PHILEBUS: And did not you, Protarchus, propose to answer in my place?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly I did; but I am now in a great strait, and I must entreat you, Socrates, to be our spokesman, and then we shall not say anything wrong or disrespectful of your favourite.
SOCRATES: I must obey you, Protarchus; nor is the task which you impose a difficult one; but did I really, as Philebus implies, disconcert you with my playful solemnity, when I asked the question to what class mind and knowledge belong?
PROTARCHUS: You did, indeed, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Yet the answer is easy, since all philosophers assert with one voice that mind is the king of heaven and earth—in reality they are magnifying themselves. And perhaps they are right. But still I should like to consider the class of mind, if you do not object, a little more fully.
PHILEBUS: Take your own course, Socrates, and never mind length; we shall not tire of you.
SOCRATES: Very good; let us begin then, Protarchus, by asking a question.
PROTARCHUS: What question?
SOCRATES: Whether all this which they call the universe is left to the guidance of unreason and chance medley, or, on the contrary, as our fathers have declared, ordered and governed by a marvellous intelligence and wisdom.
PROTARCHUS: Wide asunder are the two assertions, illustrious Socrates, for that which you were just now saying to me appears to be blasphemy; but the other assertion, that mind orders all things, is worthy of the aspect of the world, and of the sun, and of the moon, and of the stars and of the whole circle of the heavens; and never will I say or think otherwise.