Elements
Socrates: In the bodies of all animals we discover that they are composed of fire, water and air by nature, with earth providing support to these ingredients. We see clearly, as mariners say when they are tossed about in a storm at sea and catch sight of land.
Protarchus: True, and tossed about are we, too, during these discourses, but without a port to anchor in, we are entirely at a loss.
Socrates: Then, let us press on. Concerning each of these elementary ingredients in our bodies, understand this,
Protarchus: What?
Socrates: That each element found within us is small and trivial, and nowhere in any part of our body can they be found unmixed and pure. Neither do we have a power within us worthy of their nature. Take one of them as a sample by which you can estimate all the rest. Fire, in a form, is found within us. Fire is also found in the universe.
Protarchus: Most certainly.
Socrates: Now, the fire that is found in our composition is weak and inconsiderable. But the fire in the universe is admired for its abundance, the beauty it exhibits, and every power and virtue that belongs to it.
Protarchus: This is perfectly true.
Socrates: Well then, is the fire of the universe produced, fed and ruled by the fire which we have in us? Or, on the contrary, does my fire and yours, and that of every other living thing, receive its being, support and laws from the fire of the universe?
Protarchus: The question you have asked is not deserving of an answer.
Socrates: Rightly said. And you would answer in the same way if you were asked for your opinion concerning the earthly part of every animal here, compared with the earth in the universe, and just the same concerning the other elementary parts of animal bodies mentioned before?
Protarchus: What man who provided a different answer would ever appear to be of sound mind?
Socrates: Scarcely would any man. But focus on what follows next: Wherever we find these four elements mixed together and united, do we not give this composition the name of body?
Protarchus: We do.
Socrates: Understand the same regarding what we call the world. In the same manner, this should also be considered a body being composed of the same elements.
Protarchus: You are perfectly right.
Socrates: To the whole of this great body, then, does the whole of that little body of ours owe its nourishment, and whatever it has received, and whatever it possesses? Or, is the body of the universe indebted to ours for all which it is and has?
Protarchus: O Socrates, there is no good reason for posing a question of this nature either.
Socrates: Well, what will you say about this point then?
Protarchus: What point?
Socrates: Must we not affirm these bodies of ours to be animated with souls?
Protarchus: We must.
Socrates: But from where, O my friend Protarchus, should our bodies derive those souls of theirs, if that great body of the universe, which has all the same elements as our bodies, but in much greater purity and perfection, was not, as well as ours, animated with a soul?
Protarchus: It is evident that from no other origin could they derive them.