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PHAEDO

By Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

INTRODUCTION.

After an interval of some months or years, and at Phlius, a town of

Peloponnesus, the tale of the last hours of Socrates is narrated to

Echecrates and other Phliasians by Phaedo the 'beloved disciple.' The

Dialogue necessarily takes the form of a narrative, because Socrates has

to be described acting as well as speaking. The minutest particulars of

the event are interesting to distant friends, and the narrator has an

equal interest in them.

During the voyage of the sacred ship to and from Delos, which has

occupied thirty days, the execution of Socrates has been deferred.

(Compare Xen. Mem.) The time has been passed by him in conversation with

a select company of disciples. But now the holy season is over, and the

disciples meet earlier than usual in order that they may converse with

Socrates for the last time. Those who were present, and those who might

have been expected to be present, are mentioned by name. There are

Simmias and Cebes (Crito), two disciples of Philolaus whom Socrates

'by his enchantments has attracted from Thebes' (Mem.), Crito the aged

friend, the attendant of the prison, who is as good as a friend--these

take part in the conversation. There are present also, Hermogenes,

from whom Xenophon derived his information about the trial of Socrates

(Mem.), the 'madman' Apollodorus (Symp.), Euclid and Terpsion from

Megara (compare Theaet.), Ctesippus, Antisthenes, Menexenus, and some

other less-known members of the Socratic circle, all of whom are silent

auditors. Aristippus, Cleombrotus, and Plato are noted as absent. Almost

as soon as the friends of Socrates enter the prison Xanthippe and her

children are sent home in the care of one of Crito's servants.

Socrates himself has just been released from chains, and is led by this

circumstance to make the natural remark that 'pleasure follows pain.'

(Observe that Plato is preparing the way for his doctrine of the

alternation of opposites.) 'Aesop would have represented them in a fable

as a two-headed creature of the gods.' The mention of Aesop reminds

Cebes of a question which had been asked by Evenus the poet (compare

Apol.): 'Why Socrates, who was not a poet, while in prison had been

putting Aesop into verse?'--'Because several times in his life he had

been warned in dreams that he should practise music; and as he was about

to die and was not certain of what was meant, he wished to fulfil the

admonition in the letter as well as in the spirit, by writing verses as

well as by cultivating philosophy. Tell this to Evenus; and say that I

would have him follow me in death.' 'He is not at all the sort of man

to comply with your request, Socrates.' 'Why, is he not a philosopher?'

'Yes.' 'Then he will be willing to die, although he will not take his

own life, for that is held to be unlawful.'

Cebes asks why suicide is thought not to be right, if death is to be

accounted a good? Well, (1) according to one explanation, because man is

a prisoner, who must not open the door of his prison and run away--this

is the truth in a 'mystery.' Or (2) rather, because he is not his own

property, but a possession of the gods, and has no right to make away

with that which does not belong to him. But why, asks Cebes, if he is a

possession of the gods, should he wish to die and leave them? For he is

under their protection; and surely he cannot take better care of himself

than they take of him. Simmias explains that Cebes is really referring

to Socrates, whom they think too unmoved at the prospect of leaving the

gods and his friends. Socrates answers that he is going to other gods

who are wise and good, and perhaps to better friends; and he professes

that he is ready to defend himself against the charge of Cebes.

The company shall be his judges, and he hopes that he will be more

successful in convincing them than he had been in convincing the court.

The philosopher desires death--which the wicked world will insinuate

that he also deserves: and perhaps he does, but not in any sense which

they are capable of understanding. Enough of them: the real question

is, What is the nature of that death which he desires? Death is

the separation of soul and body--and the philosopher desires such

a separation. He would like to be freed from the dominion of bodily

pleasures and of the senses, which are always perturbing his mental

vision. He wants to get rid of eyes and ears, and with the light of the

mind only to behold the light of truth. All the evils and impurities

and necessities of men come from the body. And death separates him from

these corruptions, which in life he cannot wholly lay aside. Why then

should he repine when the hour of separation arrives? Why, if he is dead

while he lives, should he fear that other death, through which alone he

can behold wisdom in her purity?

Besides, the philosopher has notions of good and evil unlike those of

other men. For they are courageous because they are afraid of greater

dangers, and temperate because they desire greater pleasures. But he

disdains this balancing of pleasures and pains, which is the exchange

of commerce and not of virtue. All the virtues, including wisdom, are

regarded by him only as purifications of the soul. And this was the

meaning of the founders of the mysteries when they said, 'Many are the

wand-bearers but few are the mystics.' (Compare Matt. xxii.: 'Many are

called but few are chosen.') And in the hope that he is one of these

mystics, Socrates is now departing. This is his answer to any one who

charges him with indifference at the prospect of leaving the gods and

his friends.

Still, a fear is expressed that the soul upon leaving the body may

vanish away like smoke or air. Socrates in answer appeals first of all

to the old Orphic tradition that the souls of the dead are in the world

below, and that the living come from them. This he attempts to found

on a philosophical assumption that all opposites--e.g. less, greater;

weaker, stronger; sleeping, waking; life, death--are generated out of

each other. Nor can the process of generation be only a passage from

living to dying, for then all would end in death. The perpetual sleeper

(Endymion) would be no longer distinguished from the rest of mankind.

The circle of nature is not complete unless the living come from the

dead as well as pass to them.

The Platonic doctrine of reminiscence is then adduced as a confirmation

of the pre-existence of the soul. Some proofs of this doctrine are

demanded. One proof given is the same as that of the Meno, and is

derived from the latent knowledge of mathematics, which may be elicited

from an unlearned person when a diagram is presented to him. Again,

there is a power of association, which from seeing Simmias may remember

Cebes, or from seeing a picture of Simmias may remember Simmias. The

lyre may recall the player of the lyre, and equal pieces of wood or

stone may be associated with the higher notion of absolute equality. But

here observe that material equalities fall short of the conception of

absolute equality with which they are compared, and which is the measure

of them. And the measure or standard must be prior to that which is

measured, the idea of equality prior to the visible equals. And if prior

to them, then prior also to the perceptions of the senses which recall

them, and therefore either given before birth or at birth. But all men

have not this knowledge, nor have any without a process of reminiscence;

which is a proof that it is not innate or given at birth, unless indeed

it was given and taken away at the same instant. But if not given to

men in birth, it must have been given before birth--this is the only

alternative which remains. And if we had ideas in a former state, then

our souls must have existed and must have had intelligence in a former

state. The pre-existence of the soul stands or falls with the doctrine

of ideas.

It is objected by Simmias and Cebes that these arguments only prove a

former and not a future existence. Socrates answers this objection by

recalling the previous argument, in which he had shown that the living

come from the dead. But the fear that the soul at departing may vanish

into air (especially if there is a wind blowing at the time) has not yet

been charmed away. He proceeds: When we fear that the soul will vanish

away, let us ask ourselves what is that which we suppose to be liable

to dissolution? Is it the simple or the compound, the unchanging or the

changing, the invisible idea or the visible object of sense? Clearly the

latter and not the former; and therefore not the soul, which in her own

pure thought is unchangeable, and only when using the senses descends

into the region of change. Again, the soul commands, the body serves:

in this respect too the soul is akin to the divine, and the body to the

mortal. And in every point of view the soul is the image of divinity and

immortality, and the body of the human and mortal. And whereas the

body is liable to speedy dissolution, the soul is almost if not quite

indissoluble. (Compare Tim.) Yet even the body may be preserved for ages

by the embalmer's art: how unlikely, then, that the soul will perish and

be dissipated into air while on her way to the good and wise God!

She has been gathered into herself, holding aloof from the body, and

practising death all her life long, and she is now finally released from

the errors and follies and passions of men, and for ever dwells in the

company of the gods.

But the soul which is polluted and engrossed by the corporeal, and has

no eye except that of the senses, and is weighed down by the bodily

appetites, cannot attain to this abstraction. In her fear of the world

below she lingers about the sepulchre, loath to leave the body which

she loved, a ghostly apparition, saturated with sense, and therefore

visible. At length entering into some animal of a nature congenial to

her former life of sensuality or violence, she takes the form of an ass,

a wolf or a kite. And of these earthly souls the happiest are those who

have practised virtue without philosophy; they are allowed to pass into

gentle and social natures, such as bees and ants. (Compare Republic,

Meno.) But only the philosopher who departs pure is permitted to enter

the company of the gods. (Compare Phaedrus.) This is the reason why he

abstains from fleshly lusts, and not because he fears loss or disgrace,

which is the motive of other men. He too has been a captive, and the

willing agent of his own captivity. But philosophy has spoken to him,

and he has heard her voice; she has gently entreated him, and brought

him out of the 'miry clay,' and purged away the mists of passion and

the illusions of sense which envelope him; his soul has escaped from the

influence of pleasures and pains, which are like nails fastening her to

the body. To that prison-house she will not return; and therefore she

abstains from bodily pleasures--not from a desire of having more or

greater ones, but because she knows that only when calm and free from

the dominion of the body can she behold the light of truth.

Simmias and Cebes remain in doubt; but they are unwilling to raise

objections at such a time. Socrates wonders at their reluctance. Let

them regard him rather as the swan, who, having sung the praises of

Apollo all his life long, sings at his death more lustily than ever.

Simmias acknowledges that there is cowardice in not probing truth to the

bottom. 'And if truth divine and inspired is not to be had, then let

a man take the best of human notions, and upon this frail bark let him

sail through life.' He proceeds to state his difficulty: It has been

argued that the soul is invisible and incorporeal, and therefore

immortal, and prior to the body. But is not the soul acknowledged to

be a harmony, and has she not the same relation to the body, as the

harmony--which like her is invisible--has to the lyre? And yet the

harmony does not survive the lyre. Cebes has also an objection, which

like Simmias he expresses in a figure. He is willing to admit that the

soul is more lasting than the body. But the more lasting nature of the

soul does not prove her immortality; for after having worn out many

bodies in a single life, and many more in successive births and

deaths, she may at last perish, or, as Socrates afterwards restates the

objection, the very act of birth may be the beginning of her death, and

her last body may survive her, just as the coat of an old weaver is left

behind him after he is dead, although a man is more lasting than his

coat. And he who would prove the immortality of the soul, must prove not

only that the soul outlives one or many bodies, but that she outlives

them all.

The audience, like the chorus in a play, for a moment interpret the

feelings of the actors; there is a temporary depression, and then the

enquiry is resumed. It is a melancholy reflection that arguments, like

men, are apt to be deceivers; and those who have been often deceived

become distrustful both of arguments and of friends. But this

unfortunate experience should not make us either haters of men or haters

of arguments. The want of health and truth is not in the argument, but

in ourselves. Socrates, who is about to die, is sensible of his own

weakness; he desires to be impartial, but he cannot help feeling that he

has too great an interest in the truth of the argument. And therefore he

would have his friends examine and refute him, if they think that he is

in error.

At his request Simmias and Cebes repeat their objections. They do not

go to the length of denying the pre-existence of ideas. Simmias is of

opinion that the soul is a harmony of the body. But the admission of the

pre-existence of ideas, and therefore of the soul, is at variance with

this. (Compare a parallel difficulty in Theaet.) For a harmony is

an effect, whereas the soul is not an effect, but a cause; a harmony

follows, but the soul leads; a harmony admits of degrees, and the soul

has no degrees. Again, upon the supposition that the soul is a harmony,

why is one soul better than another? Are they more or less harmonized,

or is there one harmony within another? But the soul does not admit of

degrees, and cannot therefore be more or less harmonized. Further, the

soul is often engaged in resisting the affections of the body, as Homer

describes Odysseus 'rebuking his heart.' Could he have written this

under the idea that the soul is a harmony of the body? Nay rather, are

we not contradicting Homer and ourselves in affirming anything of the

sort?

The goddess Harmonia, as Socrates playfully terms the argument of

Simmias, has been happily disposed of; and now an answer has to be given

to the Theban Cadmus. Socrates recapitulates the argument of Cebes,

which, as he remarks, involves the whole question of natural growth or

causation; about this he proposes to narrate his own mental experience.

When he was young he had puzzled himself with physics: he had enquired

into the growth and decay of animals, and the origin of thought, until

at last he began to doubt the self-evident fact that growth is the

result of eating and drinking; and so he arrived at the conclusion that

he was not meant for such enquiries. Nor was he less perplexed with

notions of comparison and number. At first he had imagined himself to

understand differences of greater and less, and to know that ten is two

more than eight, and the like. But now those very notions appeared to

him to contain a contradiction. For how can one be divided into two? Or

two be compounded into one? These are difficulties which Socrates cannot

answer. Of generation and destruction he knows nothing. But he has a

confused notion of another method in which matters of this sort are to

be investigated. (Compare Republic; Charm.)

Then he heard some one reading out of a book of Anaxagoras, that mind is

the cause of all things. And he said to himself: If mind is the cause

of all things, surely mind must dispose them all for the best. The new

teacher will show me this 'order of the best' in man and nature. How

great had been his hopes and how great his disappointment! For he found

that his new friend was anything but consistent in his use of mind as

a cause, and that he soon introduced winds, waters, and other eccentric

notions. (Compare Arist. Metaph.) It was as if a person had said that

Socrates is sitting here because he is made up of bones and muscles,

instead of telling the true reason--that he is here because the

Athenians have thought good to sentence him to death, and he has thought

good to await his sentence. Had his bones and muscles been left by him

to their own ideas of right, they would long ago have taken themselves

off. But surely there is a great confusion of the cause and condition

in all this. And this confusion also leads people into all sorts of

erroneous theories about the position and motions of the earth. None of

them know how much stronger than any Atlas is the power of the best. But

this 'best' is still undiscovered; and in enquiring after the cause, we

can only hope to attain the second best.

Now there is a danger in the contemplation of the nature of things, as

there is a danger in looking at the sun during an eclipse, unless the

precaution is taken of looking only at the image reflected in the water,

or in a glass. (Compare Laws; Republic.) 'I was afraid,' says Socrates,

'that I might injure the eye of the soul. I thought that I had better

return to the old and safe method of ideas. Though I do not mean to say

that he who contemplates existence through the medium of ideas sees

only through a glass darkly, any more than he who contemplates actual

effects.'

If the existence of ideas is granted to him, Socrates is of opinion that

he will then have no difficulty in proving the immortality of the soul.

He will only ask for a further admission:--that beauty is the cause of

the beautiful, greatness the cause of the great, smallness of the small,

and so on of other things. This is a safe and simple answer, which

escapes the contradictions of greater and less (greater by reason of

that which is smaller!), of addition and subtraction, and the other

difficulties of relation. These subtleties he is for leaving to wiser

heads than his own; he prefers to test ideas by the consistency of their

consequences, and, if asked to give an account of them, goes back to

some higher idea or hypothesis which appears to him to be the best,

until at last he arrives at a resting-place. (Republic; Phil.)

