XLII.
The counterpart to what has been said, the treatment
of body and mind and the principles by which they are preserved,
were the proper and fitting complement of our discourse
: for it is more just to dwell upon good than upon evil.
All that is
good is fair, and what is fair is not disproportionate.
Accordingly an animal that is to be fair must, we affirm, be
Now the smaller proportions we discern and
well-proportioned.
reason upon them ;
but of the greatest and most momentous we
take no account. For in view of health and sickness and virtue
and vice no proportion or disproportion
is more important than
that existing between body and soul themselves :
yet we pay no
heed to these, nor do we reflect that if a feebler and smaller
frame be the vehicle of a soul that is
strong and mighty in all
respects; or if the relation between the two be reversed, then
the entire creature is not fair ;
for it is defective in the most
essential proportions. But the opposite condition is to him who
can discern it of all sights the fairest and loveliest. For example,
a body which possesses legs of excessive length or which
is
unsymmetrical owing to any other disproportion, is not only
ugly, but in taking its share of labour brings infinite distress
on itself, suffering frequent fatigue and spasms, and often falling
to control its motions: the same
in consequence of inability
then we must suppose to hold good of the combination of soul
and body which we call an animal ;
when the soul in it is more
powerful than the body and of ardent temperament, she agitates it
and fills it from within with sickness; and when she impetuously
pursues some study or research, she wastes the body away :
and in giving instruction and conducting discussions private or
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