A Dissertation on the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries

This page provides a translation of the Greek passage referenced on page 10 regarding Plato's Republic and the state of the soul.

“By the exercise of his reason, to define the idea of the good, separating it from all other objects, and piercing, as in a battle, through every kind of argument; endeavoring to confute, not according to opinion, but according to essence, and proceeding through all these dialectical energies with an unshaken reason—he who cannot accomplish this, would you not say that he neither knows the good itself, nor anything which is properly denominated good? And would you not assert that such a one, when he apprehends any certain image of reality, apprehends it rather through the medium of opinion than of science; that in the present life he is sunk in sleep and conversant with the delusions of dreams; and that before he is roused to a vigilant state, he will descend to Hades and be overwhelmed with a sleep perfectly profound.”