The doctrine of ideas, which has long ago received the assent of the

Socratic circle, is now affirmed by the Phliasian auditor to command

the assent of any man of sense. The narrative is continued; Socrates is

desirous of explaining how opposite ideas may appear to co-exist but do

not really co-exist in the same thing or person. For example, Simmias

may be said to have greatness and also smallness, because he is greater

than Socrates and less than Phaedo. And yet Simmias is not really great

and also small, but only when compared to Phaedo and Socrates. I use the

illustration, says Socrates, because I want to show you not only that

ideal opposites exclude one another, but also the opposites in us. I,

for example, having the attribute of smallness remain small, and cannot

become great: the smallness which is in me drives out greatness.

One of the company here remarked that this was inconsistent with the

old assertion that opposites generated opposites. But that, replies

Socrates, was affirmed, not of opposite ideas either in us or in

nature, but of opposition in the concrete--not of life and death, but

of individuals living and dying. When this objection has been removed,

Socrates proceeds: This doctrine of the mutual exclusion of opposites

is not only true of the opposites themselves, but of things which are

inseparable from them. For example, cold and heat are opposed; and fire,

which is inseparable from heat, cannot co-exist with cold, or snow,

which is inseparable from cold, with heat. Again, the number three

excludes the number four, because three is an odd number and four is

an even number, and the odd is opposed to the even. Thus we are able to

proceed a step beyond 'the safe and simple answer.' We may say, not

only that the odd excludes the even, but that the number three, which

participates in oddness, excludes the even. And in like manner, not only

does life exclude death, but the soul, of which life is the inseparable

attribute, also excludes death. And that of which life is the

inseparable attribute is by the force of the terms imperishable. If the

odd principle were imperishable, then the number three would not perish

but remove, on the approach of the even principle. But the immortal is

imperishable; and therefore the soul on the approach of death does not

perish but removes.

Thus all objections appear to be finally silenced. And now the

application has to be made: If the soul is immortal, 'what manner of

persons ought we to be?' having regard not only to time but to eternity.

For death is not the end of all, and the wicked is not released from his

evil by death; but every one carries with him into the world below that

which he is or has become, and that only.

For after death the soul is carried away to judgment, and when she has

received her punishment returns to earth in the course of ages. The wise

soul is conscious of her situation, and follows the attendant angel who

guides her through the windings of the world below; but the impure soul

wanders hither and thither without companion or guide, and is carried

at last to her own place, as the pure soul is also carried away to hers.

'In order that you may understand this, I must first describe to you the

nature and conformation of the earth.'

Now the whole earth is a globe placed in the centre of the heavens, and

is maintained there by the perfection of balance. That which we call the

earth is only one of many small hollows, wherein collect the mists and

waters and the thick lower air; but the true earth is above, and is in

a finer and subtler element. And if, like birds, we could fly to the

surface of the air, in the same manner that fishes come to the top of

the sea, then we should behold the true earth and the true heaven and

the true stars. Our earth is everywhere corrupted and corroded; and even

the land which is fairer than the sea, for that is a mere chaos or waste

of water and mud and sand, has nothing to show in comparison of the

other world. But the heavenly earth is of divers colours, sparkling with

jewels brighter than gold and whiter than any snow, having flowers and

fruits innumerable. And the inhabitants dwell some on the shore of the

sea of air, others in 'islets of the blest,' and they hold converse

with the gods, and behold the sun, moon and stars as they truly are, and

their other blessedness is of a piece with this.

The hollows on the surface of the globe vary in size and shape from that

which we inhabit: but all are connected by passages and perforations in

the interior of the earth. And there is one huge chasm or opening called

Tartarus, into which streams of fire and water and liquid mud are ever

flowing; of these small portions find their way to the surface and

form seas and rivers and volcanoes. There is a perpetual inhalation and

exhalation of the air rising and falling as the waters pass into the

depths of the earth and return again, in their course forming lakes

and rivers, but never descending below the centre of the earth; for on

either side the rivers flowing either way are stopped by a precipice.

These rivers are many and mighty, and there are four principal ones,

Oceanus, Acheron, Pyriphlegethon, and Cocytus. Oceanus is the river

which encircles the earth; Acheron takes an opposite direction, and

after flowing under the earth through desert places, at last reaches the

Acherusian lake,--this is the river at which the souls of the dead await

their return to earth. Pyriphlegethon is a stream of fire, which coils

round the earth and flows into the depths of Tartarus. The fourth river,

Cocytus, is that which is called by the poets the Stygian river, and

passes into and forms the lake Styx, from the waters of which it gains

new and strange powers. This river, too, falls into Tartarus.

The dead are first of all judged according to their deeds, and those who

are incurable are thrust into Tartarus, from which they never come out.

Those who have only committed venial sins are first purified of them,

and then rewarded for the good which they have done. Those who have

committed crimes, great indeed, but not unpardonable, are thrust

into Tartarus, but are cast forth at the end of a year by way of

Pyriphlegethon or Cocytus, and these carry them as far as the Acherusian

lake, where they call upon their victims to let them come out of the

rivers into the lake. And if they prevail, then they are let out and

their sufferings cease: if not, they are borne unceasingly into Tartarus

and back again, until they at last obtain mercy. The pure souls also

receive their reward, and have their abode in the upper earth, and a

select few in still fairer 'mansions.'

Socrates is not prepared to insist on the literal accuracy of this

description, but he is confident that something of the kind is true.

He who has sought after the pleasures of knowledge and rejected the

pleasures of the body, has reason to be of good hope at the approach of

death; whose voice is already speaking to him, and who will one day be

heard calling all men.

The hour has come at which he must drink the poison, and not much

remains to be done. How shall they bury him? That is a question which he

refuses to entertain, for they are burying, not him, but his dead body.

His friends had once been sureties that he would remain, and they shall

now be sureties that he has run away. Yet he would not die without the

customary ceremonies of washing and burial. Shall he make a libation of

the poison? In the spirit he will, but not in the letter. One request he

utters in the very act of death, which has been a puzzle to after ages.

With a sort of irony he remembers that a trifling religious duty is

still unfulfilled, just as above he desires before he departs to compose

a few verses in order to satisfy a scruple about a dream--unless,

indeed, we suppose him to mean, that he was now restored to health, and

made the customary offering to Asclepius in token of his recovery.

*****

1. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul has sunk deep into

the heart of the human race; and men are apt to rebel against any

examination of the nature or grounds of their belief. They do not like

to acknowledge that this, as well as the other 'eternal ideas; of

man, has a history in time, which may be traced in Greek poetry or

philosophy, and also in the Hebrew Scriptures. They convert feeling into

reasoning, and throw a network of dialectics over that which is really

a deeply-rooted instinct. In the same temper which Socrates reproves in

himself they are disposed to think that even fallacies will do no harm,

for they will die with them, and while they live they will gain by the

delusion. And when they consider the numberless bad arguments which have

been pressed into the service of theology, they say, like the companions

of Socrates, 'What argument can we ever trust again?' But there is a

better and higher spirit to be gathered from the Phaedo, as well as from

the other writings of Plato, which says that first principles should

be most constantly reviewed (Phaedo and Crat.), and that the highest

subjects demand of us the greatest accuracy (Republic); also that we

must not become misologists because arguments are apt to be deceivers.

2. In former ages there was a customary rather than a reasoned belief

in the immortality of the soul. It was based on the authority of the

Church, on the necessity of such a belief to morality and the order of

society, on the evidence of an historical fact, and also on analogies

and figures of speech which filled up the void or gave an expression

in words to a cherished instinct. The mass of mankind went on their

way busy with the affairs of this life, hardly stopping to think about

another. But in our own day the question has been reopened, and it is

doubtful whether the belief which in the first ages of Christianity

was the strongest motive of action can survive the conflict with a

scientific age in which the rules of evidence are stricter and the mind

has become more sensitive to criticism. It has faded into the distance

by a natural process as it was removed further and further from the

historical fact on which it has been supposed to rest. Arguments derived

from material things such as the seed and the ear of corn or transitions

in the life of animals from one state of being to another (the chrysalis

and the butterfly) are not 'in pari materia' with arguments from

the visible to the invisible, and are therefore felt to be no longer

applicable. The evidence to the historical fact seems to be weaker than

was once supposed: it is not consistent with itself, and is based upon

documents which are of unknown origin. The immortality of man must be

proved by other arguments than these if it is again to become a living

belief. We must ask ourselves afresh why we still maintain it, and seek

to discover a foundation for it in the nature of God and in the first

principles of morality.

3. At the outset of the discussion we may clear away a confusion. We

certainly do not mean by the immortality of the soul the immortality of

fame, which whether worth having or not can only be ascribed to a very

select class of the whole race of mankind, and even the interest in

these few is comparatively short-lived. To have been a benefactor to the

world, whether in a higher or a lower sphere of life and thought, is a

great thing: to have the reputation of being one, when men have passed

out of the sphere of earthly praise or blame, is hardly worthy of

consideration. The memory of a great man, so far from being immortal,

is really limited to his own generation:--so long as his friends or his

disciples are alive, so long as his books continue to be read, so long

as his political or military successes fill a page in the history of

his country. The praises which are bestowed upon him at his death hardly

last longer than the flowers which are strewed upon his coffin or the

'immortelles' which are laid upon his tomb. Literature makes the most

of its heroes, but the true man is well aware that far from enjoying an

immortality of fame, in a generation or two, or even in a much shorter

time, he will be forgotten and the world will get on without him.

4. Modern philosophy is perplexed at this whole question, which is

sometimes fairly given up and handed over to the realm of faith. The

perplexity should not be forgotten by us when we attempt to submit the

Phaedo of Plato to the requirements of logic. For what idea can we form

of the soul when separated from the body? Or how can the soul be united

with the body and still be independent? Is the soul related to the

body as the ideal to the real, or as the whole to the parts, or as the

subject to the object, or as the cause to the effect, or as the end to

the means? Shall we say with Aristotle, that the soul is the entelechy

or form of an organized living body? or with Plato, that she has a life

of her own? Is the Pythagorean image of the harmony, or that of the

monad, the truer expression? Is the soul related to the body as sight to

the eye, or as the boatman to his boat? (Arist. de Anim.) And in

another state of being is the soul to be conceived of as vanishing into

infinity, hardly possessing an existence which she can call her own,

as in the pantheistic system of Spinoza: or as an individual informing

another body and entering into new relations, but retaining her own

character? (Compare Gorgias.) Or is the opposition of soul and body a

mere illusion, and the true self neither soul nor body, but the union

of the two in the 'I' which is above them? And is death the assertion

of this individuality in the higher nature, and the falling away into

nothingness of the lower? Or are we vainly attempting to pass

the boundaries of human thought? The body and the soul seem to be

inseparable, not only in fact, but in our conceptions of them; and any

philosophy which too closely unites them, or too widely separates them,

either in this life or in another, disturbs the balance of human nature.

No thinker has perfectly adjusted them, or been entirely consistent with

himself in describing their relation to one another. Nor can we

wonder that Plato in the infancy of human thought should have confused

mythology and philosophy, or have mistaken verbal arguments for real

ones.

5. Again, believing in the immortality of the soul, we must still

ask the question of Socrates, 'What is that which we suppose to be

immortal?' Is it the personal and individual element in us, or the

spiritual and universal? Is it the principle of knowledge or of

goodness, or the union of the two? Is it the mere force of life which is

determined to be, or the consciousness of self which cannot be got rid

of, or the fire of genius which refuses to be extinguished? Or is there

a hidden being which is allied to the Author of all existence, who is

because he is perfect, and to whom our ideas of perfection give us a

title to belong? Whatever answer is given by us to these questions,

there still remains the necessity of allowing the permanence of evil, if

not for ever, at any rate for a time, in order that the wicked 'may not

have too good a bargain.' For the annihilation of evil at death, or the

eternal duration of it, seem to involve equal difficulties in the moral

government of the universe. Sometimes we are led by our feelings, rather

than by our reason, to think of the good and wise only as existing in

another life. Why should the mean, the weak, the idiot, the infant,

the herd of men who have never in any proper sense the use of reason,

reappear with blinking eyes in the light of another world? But our

second thought is that the hope of humanity is a common one, and that

all or none will be partakers of immortality. Reason does not allow us

to suppose that we have any greater claims than others, and experience

may often reveal to us unexpected flashes of the higher nature in

those whom we had despised. Why should the wicked suffer any more than

ourselves? had we been placed in their circumstances should we have been

any better than they? The worst of men are objects of pity rather than

of anger to the philanthropist; must they not be equally such to divine

benevolence? Even more than the good they have need of another life; not

that they may be punished, but that they may be educated. These are

a few of the reflections which arise in our minds when we attempt to

assign any form to our conceptions of a future state.

There are some other questions which are disturbing to us because we

have no answer to them. What is to become of the animals in a future

state? Have we not seen dogs more faithful and intelligent than men,

and men who are more stupid and brutal than any animals? Does their life

cease at death, or is there some 'better thing reserved' also for

them? They may be said to have a shadow or imitation of morality, and

imperfect moral claims upon the benevolence of man and upon the justice

of God. We cannot think of the least or lowest of them, the insect, the

bird, the inhabitants of the sea or the desert, as having any place in

a future world, and if not all, why should those who are specially

attached to man be deemed worthy of any exceptional privilege? When we

reason about such a subject, almost at once we degenerate into nonsense.

It is a passing thought which has no real hold on the mind. We may argue

for the existence of animals in a future state from the attributes of

God, or from texts of Scripture ('Are not two sparrows sold for one

farthing?' etc.), but the truth is that we are only filling up the void

of another world with our own fancies. Again, we often talk about

the origin of evil, that great bugbear of theologians, by which they

frighten us into believing any superstition. What answer can be made

to the old commonplace, 'Is not God the author of evil, if he knowingly

permitted, but could have prevented it?' Even if we assume that the

inequalities of this life are rectified by some transposition of human

beings in another, still the existence of the very least evil if it

could have been avoided, seems to be at variance with the love and

justice of God. And so we arrive at the conclusion that we are carrying

logic too far, and that the attempt to frame the world according to a

rule of divine perfection is opposed to experience and had better be

given up. The case of the animals is our own. We must admit that the

Divine Being, although perfect himself, has placed us in a state of life

in which we may work together with him for good, but we are very far

from having attained to it.

