opposite into existence. Leading to the correlation that there are two processes of generation being conducted between two pairs of opposites, “the first from the second, and another the second from the first?” (8) If the opposite to big is small, heat to cool, and sleep to awake, then the opposite of living is death. If pairs of opposites come from each other, and death is the opposite of life, then the living come from the dead, and the dead from the living. Giving proof that souls exist after death and remain long enough to be “reborn”. As a further argument as to the existence of the soul before birth the process of recollection is introduced. This is the ability to recognize equality, beauty, or any other quality, in the limited representations given to us by the senses. To be able to recognize the imperfect, as a representation of a perfect attribute, an idea of the perfect must already exist. If an idea of a perfect attribute must exist before it’s imperfect representation can be recognized through a sensory experience, we must have had an idea of perfection before we started to explore the world sensually. We began to explore things sensually at birth so if we were to have a preexisting knowledge of perfection it must have predated our own birth. Birth is the origin of the body, and therefore to be incorporated in us prier our bodies, its incorporation must have been an attribute of our souls. “So it must be as a result of the senses that we obtained the notion that all sensible equals are striving to realize actual equality but falling short of it. “ (9) “So before we began to see and hear and otherwise perceive equals we must somewhere have acquired the knowledge of equality as it really is; otherwise we could never have realized, by using it as a standard for comparison, that all equal objects of sense are desirous of being like it, but are only imperfect copies” (10) The ...
