And suppose further, that when he saw their perplexity he said:
'Do you desire to be wholly one; always day and night to be in one
another's company? for if this is what you desire, I am ready to melt you
into one and let you grow together, so that being two you shall become one,
and while you live live a common life as if you were a single man, and
after your death in the world below still be one departed soul instead of
two--I ask whether this is what you lovingly desire, and whether you are
satisfied to attain this?'--there is not a man of them who when he heard
the proposal would deny or would not acknowledge that this meeting and
melting into one another, this becoming one instead of two, was the very
expression of his ancient need (compare Arist. Pol.). And the reason is
that human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire
and pursuit of the whole is called love. There was a time, I say, when we
were one, but now because of the wickedness of mankind God has dispersed
us, as the Arcadians were dispersed into villages by the Lacedaemonians
(compare Arist.
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