6. Again, ideas must be given through something; and we are always prone

to argue about the soul from analogies of outward things which may serve

to embody our thoughts, but are also partly delusive. For we cannot

reason from the natural to the spiritual, or from the outward to the

inward. The progress of physiological science, without bringing us

nearer to the great secret, has tended to remove some erroneous notions

respecting the relations of body and mind, and in this we have the

advantage of the ancients. But no one imagines that any seed of

immortality is to be discerned in our mortal frames. Most people have

been content to rest their belief in another life on the agreement of

the more enlightened part of mankind, and on the inseparable connection

of such a doctrine with the existence of a God--also in a less degree

on the impossibility of doubting about the continued existence of those

whom we love and reverence in this world. And after all has been

said, the figure, the analogy, the argument, are felt to be only

approximations in different forms to an expression of the common

sentiment of the human heart. That we shall live again is far more

certain than that we shall take any particular form of life.

7. When we speak of the immortality of the soul, we must ask further

what we mean by the word immortality. For of the duration of a living

being in countless ages we can form no conception; far less than a three

years' old child of the whole of life. The naked eye might as well try

to see the furthest star in the infinity of heaven. Whether time and

space really exist when we take away the limits of them may be doubted;

at any rate the thought of them when unlimited us so overwhelming to us

as to lose all distinctness. Philosophers have spoken of them as forms

of the human mind, but what is the mind without them? As then infinite

time, or an existence out of time, which are the only possible

explanations of eternal duration, are equally inconceivable to us, let

us substitute for them a hundred or a thousand years after death, and

ask not what will be our employment in eternity, but what will happen to

us in that definite portion of time; or what is now happening to those

who passed out of life a hundred or a thousand years ago. Do we imagine

that the wicked are suffering torments, or that the good are singing the

praises of God, during a period longer than that of a whole life, or

of ten lives of men? Is the suffering physical or mental? And does the

worship of God consist only of praise, or of many forms of service? Who

are the wicked, and who are the good, whom we venture to divide by a

hard and fast line; and in which of the two classes should we place

ourselves and our friends? May we not suspect that we are making

differences of kind, because we are unable to imagine differences

of degree?--putting the whole human race into heaven or hell for the

greater convenience of logical division? Are we not at the same time

describing them both in superlatives, only that we may satisfy the

demands of rhetoric? What is that pain which does not become deadened

after a thousand years? or what is the nature of that pleasure or

happiness which never wearies by monotony? Earthly pleasures and pains

are short in proportion as they are keen; of any others which are both

intense and lasting we have no experience, and can form no idea.

The words or figures of speech which we use are not consistent with

themselves. For are we not imagining Heaven under the similitude of

a church, and Hell as a prison, or perhaps a madhouse or chamber of

horrors? And yet to beings constituted as we are, the monotony of

singing psalms would be as great an infliction as the pains of hell,

and might be even pleasantly interrupted by them. Where are the actions

worthy of rewards greater than those which are conferred on the greatest

benefactors of mankind? And where are the crimes which according to

Plato's merciful reckoning,--more merciful, at any rate, than the

eternal damnation of so-called Christian teachers,--for every ten years

in this life deserve a hundred of punishment in the life to come?

We should be ready to die of pity if we could see the least of the

sufferings which the writers of Infernos and Purgatorios have attributed

to the damned. Yet these joys and terrors seem hardly to exercise an

appreciable influence over the lives of men. The wicked man when old,

is not, as Plato supposes (Republic), more agitated by the terrors of

another world when he is nearer to them, nor the good in an ecstasy at

the joys of which he is soon to be the partaker. Age numbs the sense of

both worlds; and the habit of life is strongest in death. Even the dying

mother is dreaming of her lost children as they were forty or fifty

years before, 'pattering over the boards,' not of reunion with them

in another state of being. Most persons when the last hour comes are

resigned to the order of nature and the will of God. They are not

thinking of Dante's Inferno or Paradiso, or of the Pilgrim's Progress.

Heaven and hell are not realities to them, but words or ideas; the

outward symbols of some great mystery, they hardly know what. Many

noble poems and pictures have been suggested by the traditional

representations of them, which have been fixed in forms of art and can

no longer be altered. Many sermons have been filled with descriptions

of celestial or infernal mansions. But hardly even in childhood did the

thought of heaven and hell supply the motives of our actions, or at any

time seriously affect the substance of our belief.

8. Another life must be described, if at all, in forms of thought

and not of sense. To draw pictures of heaven and hell, whether in the

language of Scripture or any other, adds nothing to our real knowledge,

but may perhaps disguise our ignorance. The truest conception which

we can form of a future life is a state of progress or education--a

progress from evil to good, from ignorance to knowledge. To this we are

led by the analogy of the present life, in which we see different races

and nations of men, and different men and women of the same nation,

in various states or stages of cultivation; some more and some less

developed, and all of them capable of improvement under favourable

circumstances. There are punishments too of children when they are

growing up inflicted by their parents, of elder offenders which are

imposed by the law of the land, of all men at all times of life,

which are attached by the laws of nature to the performance of certain

actions. All these punishments are really educational; that is to say,

they are not intended to retaliate on the offender, but to teach him

a lesson. Also there is an element of chance in them, which is another

name for our ignorance of the laws of nature. There is evil too

inseparable from good (compare Lysis); not always punished here, as good

is not always rewarded. It is capable of being indefinitely diminished;

and as knowledge increases, the element of chance may more and more

disappear.

For we do not argue merely from the analogy of the present state of this

world to another, but from the analogy of a probable future to which we

are tending. The greatest changes of which we have had experience as yet

are due to our increasing knowledge of history and of nature. They

have been produced by a few minds appearing in three or four favoured

nations, in a comparatively short period of time. May we be allowed to

imagine the minds of men everywhere working together during many ages

for the completion of our knowledge? May not the science of physiology

transform the world? Again, the majority of mankind have really

experienced some moral improvement; almost every one feels that he has

tendencies to good, and is capable of becoming better. And these germs

of good are often found to be developed by new circumstances, like

stunted trees when transplanted to a better soil. The differences

between the savage and the civilized man, or between the civilized

man in old and new countries, may be indefinitely increased. The first

difference is the effect of a few thousand, the second of a few hundred

years. We congratulate ourselves that slavery has become industry;

that law and constitutional government have superseded despotism and

violence; that an ethical religion has taken the place of Fetichism.

There may yet come a time when the many may be as well off as the few;

when no one will be weighed down by excessive toil; when the necessity

of providing for the body will not interfere with mental improvement;

when the physical frame may be strengthened and developed; and the

religion of all men may become a reasonable service.

Nothing therefore, either in the present state of man or in the

tendencies of the future, as far as we can entertain conjecture of them,

would lead us to suppose that God governs us vindictively in this

world, and therefore we have no reason to infer that he will govern us

vindictively in another. The true argument from analogy is not, 'This

life is a mixed state of justice and injustice, of great waste, of

sudden casualties, of disproportionate punishments, and therefore the

like inconsistencies, irregularities, injustices are to be expected

in another;' but 'This life is subject to law, and is in a state of

progress, and therefore law and progress may be believed to be the

governing principles of another.' All the analogies of this world would

be against unmeaning punishments inflicted a hundred or a thousand years

after an offence had been committed. Suffering there might be as a

part of education, but not hopeless or protracted; as there might be

a retrogression of individuals or of bodies of men, yet not such as to

interfere with a plan for the improvement of the whole (compare Laws.)

9. But some one will say: That we cannot reason from the seen to the

unseen, and that we are creating another world after the image of this,

just as men in former ages have created gods in their own likeness. And

we, like the companions of Socrates, may feel discouraged at hearing

our favourite 'argument from analogy' thus summarily disposed of. Like

himself, too, we may adduce other arguments in which he seems to have

anticipated us, though he expresses them in different language. For we

feel that the soul partakes of the ideal and invisible; and can never

fall into the error of confusing the external circumstances of man with

his higher self; or his origin with his nature. It is as repugnant to

us as it was to him to imagine that our moral ideas are to be attributed

only to cerebral forces. The value of a human soul, like the value of a

man's life to himself, is inestimable, and cannot be reckoned in earthly

or material things. The human being alone has the consciousness of truth

and justice and love, which is the consciousness of God. And the soul

becoming more conscious of these, becomes more conscious of her own

immortality.

10. The last ground of our belief in immortality, and the strongest, is

the perfection of the divine nature. The mere fact of the existence of

God does not tend to show the continued existence of man. An evil God

or an indifferent God might have had the power, but not the will, to

preserve us. He might have regarded us as fitted to minister to his

service by a succession of existences,--like the animals, without

attributing to each soul an incomparable value. But if he is perfect,

he must will that all rational beings should partake of that perfection

which he himself is. In the words of the Timaeus, he is good, and

therefore he desires that all other things should be as like himself as

possible. And the manner in which he accomplishes this is by permitting

evil, or rather degrees of good, which are otherwise called evil.

For all progress is good relatively to the past, and yet may be

comparatively evil when regarded in the light of the future. Good and

evil are relative terms, and degrees of evil are merely the negative

aspect of degrees of good. Of the absolute goodness of any finite nature

we can form no conception; we are all of us in process of transition

from one degree of good or evil to another. The difficulties which

are urged about the origin or existence of evil are mere dialectical

puzzles, standing in the same relation to Christian philosophy as the

puzzles of the Cynics and Megarians to the philosophy of Plato. They

arise out of the tendency of the human mind to regard good and evil both

as relative and absolute; just as the riddles about motion are to be

explained by the double conception of space or matter, which the human

mind has the power of regarding either as continuous or discrete.

In speaking of divine perfection, we mean to say that God is just and

true and loving, the author of order and not of disorder, of good and

not of evil. Or rather, that he is justice, that he is truth, that he

is love, that he is order, that he is the very progress of which we were

speaking; and that wherever these qualities are present, whether in the

human soul or in the order of nature, there is God. We might still see

him everywhere, if we had not been mistakenly seeking for him apart from

us, instead of in us; away from the laws of nature, instead of in

them. And we become united to him not by mystical absorption, but by

partaking, whether consciously or unconsciously, of that truth and

justice and love which he himself is.

Thus the belief in the immortality of the soul rests at last on the

belief in God. If there is a good and wise God, then there is a progress

of mankind towards perfection; and if there is no progress of men

towards perfection, then there is no good and wise God. We cannot

suppose that the moral government of God of which we see the beginnings

in the world and in ourselves will cease when we pass out of life.

11. Considering the 'feebleness of the human faculties and the

uncertainty of the subject,' we are inclined to believe that the fewer

our words the better. At the approach of death there is not much said;

good men are too honest to go out of the world professing more than they

know. There is perhaps no important subject about which, at any time,

even religious people speak so little to one another. In the fulness

of life the thought of death is mostly awakened by the sight or

recollection of the death of others rather than by the prospect of our

own. We must also acknowledge that there are degrees of the belief in

immortality, and many forms in which it presents itself to the mind.

Some persons will say no more than that they trust in God, and that they

leave all to Him. It is a great part of true religion not to pretend

to know more than we do. Others when they quit this world are comforted

with the hope 'That they will see and know their friends in heaven.' But

it is better to leave them in the hands of God and to be assured that

'no evil shall touch them.' There are others again to whom the belief in

a divine personality has ceased to have any longer a meaning; yet they

are satisfied that the end of all is not here, but that something still

remains to us, 'and some better thing for the good than for the evil.'

They are persuaded, in spite of their theological nihilism, that the

ideas of justice and truth and holiness and love are realities. They

cherish an enthusiastic devotion to the first principles of morality.

Through these they see, or seem to see, darkly, and in a figure, that

the soul is immortal.

But besides differences of theological opinion which must ever prevail

about things unseen, the hope of immortality is weaker or stronger in

men at one time of life than at another; it even varies from day to day.

It comes and goes; the mind, like the sky, is apt to be overclouded.

Other generations of men may have sometimes lived under an 'eclipse of

faith,' to us the total disappearance of it might be compared to the

'sun falling from heaven.' And we may sometimes have to begin again and

acquire the belief for ourselves; or to win it back again when it is

lost. It is really weakest in the hour of death. For Nature, like a kind

mother or nurse, lays us to sleep without frightening us; physicians,

who are the witnesses of such scenes, say that under ordinary

circumstances there is no fear of the future. Often, as Plato tells

us, death is accompanied 'with pleasure.' (Tim.) When the end is still

uncertain, the cry of many a one has been, 'Pray, that I may be taken.'

The last thoughts even of the best men depend chiefly on the accidents

of their bodily state. Pain soon overpowers the desire of life; old age,

like the child, is laid to sleep almost in a moment. The long experience

of life will often destroy the interest which mankind have in it. So

various are the feelings with which different persons draw near to

death; and still more various the forms in which imagination clothes it.

For this alternation of feeling compare the Old Testament,--Psalm vi.;

Isaiah; Eccles.

12. When we think of God and of man in his relation to God; of the

imperfection of our present state and yet of the progress which is

observable in the history of the world and of the human mind; of the

depth and power of our moral ideas which seem to partake of the very

nature of God Himself; when we consider the contrast between the

physical laws to which we are subject and the higher law which raises us

above them and is yet a part of them; when we reflect on our capacity of

becoming the 'spectators of all time and all existence,' and of framing

in our own minds the ideal of a perfect Being; when we see how the

human mind in all the higher religions of the world, including Buddhism,

notwithstanding some aberrations, has tended towards such a belief--we

have reason to think that our destiny is different from that of animals;

and though we cannot altogether shut out the childish fear that the soul

upon leaving the body may 'vanish into thin air,' we have still, so far

as the nature of the subject admits, a hope of immortality with which we

comfort ourselves on sufficient grounds. The denial of the belief takes

the heart out of human life; it lowers men to the level of the material.

As Goethe also says, 'He is dead even in this world who has no belief in

another.'

13. It is well also that we should sometimes think of the forms of

thought under which the idea of immortality is most naturally presented

to us. It is clear that to our minds the risen soul can no longer be

described, as in a picture, by the symbol of a creature half-bird,

half-human, nor in any other form of sense. The multitude of angels, as

in Milton, singing the Almighty's praises, are a noble image, and may

furnish a theme for the poet or the painter, but they are no longer an

adequate expression of the kingdom of God which is within us. Neither is

there any mansion, in this world or another, in which the departed can

be imagined to dwell and carry on their occupations. When this earthly

tabernacle is dissolved, no other habitation or building can take them

in: it is in the language of ideas only that we speak of them.

First of all there is the thought of rest and freedom from pain; they

have gone home, as the common saying is, and the cares of this world

touch them no more. Secondly, we may imagine them as they were at

their best and brightest, humbly fulfilling their daily round of

duties--selfless, childlike, unaffected by the world; when the eye was

single and the whole body seemed to be full of light; when the mind was

clear and saw into the purposes of God. Thirdly, we may think of them

as possessed by a great love of God and man, working out His will at a

further stage in the heavenly pilgrimage. And yet we acknowledge that

these are the things which eye hath not seen nor ear heard and therefore

it hath not entered into the heart of man in any sensible manner to

conceive them. Fourthly, there may have been some moments in our own

lives when we have risen above ourselves, or been conscious of our truer

selves, in which the will of God has superseded our wills, and we have

entered into communion with Him, and been partakers for a brief season

of the Divine truth and love, in which like Christ we have been inspired

to utter the prayer, 'I in them, and thou in me, that we may be all made

perfect in one.' These precious moments, if we have ever known them, are

the nearest approach which we can make to the idea of immortality.

