is the higher mortal soul which, though liable to perturbations of her own,
takes the side of reason against the lower appetites. The seat of this is
the heart, in which courage, anger, and all the nobler affections are
supposed to reside. There the veins all meet; it is their centre or house
of guard whence they carry the orders of the thinking being to the
extremities of his kingdom. There is also a third or appetitive soul,
which receives the commands of the immortal part, not immediately but
mediately, through the liver, which reflects on its surface the admonitions
and threats of the reason.

The liver is imagined by Plato to be a smooth and bright substance, having
a store of sweetness and also of bitterness, which reason freely uses in
the execution of her mandates. In this region, as ancient superstition
told, were to be found intimations of the future. But Plato is careful to
observe that although such knowledge is given to the inferior parts of man,
it requires to be interpreted by the superior. Reason, and not enthusiasm,
is the true guide of man; he is only inspired when he is demented by some
distemper or possession. The ancient saying, that 'only a man in his
senses can judge of his own actions,' is approved by modern philosophy too.
The same irony which appears in Plato's remark, that 'the men of old time
must surely have known the gods who were their ancestors, and we should
believe them as custom requires,' is also manifest in his account of
divination.

The appetitive soul is seated in the belly, and there imprisoned like a
wild beast, far away from the council chamber, as Plato graphically calls
the head, in order that the animal passions may not interfere with the
deliberations of reason. Though the soul is said by him to be prior to the
body, yet we cannot help seeing that it is constructed on the model of the
body--the threefold division into the rational, passionate, and appetitive