plain that it is then led astray by it."

"You say truly."

"Must it not, then, be by reasoning, if at all, that any of the things
that really are become known to it?"

"Yes."

"And surely the soul then reasons best when none of these things disturb
it--neither hearing, nor sight, nor pain, nor pleasure of any kind; but
it retires as much as possible within itself, taking leave of the body;
and, so far as it can, not communicating or being in contact with it, it
aims at the discovery of that which is."

"Such is the case."

"Does not, then, the soul of the philosopher, in these cases, despise
the body, and flee from it, and seek to retire within itself?"

"It appears so."

27. "But what as to such things as these, Simmias? Do we say that
justice itself is something or nothing?"

"We say it is something, by Jupiter!"

"And that beauty and goodness are something?"

"How not?"