14. Returning now to the earlier stage of human thought which is

represented by the writings of Plato, we find that many of the

same questions have already arisen: there is the same tendency to

materialism; the same inconsistency in the application of the idea of

mind; the same doubt whether the soul is to be regarded as a cause or as

an effect; the same falling back on moral convictions. In the Phaedo the

soul is conscious of her divine nature, and the separation from the body

which has been commenced in this life is perfected in another. Beginning

in mystery, Socrates, in the intermediate part of the Dialogue, attempts

to bring the doctrine of a future life into connection with his theory

of knowledge. In proportion as he succeeds in this, the individual seems

to disappear in a more general notion of the soul; the contemplation of

ideas 'under the form of eternity' takes the place of past and future

states of existence. His language may be compared to that of some modern

philosophers, who speak of eternity, not in the sense of perpetual

duration of time, but as an ever-present quality of the soul. Yet at

the conclusion of the Dialogue, having 'arrived at the end of the

intellectual world' (Republic), he replaces the veil of mythology,

and describes the soul and her attendant genius in the language of the

mysteries or of a disciple of Zoroaster. Nor can we fairly demand of

Plato a consistency which is wanting among ourselves, who acknowledge

that another world is beyond the range of human thought, and yet are

always seeking to represent the mansions of heaven or hell in

the colours of the painter, or in the descriptions of the poet or

rhetorician.

15. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul was not new to the

Greeks in the age of Socrates, but, like the unity of God, had a

foundation in the popular belief. The old Homeric notion of a gibbering

ghost flitting away to Hades; or of a few illustrious heroes enjoying

the isles of the blest; or of an existence divided between the two; or

the Hesiodic, of righteous spirits, who become guardian angels,--had

given place in the mysteries and the Orphic poets to representations,

partly fanciful, of a future state of rewards and punishments. (Laws.)

The reticence of the Greeks on public occasions and in some part of

their literature respecting this 'underground' religion, is not to be

taken as a measure of the diffusion of such beliefs. If Pericles in the

funeral oration is silent on the consolations of immortality, the

poet Pindar and the tragedians on the other hand constantly assume the

continued existence of the dead in an upper or under world. Darius

and Laius are still alive; Antigone will be dear to her brethren after

death; the way to the palace of Cronos is found by those who 'have

thrice departed from evil.' The tragedy of the Greeks is not 'rounded'

by this life, but is deeply set in decrees of fate and mysterious

workings of powers beneath the earth. In the caricature of Aristophanes

there is also a witness to the common sentiment. The Ionian and

Pythagorean philosophies arose, and some new elements were added to the

popular belief. The individual must find an expression as well as the

world. Either the soul was supposed to exist in the form of a magnet, or

of a particle of fire, or of light, or air, or water; or of a number or

of a harmony of number; or to be or have, like the stars, a principle

of motion (Arist. de Anim.). At length Anaxagoras, hardly distinguishing

between life and mind, or between mind human and divine, attained

the pure abstraction; and this, like the other abstractions of Greek

philosophy, sank deep into the human intelligence. The opposition of

the intelligible and the sensible, and of God to the world, supplied an

analogy which assisted in the separation of soul and body. If ideas were

separable from phenomena, mind was also separable from matter; if the

ideas were eternal, the mind that conceived them was eternal too. As

the unity of God was more distinctly acknowledged, the conception of the

human soul became more developed. The succession, or alternation of

life and death, had occurred to Heracleitus. The Eleatic Parmenides had

stumbled upon the modern thesis, that 'thought and being are the same.'

The Eastern belief in transmigration defined the sense of individuality;

and some, like Empedocles, fancied that the blood which they had shed

in another state of being was crying against them, and that for thirty

thousand years they were to be 'fugitives and vagabonds upon the earth.'

The desire of recognizing a lost mother or love or friend in the world

below (Phaedo) was a natural feeling which, in that age as well as in

every other, has given distinctness to the hope of immortality. Nor were

ethical considerations wanting, partly derived from the necessity of

punishing the greater sort of criminals, whom no avenging power of this

world could reach. The voice of conscience, too, was heard reminding

the good man that he was not altogether innocent. (Republic.) To these

indistinct longings and fears an expression was given in the mysteries

and Orphic poets: a 'heap of books' (Republic), passing under the names

of Musaeus and Orpheus in Plato's time, were filled with notions of an

under-world.

16. Yet after all the belief in the individuality of the soul after

death had but a feeble hold on the Greek mind. Like the personality of

God, the personality of man in a future state was not inseparably bound

up with the reality of his existence. For the distinction between the

personal and impersonal, and also between the divine and human, was far

less marked to the Greek than to ourselves. And as Plato readily passes

from the notion of the good to that of God, he also passes almost

imperceptibly to himself and his reader from the future life of the

individual soul to the eternal being of the absolute soul. There has

been a clearer statement and a clearer denial of the belief in modern

times than is found in early Greek philosophy, and hence the comparative

silence on the whole subject which is often remarked in ancient writers,

and particularly in Aristotle. For Plato and Aristotle are not further

removed in their teaching about the immortality of the soul than they

are in their theory of knowledge.

17. Living in an age when logic was beginning to mould human thought,

Plato naturally cast his belief in immortality into a logical form. And

when we consider how much the doctrine of ideas was also one of words,

it is not surprising that he should have fallen into verbal fallacies:

early logic is always mistaking the truth of the form for the truth of

the matter. It is easy to see that the alternation of opposites is

not the same as the generation of them out of each other; and that the

generation of them out of each other, which is the first argument in

the Phaedo, is at variance with their mutual exclusion of each other,

whether in themselves or in us, which is the last. For even if we admit

the distinction which he draws between the opposites and the things

which have the opposites, still individuals fall under the latter class;

and we have to pass out of the region of human hopes and fears to a

conception of an abstract soul which is the impersonation of the ideas.

Such a conception, which in Plato himself is but half expressed, is

unmeaning to us, and relative only to a particular stage in the history

of thought. The doctrine of reminiscence is also a fragment of a former

world, which has no place in the philosophy of modern times. But Plato

had the wonders of psychology just opening to him, and he had not the

explanation of them which is supplied by the analysis of language and

the history of the human mind. The question, 'Whence come our abstract

ideas?' he could only answer by an imaginary hypothesis. Nor is it

difficult to see that his crowning argument is purely verbal, and is

but the expression of an instinctive confidence put into a logical

form:--'The soul is immortal because it contains a principle of

imperishableness.' Nor does he himself seem at all to be aware that

nothing is added to human knowledge by his 'safe and simple answer,'

that beauty is the cause of the beautiful; and that he is merely

reasserting the Eleatic being 'divided by the Pythagorean numbers,'

against the Heracleitean doctrine of perpetual generation. The answer to

the 'very serious question' of generation and destruction is really

the denial of them. For this he would substitute, as in the Republic, a

system of ideas, tested, not by experience, but by their consequences,

and not explained by actual causes, but by a higher, that is, a more

general notion. Consistency with themselves is the only test which is to

be applied to them. (Republic, and Phaedo.)

18. To deal fairly with such arguments, they should be translated as

far as possible into their modern equivalents. 'If the ideas of men are

eternal, their souls are eternal, and if not the ideas, then not the

souls.' Such an argument stands nearly in the same relation to Plato and

his age, as the argument from the existence of God to immortality among

ourselves. 'If God exists, then the soul exists after death; and if

there is no God, there is no existence of the soul after death.' For

the ideas are to his mind the reality, the truth, the principle of

permanence, as well as of intelligence and order in the world. When

Simmias and Cebes say that they are more strongly persuaded of the

existence of ideas than they are of the immortality of the soul, they

represent fairly enough the order of thought in Greek philosophy. And we

might say in the same way that we are more certain of the existence

of God than we are of the immortality of the soul, and are led by the

belief in the one to a belief in the other. The parallel, as Socrates

would say, is not perfect, but agrees in as far as the mind in either

case is regarded as dependent on something above and beyond herself. The

analogy may even be pressed a step further: 'We are more certain of our

ideas of truth and right than we are of the existence of God, and

are led on in the order of thought from one to the other.' Or more

correctly: 'The existence of right and truth is the existence of God,

and can never for a moment be separated from Him.'

19. The main argument of the Phaedo is derived from the existence of

eternal ideas of which the soul is a partaker; the other argument of the

alternation of opposites is replaced by this. And there have not been

wanting philosophers of the idealist school who have imagined that the

doctrine of the immortality of the soul is a theory of knowledge, and

that in what has preceded Plato is accommodating himself to the popular

belief. Such a view can only be elicited from the Phaedo by what may

be termed the transcendental method of interpretation, and is obviously

inconsistent with the Gorgias and the Republic. Those who maintain

it are immediately compelled to renounce the shadow which they have

grasped, as a play of words only. But the truth is, that Plato in his

argument for the immortality of the soul has collected many elements of

proof or persuasion, ethical and mythological as well as dialectical,

which are not easily to be reconciled with one another; and he is as

much in earnest about his doctrine of retribution, which is repeated

in all his more ethical writings, as about his theory of knowledge.

And while we may fairly translate the dialectical into the language of

Hegel, and the religious and mythological into the language of Dante or

Bunyan, the ethical speaks to us still in the same voice, and appeals to

a common feeling.

20. Two arguments of this ethical character occur in the Phaedo. The

first may be described as the aspiration of the soul after another state

of being. Like the Oriental or Christian mystic, the philosopher is

seeking to withdraw from impurities of sense, to leave the world and the

things of the world, and to find his higher self. Plato recognizes in

these aspirations the foretaste of immortality; as Butler and Addison in

modern times have argued, the one from the moral tendencies of mankind,

the other from the progress of the soul towards perfection. In using

this argument Plato has certainly confused the soul which has left the

body, with the soul of the good and wise. (Compare Republic.) Such a

confusion was natural, and arose partly out of the antithesis of soul

and body. The soul in her own essence, and the soul 'clothed upon' with

virtues and graces, were easily interchanged with one another, because

on a subject which passes expression the distinctions of language can

hardly be maintained.

21. The ethical proof of the immortality of the soul is derived from the

necessity of retribution. The wicked would be too well off if their

evil deeds came to an end. It is not to be supposed that an Ardiaeus,

an Archelaus, an Ismenias could ever have suffered the penalty of

their crimes in this world. The manner in which this retribution is

accomplished Plato represents under the figures of mythology. Doubtless

he felt that it was easier to improve than to invent, and that in

religion especially the traditional form was required in order to give

verisimilitude to the myth. The myth too is far more probable to that

age than to ours, and may fairly be regarded as 'one guess among

many' about the nature of the earth, which he cleverly supports by the

indications of geology. Not that he insists on the absolute truth of

his own particular notions: 'no man of sense will be confident in such

matters; but he will be confident that something of the kind is true.'

As in other passages (Gorg., Tim., compare Crito), he wins belief for

his fictions by the moderation of his statements; he does not, like

Dante or Swedenborg, allow himself to be deceived by his own creations.

The Dialogue must be read in the light of the situation. And first of

all we are struck by the calmness of the scene. Like the spectators

at the time, we cannot pity Socrates; his mien and his language are

so noble and fearless. He is the same that he ever was, but milder and

gentler, and he has in no degree lost his interest in dialectics;

he will not forego the delight of an argument in compliance with the

jailer's intimation that he should not heat himself with talking. At

such a time he naturally expresses the hope of his life, that he has

been a true mystic and not a mere retainer or wand-bearer: and he refers

to passages of his personal history. To his old enemies the Comic

poets, and to the proceedings on the trial, he alludes playfully; but he

vividly remembers the disappointment which he felt in reading the books

of Anaxagoras. The return of Xanthippe and his children indicates that

the philosopher is not 'made of oak or rock.' Some other traits of his

character may be noted; for example, the courteous manner in which

he inclines his head to the last objector, or the ironical touch, 'Me

already, as the tragic poet would say, the voice of fate calls;' or

the depreciation of the arguments with which 'he comforted himself and

them;' or his fear of 'misology;' or his references to Homer; or the

playful smile with which he 'talks like a book' about greater and less;

or the allusion to the possibility of finding another teacher among

barbarous races (compare Polit.); or the mysterious reference to another

science (mathematics?) of generation and destruction for which he is

vainly feeling. There is no change in him; only now he is invested with

a sort of sacred character, as the prophet or priest of Apollo the God

of the festival, in whose honour he first of all composes a hymn,

and then like the swan pours forth his dying lay. Perhaps the extreme

elevation of Socrates above his own situation, and the ordinary

interests of life (compare his jeu d'esprit about his burial, in which

for a moment he puts on the 'Silenus mask'), create in the mind of the

reader an impression stronger than could be derived from arguments that

such a one has in him 'a principle which does not admit of death.'

The other persons of the Dialogue may be considered under two heads: (1)

private friends; (2) the respondents in the argument.

First there is Crito, who has been already introduced to us in the

Euthydemus and the Crito; he is the equal in years of Socrates, and

stands in quite a different relation to him from his younger disciples.

He is a man of the world who is rich and prosperous (compare the jest

in the Euthydemus), the best friend of Socrates, who wants to know his

commands, in whose presence he talks to his family, and who performs

the last duty of closing his eyes. It is observable too that, as in the

Euthydemus, Crito shows no aptitude for philosophical discussions. Nor

among the friends of Socrates must the jailer be forgotten, who seems

to have been introduced by Plato in order to show the impression made

by the extraordinary man on the common. The gentle nature of the man

is indicated by his weeping at the announcement of his errand and then

turning away, and also by the words of Socrates to his disciples: 'How

charming the man is! since I have been in prison he has been always

coming to me, and is as good as could be to me.' We are reminded

too that he has retained this gentle nature amid scenes of death and

violence by the contrasts which he draws between the behaviour of

Socrates and of others when about to die.

Another person who takes no part in the philosophical discussion is the

excitable Apollodorus, the same who, in the Symposium, of which he is

the narrator, is called 'the madman,' and who testifies his grief by the

most violent emotions. Phaedo is also present, the 'beloved disciple'

as he may be termed, who is described, if not 'leaning on his bosom,'

as seated next to Socrates, who is playing with his hair. He too, like

Apollodorus, takes no part in the discussion, but he loves above all

things to hear and speak of Socrates after his death. The calmness

of his behaviour, veiling his face when he can no longer restrain

his tears, contrasts with the passionate outcries of the other. At a

particular point the argument is described as falling before the attack

of Simmias. A sort of despair is introduced in the minds of the company.

