The Soul Rules the Body

We add a further point to complete our proof, for the benefit of those who shamelessly take refuge in denying reason. How is it that, though the body is mortal by nature, a human being reasons about things that are immortal, and often, where virtue demands it, goes out to meet death? Or how, since the body lasts only for a time, does a person imagine things eternal, so as to despise what lies before him and long for what is beyond? The body could not have such thoughts about itself of its own accord, nor could it think about what is outside itself, for it is mortal and lasts only for a time. It follows that what thinks thoughts opposed to the body and contrary to its nature must be of a different kind. What, then, can this be, except a rational and immortal soul? For it brings in the echo of higher things, not from outside but within the body, as the musician does in his lyre.

Or again, how is it that the eye, made by nature to see, and the ear, made to hear, turn away from some objects and choose others? Who is it that turns the eye away from seeing? Who shuts the ear off from hearing, which is its natural work? Who often holds the palate back from its natural impulse, though it is its nature to taste things? Who keeps the hand from its natural activity of touching something, or turns the sense of smell aside from its normal use? Who is it that acts this way against the natural instincts of the body? Or how is it that the body, turned from its natural course, turns to the counsels of another and lets itself be guided at that other’s nod? Why, these things prove simply this: that the rational soul presides over the body. For the body is not even made to drive itself. It is carried along at the will of another, just as a horse does not harness himself but is driven by his master. That is why there are laws for human beings, to do what is good and to keep from doing evil, while for the animals without reason evil remains unthought of and unnoticed, because they lie outside reason and the work of understanding. I think, then, that what we have said proves that there is a rational soul in human beings.