Chapter 1
Why This Book?
Of the nature of the soul … let me speak briefly, and in a figure. And let the figure be composite—a pair of winged horses and a charioteer. Now the winged horses and the charioteers of the gods are all of them noble and of noble descent, but those of other races are mixed; the human charioteer drives his in a pair; and one of them is noble and of noble breed, and the other is ignoble and of ignoble breed; and the driving of them of necessity gives a great deal of trouble to him … the soul which has seen most of truth shall come to the birth as a philosopher, or artist, or some musical and loving nature.
—Plato, Phaedrus
Know thou the self as occupier of the chariot, but the body as the chariot itself; but know thou ...
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