The effect of this is heightened by the description of Phaedo, who has

been the eye-witness of the scene, and by the sympathy of his Phliasian

auditors who are beginning to think 'that they too can never trust an

argument again.' And the intense interest of the company is communicated

not only to the first auditors, but to us who in a distant country read

the narrative of their emotions after more than two thousand years have

passed away.

The two principal interlocutors are Simmias and Cebes, the disciples of

Philolaus the Pythagorean philosopher of Thebes. Simmias is described

in the Phaedrus as fonder of an argument than any man living; and

Cebes, although finally persuaded by Socrates, is said to be the most

incredulous of human beings. It is Cebes who at the commencement of

the Dialogue asks why 'suicide is held to be unlawful,' and who

first supplies the doctrine of recollection in confirmation of the

pre-existence of the soul. It is Cebes who urges that the pre-existence

does not necessarily involve the future existence of the soul, as is

shown by the illustration of the weaver and his coat. Simmias, on the

other hand, raises the question about harmony and the lyre, which is

naturally put into the mouth of a Pythagorean disciple. It is Simmias,

too, who first remarks on the uncertainty of human knowledge, and

only at last concedes to the argument such a qualified approval as is

consistent with the feebleness of the human faculties. Cebes is the

deeper and more consecutive thinker, Simmias more superficial and

rhetorical; they are distinguished in much the same manner as Adeimantus

and Glaucon in the Republic.

Other persons, Menexenus, Ctesippus, Lysis, are old friends; Evenus

has been already satirized in the Apology; Aeschines and Epigenes

were present at the trial; Euclid and Terpsion will reappear in the

Introduction to the Theaetetus, Hermogenes has already appeared in

the Cratylus. No inference can fairly be drawn from the absence of

Aristippus, nor from the omission of Xenophon, who at the time of

Socrates' death was in Asia. The mention of Plato's own absence seems

like an expression of sorrow, and may, perhaps, be an indication that

the report of the conversation is not to be taken literally.

The place of the Dialogue in the series is doubtful. The doctrine of

ideas is certainly carried beyond the Socratic point of view; in no

other of the writings of Plato is the theory of them so completely

developed. Whether the belief in immortality can be attributed to

Socrates or not is uncertain; the silence of the Memorabilia, and of the

earlier Dialogues of Plato, is an argument to the contrary. Yet in the

Cyropaedia Xenophon has put language into the mouth of the dying Cyrus

which recalls the Phaedo, and may have been derived from the teaching of

Socrates. It may be fairly urged that the greatest religious interest of

mankind could not have been wholly ignored by one who passed his life in

fulfilling the commands of an oracle, and who recognized a Divine plan

in man and nature. (Xen. Mem.) And the language of the Apology and of

the Crito confirms this view.

The Phaedo is not one of the Socratic Dialogues of Plato; nor, on the

other hand, can it be assigned to that later stage of the Platonic

writings at which the doctrine of ideas appears to be forgotten. It

belongs rather to the intermediate period of the Platonic philosophy,

which roughly corresponds to the Phaedrus, Gorgias, Republic,

Theaetetus. Without pretending to determine the real time of their

composition, the Symposium, Meno, Euthyphro, Apology, Phaedo may be

conveniently read by us in this order as illustrative of the life of

Socrates. Another chain may be formed of the Meno, Phaedrus, Phaedo,

in which the immortality of the soul is connected with the doctrine of

ideas. In the Meno the theory of ideas is based on the ancient belief in

transmigration, which reappears again in the Phaedrus as well as in the

Republic and Timaeus, and in all of them is connected with a doctrine of

retribution. In the Phaedrus the immortality of the soul is supposed to

rest on the conception of the soul as a principle of motion, whereas in

the Republic the argument turns on the natural continuance of the soul,

which, if not destroyed by her own proper evil, can hardly be destroyed

by any other. The soul of man in the Timaeus is derived from the Supreme

Creator, and either returns after death to her kindred star, or descends

into the lower life of an animal. The Apology expresses the same view

as the Phaedo, but with less confidence; there the probability of death

being a long sleep is not excluded. The Theaetetus also describes, in a

digression, the desire of the soul to fly away and be with God--'and to

fly to him is to be like him.' The Symposium may be observed to

resemble as well as to differ from the Phaedo. While the first notion of

immortality is only in the way of natural procreation or of posthumous

fame and glory, the higher revelation of beauty, like the good in the

Republic, is the vision of the eternal idea. So deeply rooted in

Plato's mind is the belief in immortality; so various are the forms of

expression which he employs.

As in several other Dialogues, there is more of system in the Phaedo

than appears at first sight. The succession of arguments is based on

previous philosophies; beginning with the mysteries and the Heracleitean

alternation of opposites, and proceeding to the Pythagorean harmony and

transmigration; making a step by the aid of Platonic reminiscence, and

a further step by the help of the nous of Anaxagoras; until at last we

rest in the conviction that the soul is inseparable from the ideas,

and belongs to the world of the invisible and unknown. Then, as in

the Gorgias or Republic, the curtain falls, and the veil of mythology

descends upon the argument. After the confession of Socrates that he is

an interested party, and the acknowledgment that no man of sense will

think the details of his narrative true, but that something of the kind

is true, we return from speculation to practice. He is himself more

confident of immortality than he is of his own arguments; and the

confidence which he expresses is less strong than that which his

cheerfulness and composure in death inspire in us.

Difficulties of two kinds occur in the Phaedo--one kind to be explained

out of contemporary philosophy, the other not admitting of an entire

solution. (1) The difficulty which Socrates says that he experienced in

explaining generation and corruption; the assumption of hypotheses which

proceed from the less general to the more general, and are tested by

their consequences; the puzzle about greater and less; the resort to the

method of ideas, which to us appear only abstract terms,--these are to

be explained out of the position of Socrates and Plato in the history of

philosophy. They were living in a twilight between the sensible and

the intellectual world, and saw no way of connecting them. They

could neither explain the relation of ideas to phenomena, nor their

correlation to one another. The very idea of relation or comparison was

embarrassing to them. Yet in this intellectual uncertainty they had a

conception of a proof from results, and of a moral truth, which remained

unshaken amid the questionings of philosophy. (2) The other is a

difficulty which is touched upon in the Republic as well as in the

Phaedo, and is common to modern and ancient philosophy. Plato is not

altogether satisfied with his safe and simple method of ideas. He wants

to have proved to him by facts that all things are for the best, and

that there is one mind or design which pervades them all. But this

'power of the best' he is unable to explain; and therefore takes refuge

in universal ideas. And are not we at this day seeking to discover that

which Socrates in a glass darkly foresaw?

Some resemblances to the Greek drama may be noted in all the Dialogues

of Plato. The Phaedo is the tragedy of which Socrates is the protagonist

and Simmias and Cebes the secondary performers, standing to them in the

same relation as to Glaucon and Adeimantus in the Republic. No Dialogue

has a greater unity of subject and feeling. Plato has certainly

fulfilled the condition of Greek, or rather of all art, which requires

that scenes of death and suffering should be clothed in beauty. The

gathering of the friends at the commencement of the Dialogue, the

dismissal of Xanthippe, whose presence would have been out of place at

a philosophical discussion, but who returns again with her children to

take a final farewell, the dejection of the audience at the temporary

overthrow of the argument, the picture of Socrates playing with the

hair of Phaedo, the final scene in which Socrates alone retains his

composure--are masterpieces of art. And the chorus at the end might have

interpreted the feeling of the play: 'There can no evil happen to a good

man in life or death.'

'The art of concealing art' is nowhere more perfect than in those

writings of Plato which describe the trial and death of Socrates. Their

charm is their simplicity, which gives them verisimilitude; and yet

they touch, as if incidentally, and because they were suitable to the

occasion, on some of the deepest truths of philosophy. There is nothing

in any tragedy, ancient or modern, nothing in poetry or history (with

one exception), like the last hours of Socrates in Plato. The master

could not be more fitly occupied at such a time than in discoursing of

immortality; nor the disciples more divinely consoled. The arguments,

taken in the spirit and not in the letter, are our arguments; and

Socrates by anticipation may be even thought to refute some 'eccentric

notions; current in our own age. For there are philosophers among

ourselves who do not seem to understand how much stronger is the power

of intelligence, or of the best, than of Atlas, or mechanical force.

How far the words attributed to Socrates were actually uttered by him we

forbear to ask; for no answer can be given to this question. And it

is better to resign ourselves to the feeling of a great work, than to

linger among critical uncertainties.

PHAEDO

PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE:

Phaedo, who is the narrator of the dialogue to Echecrates of Phlius.

Socrates, Apollodorus, Simmias, Cebes, Crito and an Attendant of the

Prison.

SCENE: The Prison of Socrates.

PLACE OF THE NARRATION: Phlius.

ECHECRATES: Were you yourself, Phaedo, in the prison with Socrates on

the day when he drank the poison?

PHAEDO: Yes, Echecrates, I was.

ECHECRATES: I should so like to hear about his death. What did he say in

his last hours? We were informed that he died by taking poison, but no

one knew anything more; for no Phliasian ever goes to Athens now, and it

is a long time since any stranger from Athens has found his way hither;

so that we had no clear account.

PHAEDO: Did you not hear of the proceedings at the trial?

ECHECRATES: Yes; some one told us about the trial, and we could not

understand why, having been condemned, he should have been put to death,

not at the time, but long afterwards. What was the reason of this?

PHAEDO: An accident, Echecrates: the stern of the ship which the

Athenians send to Delos happened to have been crowned on the day before

he was tried.

ECHECRATES: What is this ship?

PHAEDO: It is the ship in which, according to Athenian tradition,

Theseus went to Crete when he took with him the fourteen youths, and was

the saviour of them and of himself. And they were said to have vowed

to Apollo at the time, that if they were saved they would send a yearly

mission to Delos. Now this custom still continues, and the whole period

of the voyage to and from Delos, beginning when the priest of Apollo

crowns the stern of the ship, is a holy season, during which the city is

not allowed to be polluted by public executions; and when the vessel

is detained by contrary winds, the time spent in going and returning

is very considerable. As I was saying, the ship was crowned on the day

before the trial, and this was the reason why Socrates lay in prison and

was not put to death until long after he was condemned.

ECHECRATES: What was the manner of his death, Phaedo? What was said or

done? And which of his friends were with him? Or did the authorities

forbid them to be present--so that he had no friends near him when he

died?

PHAEDO: No; there were several of them with him.

ECHECRATES: If you have nothing to do, I wish that you would tell me

what passed, as exactly as you can.

PHAEDO: I have nothing at all to do, and will try to gratify your wish.

To be reminded of Socrates is always the greatest delight to me, whether

I speak myself or hear another speak of him.

ECHECRATES: You will have listeners who are of the same mind with you,

and I hope that you will be as exact as you can.

PHAEDO: I had a singular feeling at being in his company. For I

could hardly believe that I was present at the death of a friend, and

therefore I did not pity him, Echecrates; he died so fearlessly, and

his words and bearing were so noble and gracious, that to me he appeared

blessed. I thought that in going to the other world he could not be

without a divine call, and that he would be happy, if any man ever was,

when he arrived there, and therefore I did not pity him as might have

seemed natural at such an hour. But I had not the pleasure which I

usually feel in philosophical discourse (for philosophy was the theme

of which we spoke). I was pleased, but in the pleasure there was also a

strange admixture of pain; for I reflected that he was soon to die, and

this double feeling was shared by us all; we were laughing and weeping

by turns, especially the excitable Apollodorus--you know the sort of

man?

ECHECRATES: Yes.

PHAEDO: He was quite beside himself; and I and all of us were greatly

moved.

ECHECRATES: Who were present?

PHAEDO: Of native Athenians there were, besides Apollodorus, Critobulus

and his father Crito, Hermogenes, Epigenes, Aeschines, Antisthenes;

likewise Ctesippus of the deme of Paeania, Menexenus, and some others;

Plato, if I am not mistaken, was ill.

ECHECRATES: Were there any strangers?

PHAEDO: Yes, there were; Simmias the Theban, and Cebes, and Phaedondes;

Euclid and Terpison, who came from Megara.

ECHECRATES: And was Aristippus there, and Cleombrotus?

PHAEDO: No, they were said to be in Aegina.

ECHECRATES: Any one else?

PHAEDO: I think that these were nearly all.

ECHECRATES: Well, and what did you talk about?

PHAEDO: I will begin at the beginning, and endeavour to repeat the

entire conversation. On the previous days we had been in the habit of

assembling early in the morning at the court in which the trial took

place, and which is not far from the prison. There we used to wait

talking with one another until the opening of the doors (for they were

not opened very early); then we went in and generally passed the day

with Socrates. On the last morning we assembled sooner than usual,

having heard on the day before when we quitted the prison in the evening

that the sacred ship had come from Delos, and so we arranged to meet

very early at the accustomed place. On our arrival the jailer who

answered the door, instead of admitting us, came out and told us to stay

until he called us. 'For the Eleven,' he said, 'are now with Socrates;

they are taking off his chains, and giving orders that he is to die

to-day.' He soon returned and said that we might come in. On entering we

found Socrates just released from chains, and Xanthippe, whom you know,

sitting by him, and holding his child in her arms. When she saw us she

uttered a cry and said, as women will: 'O Socrates, this is the last

time that either you will converse with your friends, or they with you.'

Socrates turned to Crito and said: 'Crito, let some one take her home.'

Some of Crito's people accordingly led her away, crying out and beating

herself. And when she was gone, Socrates, sitting up on the couch, bent

and rubbed his leg, saying, as he was rubbing: How singular is the

thing called pleasure, and how curiously related to pain, which might be

thought to be the opposite of it; for they are never present to a man at

the same instant, and yet he who pursues either is generally compelled

to take the other; their bodies are two, but they are joined by a single

head. And I cannot help thinking that if Aesop had remembered them, he

would have made a fable about God trying to reconcile their strife, and

how, when he could not, he fastened their heads together; and this is

the reason why when one comes the other follows, as I know by my own

experience now, when after the pain in my leg which was caused by the

chain pleasure appears to succeed.

Upon this Cebes said: I am glad, Socrates, that you have mentioned the

name of Aesop. For it reminds me of a question which has been asked by

many, and was asked of me only the day before yesterday by Evenus the

poet--he will be sure to ask it again, and therefore if you would like

me to have an answer ready for him, you may as well tell me what I

should say to him:--he wanted to know why you, who never before wrote

a line of poetry, now that you are in prison are turning Aesop's fables

into verse, and also composing that hymn in honour of Apollo.

Tell him, Cebes, he replied, what is the truth--that I had no idea of

rivalling him or his poems; to do so, as I knew, would be no easy task.

