SOCRATES: And if the proof, although not perfect, be sufficient, we shall
be satisfied;--more precise proof will be supplied when we have discovered
that which we were led to omit, from a fear that the enquiry would be too
much protracted.

ALCIBIADES: What was that?

SOCRATES: What I meant, when I said that absolute existence must be first
considered; but now, instead of absolute existence, we have been
considering the nature of individual existence, and this may, perhaps, be
sufficient; for surely there is nothing which may be called more properly
ourselves than the soul?

ALCIBIADES: There is nothing.

SOCRATES: Then we may truly conceive that you and I are conversing with
one another, soul to soul?

ALCIBIADES: Very true.

SOCRATES: And that is just what I was saying before--that I, Socrates, am
not arguing or talking with the face of Alcibiades, but with the real
Alcibiades; or in other words, with his soul.

ALCIBIADES: True.

SOCRATES: Then he who bids a man know himself, would have him know his
soul?

ALCIBIADES: That appears to be true.