The Road Through The Dialogues

Albinus, The Introduction of Albinus to the Dialogues of Plato, tr. George Burges, ch. 8 (found in: The Works of Plato, Bohn's Classical Library, 1908, vol. VI., pp. 319-20):

He then, who is, according to nature, well born, and according to age is in the season for philosophizing, and according to a predilection, for the sake of exercising himself, is proceeding to reasoning, and he, who, according to a habit, has been previously initiated in instruction, and has been drawn aside from political circumstances, will begin from the Alcibiades [of Plato] to be well-turned by the inclination of intellect, and to know of what thing it is needful to make for himself a care, and, as it were by a beautiful pattern, to see who is the philosopher and what is his pursuit, and upon what suppositions his discourse is carried on. (Such a person) must enter upon the Phædo next in order; for in it (Plato) states who is the philosopher, and what is his pursuit; and upon the supposition of the soul being immortal he goes through the discourse relating to it. After this it would be requisite to enter upon the Republic. For, commencing with the earliest instruction, he delineates the whole of education, by making use of which a person would arrive at the possession of virtue. But since it is requisite for us to be versed in the knowledge of things divine, so as to be able, by possessing virtue, to be assimilated to them, we shall enter upon the Timæus; for by entering upon this account relating to Nature, and on the so-called theology, and the arrangement of the Universe, we shall clearly have a recollection of things divine.

. . . For as it is necessary to become a spectator of his own soul and of things divine, and of the gods themselves, and to obtain the most beautiful mind, he must cleanse out the false opinions of his conceptions. For not even have physicians deemed the body capable of enjoying the food brought to it, unless a person shall have previously cast out what was in it in the way of an obstacle. But after the cleansing out, it is requisite to excite and call forth the sentiments, imparted by nature, and to cleanse out these too, and to exhibit them pure, as principles. In addition to this, through the soul being thus previously prepared, it is necessary to introduce into it its peculiar doctrines, according to which it may be perfected; now these relate to physics, and theology, and morality, and statesmanship. . . .