"THE MIND IS THE MAN."
[To THE EDITOR CF THE " SPECTAT0R."1 Sin,—Reeiewing Flammation's work Death and Its Mystery you make use of Cromwell's words, " The mind is the Man," remarking that Cromwell was probably quotieg this phrase "from somebody else," and you invite yoar readers to assist in tracing its origin. " H. B." and Mr. Dawson respond, the former giving Ovid, the latter Cicero; as the sofiginater. You were right in year surmise that we owe it to a Greek. The phrase is found in the First Alcibiades of Plato. The ptiSsage, translated in Hamilton's Metaphysics, vol. I., pp. 162-34, near
the conclusion, rims thus:— •- ." SOCRATES What, then, is man?
ALCIBIADES : I 'cannot say.
Saoasies : You can at least say that the man is that which uses the body.'
ALCIBIADES True. - SOCRATES : Now; does anything use the body but the mind? Atcnnanes: The mind alone.
SPCRATES : The mind is, therefore, the man."
Similarly, Socrates is reported by Xenophon in the Meenora. bilia, 4, 13, and 17, as using this favourite phrase in dialectical discourse, i.e., a discourse in which your opponent is carried along with yeni by admissions. Socrates taught tbs.complete rationalization of morality, whereas Plato, mote accurately,
recognizes the dual character of the soul—rational and irra- tional. Our understanding of the term "mind," therefore, is Platonic rather tban Socratic. Further, " The mind is the man " is by implication the central thought of Old Testament writers, and is a connotation of Genesis ii. 7, the authorship and date of which a layman must leave to the theologian.—
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