But I wanted to see whether I could purge away a scruple which I felt

about the meaning of certain dreams. In the course of my life I have

often had intimations in dreams 'that I should compose music.' The same

dream came to me sometimes in one form, and sometimes in another, but

always saying the same or nearly the same words: 'Cultivate and make

music,' said the dream. And hitherto I had imagined that this was only

intended to exhort and encourage me in the study of philosophy, which

has been the pursuit of my life, and is the noblest and best of music.

The dream was bidding me do what I was already doing, in the same way

that the competitor in a race is bidden by the spectators to run when he

is already running. But I was not certain of this, for the dream might

have meant music in the popular sense of the word, and being under

sentence of death, and the festival giving me a respite, I thought that

it would be safer for me to satisfy the scruple, and, in obedience to

the dream, to compose a few verses before I departed. And first I made

a hymn in honour of the god of the festival, and then considering that a

poet, if he is really to be a poet, should not only put together words,

but should invent stories, and that I have no invention, I took some

fables of Aesop, which I had ready at hand and which I knew--they were

the first I came upon--and turned them into verse. Tell this to Evenus,

Cebes, and bid him be of good cheer; say that I would have him come

after me if he be a wise man, and not tarry; and that to-day I am likely

to be going, for the Athenians say that I must.

Simmias said: What a message for such a man! having been a frequent

companion of his I should say that, as far as I know him, he will never

take your advice unless he is obliged.

Why, said Socrates,--is not Evenus a philosopher?

I think that he is, said Simmias.

Then he, or any man who has the spirit of philosophy, will be willing to

die, but he will not take his own life, for that is held to be unlawful.

Here he changed his position, and put his legs off the couch on to the

ground, and during the rest of the conversation he remained sitting.

Why do you say, enquired Cebes, that a man ought not to take his own

life, but that the philosopher will be ready to follow the dying?

Socrates replied: And have you, Cebes and Simmias, who are the disciples

of Philolaus, never heard him speak of this?

Yes, but his language was obscure, Socrates.

My words, too, are only an echo; but there is no reason why I should not

repeat what I have heard: and indeed, as I am going to another place,

it is very meet for me to be thinking and talking of the nature of

the pilgrimage which I am about to make. What can I do better in the

interval between this and the setting of the sun?

Then tell me, Socrates, why is suicide held to be unlawful? as I have

certainly heard Philolaus, about whom you were just now asking, affirm

when he was staying with us at Thebes: and there are others who say the

same, although I have never understood what was meant by any of them.

Do not lose heart, replied Socrates, and the day may come when you will

understand. I suppose that you wonder why, when other things which are

evil may be good at certain times and to certain persons, death is to

be the only exception, and why, when a man is better dead, he is not

permitted to be his own benefactor, but must wait for the hand of

another.

Very true, said Cebes, laughing gently and speaking in his native

Boeotian.

I admit the appearance of inconsistency in what I am saying; but

there may not be any real inconsistency after all. There is a doctrine

whispered in secret that man is a prisoner who has no right to open

the door and run away; this is a great mystery which I do not quite

understand. Yet I too believe that the gods are our guardians, and that

we are a possession of theirs. Do you not agree?

Yes, I quite agree, said Cebes.

And if one of your own possessions, an ox or an ass, for example, took

the liberty of putting himself out of the way when you had given no

intimation of your wish that he should die, would you not be angry with

him, and would you not punish him if you could?

Certainly, replied Cebes.

Then, if we look at the matter thus, there may be reason in saying that

a man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him, as

he is now summoning me.

Yes, Socrates, said Cebes, there seems to be truth in what you say. And

yet how can you reconcile this seemingly true belief that God is our

guardian and we his possessions, with the willingness to die which we

were just now attributing to the philosopher? That the wisest of men

should be willing to leave a service in which they are ruled by the gods

who are the best of rulers, is not reasonable; for surely no wise man

thinks that when set at liberty he can take better care of himself than

the gods take of him. A fool may perhaps think so--he may argue that he

had better run away from his master, not considering that his duty is

to remain to the end, and not to run away from the good, and that there

would be no sense in his running away. The wise man will want to be ever

with him who is better than himself. Now this, Socrates, is the reverse

of what was just now said; for upon this view the wise man should sorrow

and the fool rejoice at passing out of life.

The earnestness of Cebes seemed to please Socrates. Here, said he,

turning to us, is a man who is always inquiring, and is not so easily

convinced by the first thing which he hears.

And certainly, added Simmias, the objection which he is now making does

appear to me to have some force. For what can be the meaning of a truly

wise man wanting to fly away and lightly leave a master who is better

than himself? And I rather imagine that Cebes is referring to you; he

thinks that you are too ready to leave us, and too ready to leave the

gods whom you acknowledge to be our good masters.

Yes, replied Socrates; there is reason in what you say. And so you think

that I ought to answer your indictment as if I were in a court?

We should like you to do so, said Simmias.

Then I must try to make a more successful defence before you than I

did when before the judges. For I am quite ready to admit, Simmias and

Cebes, that I ought to be grieved at death, if I were not persuaded in

the first place that I am going to other gods who are wise and good (of

which I am as certain as I can be of any such matters), and secondly

(though I am not so sure of this last) to men departed, better than

those whom I leave behind; and therefore I do not grieve as I might have

done, for I have good hope that there is yet something remaining for the

dead, and as has been said of old, some far better thing for the good

than for the evil.

But do you mean to take away your thoughts with you, Socrates? said

Simmias. Will you not impart them to us?--for they are a benefit

in which we too are entitled to share. Moreover, if you succeed in

convincing us, that will be an answer to the charge against yourself.

I will do my best, replied Socrates. But you must first let me hear what

Crito wants; he has long been wishing to say something to me.

Only this, Socrates, replied Crito:--the attendant who is to give you

the poison has been telling me, and he wants me to tell you, that you

are not to talk much, talking, he says, increases heat, and this is

apt to interfere with the action of the poison; persons who excite

themselves are sometimes obliged to take a second or even a third dose.

Then, said Socrates, let him mind his business and be prepared to give

the poison twice or even thrice if necessary; that is all.

I knew quite well what you would say, replied Crito; but I was obliged

to satisfy him.

Never mind him, he said.

And now, O my judges, I desire to prove to you that the real philosopher

has reason to be of good cheer when he is about to die, and that after

death he may hope to obtain the greatest good in the other world. And

how this may be, Simmias and Cebes, I will endeavour to explain. For I

deem that the true votary of philosophy is likely to be misunderstood

by other men; they do not perceive that he is always pursuing death and

dying; and if this be so, and he has had the desire of death all his

life long, why when his time comes should he repine at that which he has

been always pursuing and desiring?

Simmias said laughingly: Though not in a laughing humour, you have made

me laugh, Socrates; for I cannot help thinking that the many when they

hear your words will say how truly you have described philosophers, and

our people at home will likewise say that the life which philosophers

desire is in reality death, and that they have found them out to be

deserving of the death which they desire.

And they are right, Simmias, in thinking so, with the exception of the

words 'they have found them out'; for they have not found out either

what is the nature of that death which the true philosopher deserves,

or how he deserves or desires death. But enough of them:--let us discuss

the matter among ourselves: Do we believe that there is such a thing as

death?

To be sure, replied Simmias.

Is it not the separation of soul and body? And to be dead is the

completion of this; when the soul exists in herself, and is released

from the body and the body is released from the soul, what is this but

death?

Just so, he replied.

There is another question, which will probably throw light on our

present inquiry if you and I can agree about it:--Ought the philosopher

to care about the pleasures--if they are to be called pleasures--of

eating and drinking?

Certainly not, answered Simmias.

And what about the pleasures of love--should he care for them?

By no means.

And will he think much of the other ways of indulging the body, for

example, the acquisition of costly raiment, or sandals, or other

adornments of the body? Instead of caring about them, does he not rather

despise anything more than nature needs? What do you say?

I should say that the true philosopher would despise them.

Would you not say that he is entirely concerned with the soul and not

with the body? He would like, as far as he can, to get away from the

body and to turn to the soul.

Quite true.

In matters of this sort philosophers, above all other men, may be

observed in every sort of way to dissever the soul from the communion of

the body.

Very true.

Whereas, Simmias, the rest of the world are of opinion that to him who

has no sense of pleasure and no part in bodily pleasure, life is not

worth having; and that he who is indifferent about them is as good as

dead.

That is also true.

What again shall we say of the actual acquirement of knowledge?--is the

body, if invited to share in the enquiry, a hinderer or a helper? I mean

to say, have sight and hearing any truth in them? Are they not, as the

poets are always telling us, inaccurate witnesses? and yet, if even

they are inaccurate and indistinct, what is to be said of the other

senses?--for you will allow that they are the best of them?

Certainly, he replied.

Then when does the soul attain truth?--for in attempting to consider

anything in company with the body she is obviously deceived.

True.

Then must not true existence be revealed to her in thought, if at all?

Yes.

And thought is best when the mind is gathered into herself and none of

these things trouble her--neither sounds nor sights nor pain nor any

pleasure,--when she takes leave of the body, and has as little as

possible to do with it, when she has no bodily sense or desire, but is

aspiring after true being?

Certainly.

And in this the philosopher dishonours the body; his soul runs away from

his body and desires to be alone and by herself?

That is true.

Well, but there is another thing, Simmias: Is there or is there not an

absolute justice?

Assuredly there is.

And an absolute beauty and absolute good?

Of course.

But did you ever behold any of them with your eyes?

Certainly not.

Or did you ever reach them with any other bodily sense?--and I speak not

of these alone, but of absolute greatness, and health, and strength,

and of the essence or true nature of everything. Has the reality of them

ever been perceived by you through the bodily organs? or rather, is not

the nearest approach to the knowledge of their several natures made

by him who so orders his intellectual vision as to have the most exact

conception of the essence of each thing which he considers?

Certainly.

And he attains to the purest knowledge of them who goes to each with the

mind alone, not introducing or intruding in the act of thought sight

or any other sense together with reason, but with the very light of the

mind in her own clearness searches into the very truth of each; he who

has got rid, as far as he can, of eyes and ears and, so to speak, of the

whole body, these being in his opinion distracting elements which when

they infect the soul hinder her from acquiring truth and knowledge--who,

if not he, is likely to attain the knowledge of true being?

What you say has a wonderful truth in it, Socrates, replied Simmias.

And when real philosophers consider all these things, will they not be

led to make a reflection which they will express in words something like

the following? 'Have we not found,' they will say, 'a path of thought

which seems to bring us and our argument to the conclusion, that while

we are in the body, and while the soul is infected with the evils of the

body, our desire will not be satisfied? and our desire is of the truth.

For the body is a source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere

requirement of food; and is liable also to diseases which overtake and

impede us in the search after true being: it fills us full of loves, and

lusts, and fears, and fancies of all kinds, and endless foolery, and

in fact, as men say, takes away from us the power of thinking at all.

Whence come wars, and fightings, and factions? whence but from the body

and the lusts of the body? wars are occasioned by the love of money, and

money has to be acquired for the sake and in the service of the body;

and by reason of all these impediments we have no time to give to

philosophy; and, last and worst of all, even if we are at leisure and

betake ourselves to some speculation, the body is always breaking in

upon us, causing turmoil and confusion in our enquiries, and so amazing

us that we are prevented from seeing the truth. It has been proved to us

by experience that if we would have pure knowledge of anything we

must be quit of the body--the soul in herself must behold things in

themselves: and then we shall attain the wisdom which we desire, and of

which we say that we are lovers, not while we live, but after death; for

if while in company with the body, the soul cannot have pure knowledge,

one of two things follows--either knowledge is not to be attained at

all, or, if at all, after death. For then, and not till then, the soul

will be parted from the body and exist in herself alone. In this present

life, I reckon that we make the nearest approach to knowledge when we

have the least possible intercourse or communion with the body, and are

not surfeited with the bodily nature, but keep ourselves pure until the

hour when God himself is pleased to release us. And thus having got rid

of the foolishness of the body we shall be pure and hold converse with

the pure, and know of ourselves the clear light everywhere, which is

no other than the light of truth.' For the impure are not permitted to

approach the pure. These are the sort of words, Simmias, which the true

lovers of knowledge cannot help saying to one another, and thinking. You

would agree; would you not?

Undoubtedly, Socrates.

But, O my friend, if this is true, there is great reason to hope that,

going whither I go, when I have come to the end of my journey, I shall

attain that which has been the pursuit of my life. And therefore I go on

my way rejoicing, and not I only, but every other man who believes that

his mind has been made ready and that he is in a manner purified.

Certainly, replied Simmias.

And what is purification but the separation of the soul from the body,

as I was saying before; the habit of the soul gathering and collecting

herself into herself from all sides out of the body; the dwelling in

her own place alone, as in another life, so also in this, as far as she

can;--the release of the soul from the chains of the body?

Very true, he said.

And this separation and release of the soul from the body is termed

death?

To be sure, he said.

And the true philosophers, and they only, are ever seeking to release

the soul. Is not the separation and release of the soul from the body

their especial study?

That is true.

And, as I was saying at first, there would be a ridiculous contradiction

in men studying to live as nearly as they can in a state of death, and

yet repining when it comes upon them.

Clearly.

And the true philosophers, Simmias, are always occupied in the practice

of dying, wherefore also to them least of all men is death terrible.

Look at the matter thus:--if they have been in every way the enemies of

the body, and are wanting to be alone with the soul, when this desire of

theirs is granted, how inconsistent would they be if they trembled and

repined, instead of rejoicing at their departure to that place where,

when they arrive, they hope to gain that which in life they desired--and

this was wisdom--and at the same time to be rid of the company of their

enemy. Many a man has been willing to go to the world below animated

by the hope of seeing there an earthly love, or wife, or son, and

conversing with them. And will he who is a true lover of wisdom, and is

strongly persuaded in like manner that only in the world below he can

worthily enjoy her, still repine at death? Will he not depart with joy?

Surely he will, O my friend, if he be a true philosopher. For he will

have a firm conviction that there and there only, he can find wisdom

in her purity. And if this be true, he would be very absurd, as I was

saying, if he were afraid of death.

He would, indeed, replied Simmias.

And when you see a man who is repining at the approach of death, is not

his reluctance a sufficient proof that he is not a lover of wisdom, but

a lover of the body, and probably at the same time a lover of either

money or power, or both?

Quite so, he replied.

And is not courage, Simmias, a quality which is specially characteristic

of the philosopher?

Certainly.

There is temperance again, which even by the vulgar is supposed to

consist in the control and regulation of the passions, and in the sense

of superiority to them--is not temperance a virtue belonging to those

only who despise the body, and who pass their lives in philosophy?

Most assuredly.

