Socrates: Now, let us consider the shapes and sizes of our mortal bodies in relation to the shape and size of the universe.
Timaeus: Yes, that would be wise.
Socrates: Well, it seems to me that the gods copied the shape of the universe and fastened the two divine orbits of the soul into a spherical body, which we now call the head, the divinest part of us, which controls all the rest.
Critias: I agree.
Socrates: It follows, then, that they put together the body as a whole to serve the head, knowing that it would be endowed with all the varieties of motion there were to be. And to prevent the head from rolling about on the earth, unable to get over or out of its many heights and hollows, they provided that the body should act as a convenient vehicle.
Glaucon: Quite right, but what of the body that desires to view Shapes and Sizes at a distant setting?
Socrates: Well, the gods hold that the front is more honorable and commanding than the back, so they made us move, for the most part, forward. So it was necessary to distinguish the front of man's body and make it different from the back; and to do this they placed the face on this side of the sphere of the head, and fixed in it organs for the soul's forethought, and arranged that this, our natural front, take the lead as it carries us into the Beachland Ballroom, limbs and soul-stuff flailing to the sound of the beat.
Adeimantus: My dear Socrates, you took the words right out of my mouth. Yet where shall those in distant lands fi--
* The National
& They Shoot Horses Don't They
Thrasymachus: Alright, thanks.
