"As I proceeded I found my philosopher altogether forsaking mind 

 or any other principle of order, and having recourse to air and ether, and 

 water, and other eccentricities. I might compare him to a person who 

 began by maintaining generally that mind is the cause of the actions of 

 Socrates, but who, when he endeavored to explain the cause of my several 

 actions in detail, went on to show that I sit here because my body is 

 made up of bones and muscles ; and the bones he would say are hard 

 and have ligaments which divide them, and the muscles are elastic, and 

 they cover the bones, which have also a covering or environment of flesh 

 and skin which contains them ; and as the bones are lifted at their joints 

 by the contraction or relaxation of the muscles, I am able to bend my 

 limbs, and this is why I am sitting here in a curved posture ; that is 

 what he would say, and he would have a similar explanation of my talk- 

 ing to you, which he would attribute to sound, and air, and hearing, and 

 he would assign ten thousand other causes of the same sort, forgetting to 

 mention the true cause, which is that the Athenians have thought fit to 

 condemn me, and accordingly I have thought it better and more right to 

 remain here and undergo my sentence ; for I am inclined to think that 

 these muscles and bones of mine would have gone off to Megara or 

 Boaotia by the dog of Egypt they would, if they had been guided by 

 their own idea of what was best, and if I had not chosen as the better and 

 nobler part, instead of playing truant and running away, to undergo any 

 punishment which the State inflicts." PLATO, Jowctfs Translation. 