For the courage and temperance of other men, if you will consider them,

are really a contradiction.

How so?

Well, he said, you are aware that death is regarded by men in general as

a great evil.

Very true, he said.

And do not courageous men face death because they are afraid of yet

greater evils?

That is quite true.

Then all but the philosophers are courageous only from fear, and because

they are afraid; and yet that a man should be courageous from fear, and

because he is a coward, is surely a strange thing.

Very true.

And are not the temperate exactly in the same case? They are temperate

because they are intemperate--which might seem to be a contradiction,

but is nevertheless the sort of thing which happens with this foolish

temperance. For there are pleasures which they are afraid of losing; and

in their desire to keep them, they abstain from some pleasures, because

they are overcome by others; and although to be conquered by pleasure is

called by men intemperance, to them the conquest of pleasure consists in

being conquered by pleasure. And that is what I mean by saying that, in

a sense, they are made temperate through intemperance.

Such appears to be the case.

Yet the exchange of one fear or pleasure or pain for another fear or

pleasure or pain, and of the greater for the less, as if they were

coins, is not the exchange of virtue. O my blessed Simmias, is there not

one true coin for which all things ought to be exchanged?--and that

is wisdom; and only in exchange for this, and in company with this, is

anything truly bought or sold, whether courage or temperance or justice.

And is not all true virtue the companion of wisdom, no matter what fears

or pleasures or other similar goods or evils may or may not attend her?

But the virtue which is made up of these goods, when they are severed

from wisdom and exchanged with one another, is a shadow of virtue only,

nor is there any freedom or health or truth in her; but in the true

exchange there is a purging away of all these things, and temperance,

and justice, and courage, and wisdom herself are the purgation of them.

The founders of the mysteries would appear to have had a real meaning,

and were not talking nonsense when they intimated in a figure long ago

that he who passes unsanctified and uninitiated into the world below

will lie in a slough, but that he who arrives there after initiation and

purification will dwell with the gods. For 'many,' as they say in the

mysteries, 'are the thyrsus-bearers, but few are the mystics,'--meaning,

as I interpret the words, 'the true philosophers.' In the number

of whom, during my whole life, I have been seeking, according to my

ability, to find a place;--whether I have sought in a right way or not,

and whether I have succeeded or not, I shall truly know in a little

while, if God will, when I myself arrive in the other world--such is my

belief. And therefore I maintain that I am right, Simmias and Cebes,

in not grieving or repining at parting from you and my masters in this

world, for I believe that I shall equally find good masters and friends

in another world. But most men do not believe this saying; if then I

succeed in convincing you by my defence better than I did the Athenian

judges, it will be well.

Cebes answered: I agree, Socrates, in the greater part of what you say.

But in what concerns the soul, men are apt to be incredulous; they fear

that when she has left the body her place may be nowhere, and that on

the very day of death she may perish and come to an end--immediately on

her release from the body, issuing forth dispersed like smoke or air

and in her flight vanishing away into nothingness. If she could only be

collected into herself after she has obtained release from the evils of

which you are speaking, there would be good reason to hope, Socrates,

that what you say is true. But surely it requires a great deal of

argument and many proofs to show that when the man is dead his soul yet

exists, and has any force or intelligence.

True, Cebes, said Socrates; and shall I suggest that we converse a

little of the probabilities of these things?

I am sure, said Cebes, that I should greatly like to know your opinion

about them.

I reckon, said Socrates, that no one who heard me now, not even if he

were one of my old enemies, the Comic poets, could accuse me of idle

talking about matters in which I have no concern:--If you please, then,

we will proceed with the inquiry.

Suppose we consider the question whether the souls of men after death

are or are not in the world below. There comes into my mind an ancient

doctrine which affirms that they go from hence into the other world, and

returning hither, are born again from the dead. Now if it be true that

the living come from the dead, then our souls must exist in the other

world, for if not, how could they have been born again? And this would

be conclusive, if there were any real evidence that the living are only

born from the dead; but if this is not so, then other arguments will

have to be adduced.

Very true, replied Cebes.

Then let us consider the whole question, not in relation to man only,

but in relation to animals generally, and to plants, and to everything

of which there is generation, and the proof will be easier. Are not all

things which have opposites generated out of their opposites? I mean

such things as good and evil, just and unjust--and there are innumerable

other opposites which are generated out of opposites. And I want to show

that in all opposites there is of necessity a similar alternation;

I mean to say, for example, that anything which becomes greater must

become greater after being less.

True.

And that which becomes less must have been once greater and then have

become less.

Yes.

And the weaker is generated from the stronger, and the swifter from the

slower.

Very true.

And the worse is from the better, and the more just is from the more

unjust.

Of course.

And is this true of all opposites? and are we convinced that all of them

are generated out of opposites?

Yes.

And in this universal opposition of all things, are there not also two

intermediate processes which are ever going on, from one to the other

opposite, and back again; where there is a greater and a less there is

also an intermediate process of increase and diminution, and that which

grows is said to wax, and that which decays to wane?

Yes, he said.

And there are many other processes, such as division and composition,

cooling and heating, which equally involve a passage into and out of one

another. And this necessarily holds of all opposites, even though not

always expressed in words--they are really generated out of one another,

and there is a passing or process from one to the other of them?

Very true, he replied.

Well, and is there not an opposite of life, as sleep is the opposite of

waking?

True, he said.

And what is it?

Death, he answered.

And these, if they are opposites, are generated the one from the other,

and have there their two intermediate processes also?

Of course.

Now, said Socrates, I will analyze one of the two pairs of opposites

which I have mentioned to you, and also its intermediate processes, and

you shall analyze the other to me. One of them I term sleep, the other

waking. The state of sleep is opposed to the state of waking, and out

of sleeping waking is generated, and out of waking, sleeping; and the

process of generation is in the one case falling asleep, and in the

other waking up. Do you agree?

I entirely agree.

Then, suppose that you analyze life and death to me in the same manner.

Is not death opposed to life?

Yes.

And they are generated one from the other?

Yes.

What is generated from the living?

The dead.

And what from the dead?

I can only say in answer--the living.

Then the living, whether things or persons, Cebes, are generated from

the dead?

That is clear, he replied.

Then the inference is that our souls exist in the world below?

That is true.

And one of the two processes or generations is visible--for surely the

act of dying is visible?

Surely, he said.

What then is to be the result? Shall we exclude the opposite process?

And shall we suppose nature to walk on one leg only? Must we not rather

assign to death some corresponding process of generation?

Certainly, he replied.

And what is that process?

Return to life.

And return to life, if there be such a thing, is the birth of the dead

into the world of the living?

Quite true.

Then here is a new way by which we arrive at the conclusion that the

living come from the dead, just as the dead come from the living; and

this, if true, affords a most certain proof that the souls of the dead

exist in some place out of which they come again.

Yes, Socrates, he said; the conclusion seems to flow necessarily out of

our previous admissions.

And that these admissions were not unfair, Cebes, he said, may be shown,

I think, as follows: If generation were in a straight line only, and

there were no compensation or circle in nature, no turn or return of

elements into their opposites, then you know that all things would at

last have the same form and pass into the same state, and there would be

no more generation of them.

What do you mean? he said.

A simple thing enough, which I will illustrate by the case of sleep,

he replied. You know that if there were no alternation of sleeping

and waking, the tale of the sleeping Endymion would in the end have no

meaning, because all other things would be asleep, too, and he would not

be distinguishable from the rest. Or if there were composition only,

and no division of substances, then the chaos of Anaxagoras would come

again. And in like manner, my dear Cebes, if all things which partook

of life were to die, and after they were dead remained in the form

of death, and did not come to life again, all would at last die, and

nothing would be alive--what other result could there be? For if the

living spring from any other things, and they too die, must not all

things at last be swallowed up in death? (But compare Republic.)

There is no escape, Socrates, said Cebes; and to me your argument seems

to be absolutely true.

Yes, he said, Cebes, it is and must be so, in my opinion; and we have

not been deluded in making these admissions; but I am confident that

there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring

from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence, and that

the good souls have a better portion than the evil.

Cebes added: Your favorite doctrine, Socrates, that knowledge is simply

recollection, if true, also necessarily implies a previous time in

which we have learned that which we now recollect. But this would be

impossible unless our soul had been in some place before existing in the

form of man; here then is another proof of the soul's immortality.

But tell me, Cebes, said Simmias, interposing, what arguments are urged

in favour of this doctrine of recollection. I am not very sure at the

moment that I remember them.

One excellent proof, said Cebes, is afforded by questions. If you put

a question to a person in a right way, he will give a true answer of

himself, but how could he do this unless there were knowledge and right

reason already in him? And this is most clearly shown when he is taken

to a diagram or to anything of that sort. (Compare Meno.)

But if, said Socrates, you are still incredulous, Simmias, I would ask

you whether you may not agree with me when you look at the matter

in another way;--I mean, if you are still incredulous as to whether

knowledge is recollection.

Incredulous, I am not, said Simmias; but I want to have this doctrine

of recollection brought to my own recollection, and, from what Cebes has

said, I am beginning to recollect and be convinced; but I should still

like to hear what you were going to say.

This is what I would say, he replied:--We should agree, if I am not

mistaken, that what a man recollects he must have known at some previous

time.

Very true.

And what is the nature of this knowledge or recollection? I mean to

ask, Whether a person who, having seen or heard or in any way perceived

anything, knows not only that, but has a conception of something

else which is the subject, not of the same but of some other kind of

knowledge, may not be fairly said to recollect that of which he has the

conception?

What do you mean?

I mean what I may illustrate by the following instance:--The knowledge

of a lyre is not the same as the knowledge of a man?

True.

And yet what is the feeling of lovers when they recognize a lyre, or

a garment, or anything else which the beloved has been in the habit of

using? Do not they, from knowing the lyre, form in the mind's eye an

image of the youth to whom the lyre belongs? And this is recollection.

In like manner any one who sees Simmias may remember Cebes; and there

are endless examples of the same thing.

Endless, indeed, replied Simmias.

And recollection is most commonly a process of recovering that which has

been already forgotten through time and inattention.

Very true, he said.

Well; and may you not also from seeing the picture of a horse or a

lyre remember a man? and from the picture of Simmias, you may be led to

remember Cebes?

True.

Or you may also be led to the recollection of Simmias himself?

Quite so.

And in all these cases, the recollection may be derived from things

either like or unlike?

It may be.

And when the recollection is derived from like things, then another

consideration is sure to arise, which is--whether the likeness in any

degree falls short or not of that which is recollected?

Very true, he said.

And shall we proceed a step further, and affirm that there is such a

thing as equality, not of one piece of wood or stone with another, but

that, over and above this, there is absolute equality? Shall we say so?

Say so, yes, replied Simmias, and swear to it, with all the confidence

in life.

And do we know the nature of this absolute essence?

To be sure, he said.

And whence did we obtain our knowledge? Did we not see equalities of

material things, such as pieces of wood and stones, and gather from

them the idea of an equality which is different from them? For you will

acknowledge that there is a difference. Or look at the matter in another

way:--Do not the same pieces of wood or stone appear at one time equal,

and at another time unequal?

That is certain.

But are real equals ever unequal? or is the idea of equality the same as

of inequality?

Impossible, Socrates.

Then these (so-called) equals are not the same with the idea of

equality?

I should say, clearly not, Socrates.

And yet from these equals, although differing from the idea of equality,

you conceived and attained that idea?

Very true, he said.

Which might be like, or might be unlike them?

Yes.

But that makes no difference; whenever from seeing one thing you

conceived another, whether like or unlike, there must surely have been

an act of recollection?

Very true.

But what would you say of equal portions of wood and stone, or other

material equals? and what is the impression produced by them? Are they

equals in the same sense in which absolute equality is equal? or do they

fall short of this perfect equality in a measure?

Yes, he said, in a very great measure too.

And must we not allow, that when I or any one, looking at any object,

observes that the thing which he sees aims at being some other thing,

but falls short of, and cannot be, that other thing, but is inferior, he

who makes this observation must have had a previous knowledge of that to

which the other, although similar, was inferior?

Certainly.

And has not this been our own case in the matter of equals and of

absolute equality?

Precisely.

Then we must have known equality previously to the time when we first

saw the material equals, and reflected that all these apparent equals

strive to attain absolute equality, but fall short of it?

Very true.

And we recognize also that this absolute equality has only been known,

and can only be known, through the medium of sight or touch, or of some

other of the senses, which are all alike in this respect?

Yes, Socrates, as far as the argument is concerned, one of them is the

same as the other.

From the senses then is derived the knowledge that all sensible things

aim at an absolute equality of which they fall short?

Yes.

Then before we began to see or hear or perceive in any way, we must have

had a knowledge of absolute equality, or we could not have referred to

that standard the equals which are derived from the senses?--for to that

they all aspire, and of that they fall short.

No other inference can be drawn from the previous statements.

And did we not see and hear and have the use of our other senses as soon

as we were born?

Certainly.

Then we must have acquired the knowledge of equality at some previous

time?

Yes.

That is to say, before we were born, I suppose?

True.

And if we acquired this knowledge before we were born, and were born

having the use of it, then we also knew before we were born and at the

instant of birth not only the equal or the greater or the less, but all

other ideas; for we are not speaking only of equality, but of beauty,

goodness, justice, holiness, and of all which we stamp with the name of

essence in the dialectical process, both when we ask and when we answer

questions. Of all this we may certainly affirm that we acquired the

knowledge before birth?

We may.

But if, after having acquired, we have not forgotten what in each case

we acquired, then we must always have come into life having knowledge,

and shall always continue to know as long as life lasts--for knowing

is the acquiring and retaining knowledge and not forgetting. Is not

forgetting, Simmias, just the losing of knowledge?

Quite true, Socrates.

But if the knowledge which we acquired before birth was lost by us at

birth, and if afterwards by the use of the senses we recovered what

we previously knew, will not the process which we call learning be a

recovering of the knowledge which is natural to us, and may not this be

rightly termed recollection?

Very true.

So much is clear--that when we perceive something, either by the help of

sight, or hearing, or some other sense, from that perception we are

able to obtain a notion of some other thing like or unlike which is

associated with it but has been forgotten. Whence, as I was saying, one

of two alternatives follows:--either we had this knowledge at birth, and

continued to know through life; or, after birth, those who are said to

learn only remember, and learning is simply recollection.

Yes, that is quite true, Socrates.

And which alternative, Simmias, do you prefer? Had we the knowledge at

our birth, or did we recollect the things which we knew previously to

our birth?

I cannot decide at the moment.

At any rate you can decide whether he who has knowledge will or will not

be able to render an account of his knowledge? What do you say?

Certainly, he will.

But do you think that every man is able to give an account of these very

matters about which we are speaking?

