Phaedo.
But it is most absurd to call
things of that sort causes. If anyone were to say that I could not have done
what I thought proper if I had not bones and sinews and other things that I
have, he would be right. But to say that those things are the cause of my doing
what I do,
and that I act with intelligence
but not from the choice of what is best, would be an extremely careless way of
talking. Whoever talks in that way is unable to make a distinction and to see
that in reality a cause is one thing, and the thing without which the cause
could never be a cause is quite another thing. And so it seems to me that most
people, when they give the name of cause to the latter, are groping in the dark,
as it were, and are giving it a name that does not belong to it. And so one man
makes the earth stay below the heavens by putting a vortex about it, and another
regards the earth as a flat trough supported on a foundation of air; but they do
not look for
the power which causes things to
be now placed as it is best for them to be placed, nor do they think it has any
divine force, but they think they can find a new Atlas more powerful and more
immortal and more all-embracing than this, and in truth they give no thought to
the good, which must embrace and hold together all things. Now I would gladly be
the pupil of anyone who would teach me the nature of such a cause; but since
that was denied me and I was not able to discover it myself or to learn of it
from anyone else,
do you wish me,
Cebes,
said he, to give you an account of the way in which I have
conducted my second voyage in quest of the cause?
I wish it with all my heart,
he
replied.After this, then,
said
he, since I had given up investigating realities, I decided that I must
be careful not to suffer the misfortune which happens to people who look at the
sun and watch it during an eclipse. For some of them ruin their eyes unless they
look at its image in water
or something of
the sort. I thought of that danger, and I was afraid my soul would be blinded if
I looked at things with my eyes and tried to grasp them with any of my senses.
So I thought I must have recourse to conceptions and examine in them the truth
of realities.