intellect and the senses are brought into harmony and obedience so as to
form a single human being. They are ever parting, ever meeting; and the
identity or diversity of their tendencies or operations is for the most
part unnoticed by us. When the mind touches the body through the
appetites, we acknowledge the responsibility of the one to the other.
There is a tendency in us which says 'Drink.' There is another which says,
'Do not drink; it is not good for you.' And we all of us know which is the
rightful superior. We are also responsible for our health, although into
this sphere there enter some elements of necessity which may be beyond our
control. Still even in the management of health, care and thought,
continued over many years, may make us almost free agents, if we do not
exact too much of ourselves, and if we acknowledge that all human freedom
is limited by the laws of nature and of mind.

We are disappointed to find that Plato, in the general condemnation which
he passes on the practice of medicine prevailing in his own day,
depreciates the effects of diet. He would like to have diseases of a
definite character and capable of receiving a definite treatment. He is
afraid of invalidism interfering with the business of life. He does not
recognize that time is the great healer both of mental and bodily
disorders; and that remedies which are gradual and proceed little by little
are safer than those which produce a sudden catastrophe. Neither does he
see that there is no way in which the mind can more surely influence the
body than by the control of eating and drinking; or any other action or
occasion of human life on which the higher freedom of the will can be more
simple or truly asserted.

7. Lesser matters of style may be remarked.

(1) The affected ignorance of music, which is Plato's way of expressing