'Is there then in our mind,' he said, 'so great a power, of such a kind—or has it not rather received Being through perception? Will the human mind ever see God, if it is not adorned with the Holy Spirit?' 'For Plato says,' I replied, 'that the eye of the mind is of such a nature, and was given to us for this purpose, that by it, pure as it is, we might behold that very Being which is the cause of all things intelligible—having no color, no shape, no magnitude, none of the things the eye sees; but being something which is itself That,' he says, 'which is beyond all essence, neither to be spoken nor named, but only beautiful and good, arising suddenly in well-formed souls through their kinship with it and their longing to behold it.'
'What kinship, then,' he said, 'have we with God? Is the soul also divine and immortal, and a part of that very kingly Mind? And as that Mind sees God, is it likewise attainable for our mind to grasp the divine, and thereupon to be already happy?' 'Certainly,' I said. 'And do all the souls of all the animals,' he asked, 'pass through it in the same way—or is the soul of a man one thing, and that of a horse or an ass another?' 'No,' I answered, 'the same souls are in all.'
'Then will horses and asses also see,' he said, 'or have they ever seen God?' 'No,' I said; 'for neither do the majority of men, unless one lives in righteousness, purified by justice and by all other virtue.' 'Then it is not,' he said, 'by reason of kinship that one sees God, nor because one is mind, but because one is temperate and just?' 'Yes,' I said, 'and because one has that by which one conceives of God.' 'What then? Do goats or sheep wrong anyone?' 'In nothing, no one,' I replied.
'Then according to your reasoning,' he said, 'these animals also will see?' 'No; for their body, being of such a kind, is an obstacle to them.' 'If these animals were to receive a voice,' he replied, interrupting, 'know well that they would with far more reason revile our body. But let us leave it so for now, and let it be granted you as you say. But tell me this: Does the soul see while it is in the body, or once it has been released from it?'
'Even while it is in human form,' I said, 'it is possible for this to come to it through the mind; but most of all when it is released from the body and has come to be by itself, does it attain that which it longed for all the time.' 'And does it remember this again when it has come to be in a man?' 'It does not seem so to me,' I said. 'What benefit then is there to the souls that have seen, or what does the one who has seen have more than the one who has not seen, if it does not even remember this very thing—that it saw?'
'I cannot say,' I replied. 'And those souls which are judged unworthy of this vision,' he said, 'what do they suffer?' 'They are bound into the bodies of certain wild beasts, and this is their punishment.' 'Do they then know that they are in such bodies for this reason, and that they sinned in some way?' 'I do not think so.'
'Then there is no benefit to these either from the punishment, as it appears; nay, I would not even say they are being punished, if they have no perception of the punishment.' 'No indeed.' 'Therefore the souls neither see God nor pass over into other bodies; for they would have known that they are thus punished, and would have feared even to commit any chance sin afterward. But that they are able to conceive that God exists, and that justice and piety are beautiful—this too I grant,' he said. 'You speak rightly,' I said.