Would that they could, Socrates, but I rather fear that to-morrow, at

this time, there will no longer be any one alive who is able to give an

account of them such as ought to be given.

Then you are not of opinion, Simmias, that all men know these things?

Certainly not.

They are in process of recollecting that which they learned before?

Certainly.

But when did our souls acquire this knowledge?--not since we were born

as men?

Certainly not.

And therefore, previously?

Yes.

Then, Simmias, our souls must also have existed without bodies before

they were in the form of man, and must have had intelligence.

Unless indeed you suppose, Socrates, that these notions are given us at

the very moment of birth; for this is the only time which remains.

Yes, my friend, but if so, when do we lose them? for they are not in

us when we are born--that is admitted. Do we lose them at the moment of

receiving them, or if not at what other time?

No, Socrates, I perceive that I was unconsciously talking nonsense.

Then may we not say, Simmias, that if, as we are always repeating, there

is an absolute beauty, and goodness, and an absolute essence of all

things; and if to this, which is now discovered to have existed in our

former state, we refer all our sensations, and with this compare them,

finding these ideas to be pre-existent and our inborn possession--then

our souls must have had a prior existence, but if not, there would be

no force in the argument? There is the same proof that these ideas must

have existed before we were born, as that our souls existed before we

were born; and if not the ideas, then not the souls.

Yes, Socrates; I am convinced that there is precisely the same necessity

for the one as for the other; and the argument retreats successfully

to the position that the existence of the soul before birth cannot be

separated from the existence of the essence of which you speak. For

there is nothing which to my mind is so patent as that beauty, goodness,

and the other notions of which you were just now speaking, have a most

real and absolute existence; and I am satisfied with the proof.

Well, but is Cebes equally satisfied? for I must convince him too.

I think, said Simmias, that Cebes is satisfied: although he is the most

incredulous of mortals, yet I believe that he is sufficiently convinced

of the existence of the soul before birth. But that after death the soul

will continue to exist is not yet proven even to my own satisfaction.

I cannot get rid of the feeling of the many to which Cebes was

referring--the feeling that when the man dies the soul will be

dispersed, and that this may be the extinction of her. For admitting

that she may have been born elsewhere, and framed out of other elements,

and was in existence before entering the human body, why after having

entered in and gone out again may she not herself be destroyed and come

to an end?

Very true, Simmias, said Cebes; about half of what was required has been

proven; to wit, that our souls existed before we were born:--that the

soul will exist after death as well as before birth is the other half of

which the proof is still wanting, and has to be supplied; when that is

given the demonstration will be complete.

But that proof, Simmias and Cebes, has been already given, said

Socrates, if you put the two arguments together--I mean this and the

former one, in which we admitted that everything living is born of the

dead. For if the soul exists before birth, and in coming to life and

being born can be born only from death and dying, must she not after

death continue to exist, since she has to be born again?--Surely the

proof which you desire has been already furnished. Still I suspect

that you and Simmias would be glad to probe the argument further. Like

children, you are haunted with a fear that when the soul leaves the

body, the wind may really blow her away and scatter her; especially if a

man should happen to die in a great storm and not when the sky is calm.

Cebes answered with a smile: Then, Socrates, you must argue us out of

our fears--and yet, strictly speaking, they are not our fears, but there

is a child within us to whom death is a sort of hobgoblin; him too we

must persuade not to be afraid when he is alone in the dark.

Socrates said: Let the voice of the charmer be applied daily until you

have charmed away the fear.

And where shall we find a good charmer of our fears, Socrates, when you

are gone?

Hellas, he replied, is a large place, Cebes, and has many good men, and

there are barbarous races not a few: seek for him among them all, far

and wide, sparing neither pains nor money; for there is no better way

of spending your money. And you must seek among yourselves too; for you

will not find others better able to make the search.

The search, replied Cebes, shall certainly be made. And now, if

you please, let us return to the point of the argument at which we

digressed.

By all means, replied Socrates; what else should I please?

Very good.

Must we not, said Socrates, ask ourselves what that is which, as we

imagine, is liable to be scattered, and about which we fear? and what

again is that about which we have no fear? And then we may proceed

further to enquire whether that which suffers dispersion is or is not

of the nature of soul--our hopes and fears as to our own souls will turn

upon the answers to these questions.

Very true, he said.

Now the compound or composite may be supposed to be naturally capable,

as of being compounded, so also of being dissolved; but that which is

uncompounded, and that only, must be, if anything is, indissoluble.

Yes; I should imagine so, said Cebes.

And the uncompounded may be assumed to be the same and unchanging,

whereas the compound is always changing and never the same.

I agree, he said.

Then now let us return to the previous discussion. Is that idea or

essence, which in the dialectical process we define as essence or true

existence--whether essence of equality, beauty, or anything else--are

these essences, I say, liable at times to some degree of change? or

are they each of them always what they are, having the same simple

self-existent and unchanging forms, not admitting of variation at all,

or in any way, or at any time?

They must be always the same, Socrates, replied Cebes.

And what would you say of the many beautiful--whether men or horses or

garments or any other things which are named by the same names and may

be called equal or beautiful,--are they all unchanging and the same

always, or quite the reverse? May they not rather be described as almost

always changing and hardly ever the same, either with themselves or with

one another?

The latter, replied Cebes; they are always in a state of change.

And these you can touch and see and perceive with the senses, but

the unchanging things you can only perceive with the mind--they are

invisible and are not seen?

That is very true, he said.

Well, then, added Socrates, let us suppose that there are two sorts of

existences--one seen, the other unseen.

Let us suppose them.

The seen is the changing, and the unseen is the unchanging?

That may be also supposed.

And, further, is not one part of us body, another part soul?

To be sure.

And to which class is the body more alike and akin?

Clearly to the seen--no one can doubt that.

And is the soul seen or not seen?

Not by man, Socrates.

And what we mean by 'seen' and 'not seen' is that which is or is not

visible to the eye of man?

Yes, to the eye of man.

And is the soul seen or not seen?

Not seen.

Unseen then?

Yes.

Then the soul is more like to the unseen, and the body to the seen?

That follows necessarily, Socrates.

And were we not saying long ago that the soul when using the body as an

instrument of perception, that is to say, when using the sense of sight

or hearing or some other sense (for the meaning of perceiving through

the body is perceiving through the senses)--were we not saying that the

soul too is then dragged by the body into the region of the changeable,

and wanders and is confused; the world spins round her, and she is like

a drunkard, when she touches change?

Very true.

But when returning into herself she reflects, then she passes into the

other world, the region of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and

unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives,

when she is by herself and is not let or hindered; then she ceases

from her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is

unchanging. And this state of the soul is called wisdom?

That is well and truly said, Socrates, he replied.

And to which class is the soul more nearly alike and akin, as far as may

be inferred from this argument, as well as from the preceding one?

I think, Socrates, that, in the opinion of every one who follows the

argument, the soul will be infinitely more like the unchangeable--even

the most stupid person will not deny that.

And the body is more like the changing?

Yes.

Yet once more consider the matter in another light: When the soul and

the body are united, then nature orders the soul to rule and govern, and

the body to obey and serve. Now which of these two functions is akin to

the divine? and which to the mortal? Does not the divine appear to you

to be that which naturally orders and rules, and the mortal to be that

which is subject and servant?

True.

And which does the soul resemble?

The soul resembles the divine, and the body the mortal--there can be no

doubt of that, Socrates.

Then reflect, Cebes: of all which has been said is not this the

conclusion?--that the soul is in the very likeness of the divine,

and immortal, and intellectual, and uniform, and indissoluble, and

unchangeable; and that the body is in the very likeness of the human,

and mortal, and unintellectual, and multiform, and dissoluble, and

changeable. Can this, my dear Cebes, be denied?

It cannot.

But if it be true, then is not the body liable to speedy dissolution?

and is not the soul almost or altogether indissoluble?

Certainly.

And do you further observe, that after a man is dead, the body, or

visible part of him, which is lying in the visible world, and is

called a corpse, and would naturally be dissolved and decomposed and

dissipated, is not dissolved or decomposed at once, but may remain for a

for some time, nay even for a long time, if the constitution be sound at

the time of death, and the season of the year favourable? For the body

when shrunk and embalmed, as the manner is in Egypt, may remain almost

entire through infinite ages; and even in decay, there are still

some portions, such as the bones and ligaments, which are practically

indestructible:--Do you agree?

Yes.

And is it likely that the soul, which is invisible, in passing to the

place of the true Hades, which like her is invisible, and pure, and

noble, and on her way to the good and wise God, whither, if God will, my

soul is also soon to go,--that the soul, I repeat, if this be her nature

and origin, will be blown away and destroyed immediately on quitting the

body, as the many say? That can never be, my dear Simmias and Cebes.

The truth rather is, that the soul which is pure at departing and draws

after her no bodily taint, having never voluntarily during life had

connection with the body, which she is ever avoiding, herself gathered

into herself;--and making such abstraction her perpetual study--which

means that she has been a true disciple of philosophy; and therefore

has in fact been always engaged in the practice of dying? For is not

philosophy the practice of death?--

Certainly--

That soul, I say, herself invisible, departs to the invisible world--to

the divine and immortal and rational: thither arriving, she is secure of

bliss and is released from the error and folly of men, their fears and

wild passions and all other human ills, and for ever dwells, as they say

of the initiated, in company with the gods (compare Apol.). Is not this

true, Cebes?

Yes, said Cebes, beyond a doubt.

But the soul which has been polluted, and is impure at the time of her

departure, and is the companion and servant of the body always, and is

in love with and fascinated by the body and by the desires and pleasures

of the body, until she is led to believe that the truth only exists in

a bodily form, which a man may touch and see and taste, and use for the

purposes of his lusts,--the soul, I mean, accustomed to hate and fear

and avoid the intellectual principle, which to the bodily eye is dark

and invisible, and can be attained only by philosophy;--do you suppose

that such a soul will depart pure and unalloyed?

Impossible, he replied.

She is held fast by the corporeal, which the continual association and

constant care of the body have wrought into her nature.

Very true.

And this corporeal element, my friend, is heavy and weighty and earthy,

and is that element of sight by which a soul is depressed and dragged

down again into the visible world, because she is afraid of the

invisible and of the world below--prowling about tombs and sepulchres,

near which, as they tell us, are seen certain ghostly apparitions

of souls which have not departed pure, but are cloyed with sight and

therefore visible.

(Compare Milton, Comus:--

'But when lust,

By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,

But most by lewd and lavish act of sin,

Lets in defilement to the inward parts,

The soul grows clotted by contagion,

Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite lose,

The divine property of her first being.

Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp

Oft seen in charnel vaults and sepulchres,

Lingering, and sitting by a new made grave,

As loath to leave the body that it lov'd,

And linked itself by carnal sensuality

To a degenerate and degraded state.')

That is very likely, Socrates.

Yes, that is very likely, Cebes; and these must be the souls, not of the

good, but of the evil, which are compelled to wander about such places

in payment of the penalty of their former evil way of life; and they

continue to wander until through the craving after the corporeal which

never leaves them, they are imprisoned finally in another body. And they

may be supposed to find their prisons in the same natures which they

have had in their former lives.

What natures do you mean, Socrates?

What I mean is that men who have followed after gluttony, and

wantonness, and drunkenness, and have had no thought of avoiding them,

would pass into asses and animals of that sort. What do you think?

I think such an opinion to be exceedingly probable.

And those who have chosen the portion of injustice, and tyranny, and

violence, will pass into wolves, or into hawks and kites;--whither else

can we suppose them to go?

Yes, said Cebes; with such natures, beyond question.

And there is no difficulty, he said, in assigning to all of them places

answering to their several natures and propensities?

There is not, he said.

Some are happier than others; and the happiest both in themselves and

in the place to which they go are those who have practised the civil and

social virtues which are called temperance and justice, and are acquired

by habit and attention without philosophy and mind. (Compare Republic.)

Why are they the happiest?

Because they may be expected to pass into some gentle and social kind

which is like their own, such as bees or wasps or ants, or back again

into the form of man, and just and moderate men may be supposed to

spring from them.

Very likely.

No one who has not studied philosophy and who is not entirely pure at

the time of his departure is allowed to enter the company of the Gods,

but the lover of knowledge only. And this is the reason, Simmias and

Cebes, why the true votaries of philosophy abstain from all fleshly

lusts, and hold out against them and refuse to give themselves up to

them,--not because they fear poverty or the ruin of their families, like

the lovers of money, and the world in general; nor like the lovers of

power and honour, because they dread the dishonour or disgrace of evil

deeds.

No, Socrates, that would not become them, said Cebes.

No indeed, he replied; and therefore they who have any care of their

own souls, and do not merely live moulding and fashioning the body, say

farewell to all this; they will not walk in the ways of the blind: and

when philosophy offers them purification and release from evil, they

feel that they ought not to resist her influence, and whither she leads

they turn and follow.

What do you mean, Socrates?

I will tell you, he said. The lovers of knowledge are conscious that

the soul was simply fastened and glued to the body--until philosophy

received her, she could only view real existence through the bars of

a prison, not in and through herself; she was wallowing in the mire of

every sort of ignorance; and by reason of lust had become the principal

accomplice in her own captivity. This was her original state; and

then, as I was saying, and as the lovers of knowledge are well aware,

philosophy, seeing how terrible was her confinement, of which she was

to herself the cause, received and gently comforted her and sought to

release her, pointing out that the eye and the ear and the other senses

are full of deception, and persuading her to retire from them, and

abstain from all but the necessary use of them, and be gathered up and

collected into herself, bidding her trust in herself and her own pure

apprehension of pure existence, and to mistrust whatever comes to her

through other channels and is subject to variation; for such things

are visible and tangible, but what she sees in her own nature is

intelligible and invisible. And the soul of the true philosopher thinks

that she ought not to resist this deliverance, and therefore abstains

from pleasures and desires and pains and fears, as far as she is

able; reflecting that when a man has great joys or sorrows or fears or

desires, he suffers from them, not merely the sort of evil which might

be anticipated--as for example, the loss of his health or property which

he has sacrificed to his lusts--but an evil greater far, which is the

greatest and worst of all evils, and one of which he never thinks.

What is it, Socrates? said Cebes.

The evil is that when the feeling of pleasure or pain is most intense,

every soul of man imagines the objects of this intense feeling to be

then plainest and truest: but this is not so, they are really the things

of sight.

Very true.

And is not this the state in which the soul is most enthralled by the

body?

How so?

Why, because each pleasure and pain is a sort of nail which nails

and rivets the soul to the body, until she becomes like the body, and

believes that to be true which the body affirms to be true; and from

agreeing with the body and having the same delights she is obliged to

have the same habits and haunts, and is not likely ever to be pure at

her departure to the world below, but is always infected by the body;

and so she sinks into another body and there germinates and grows,

and has therefore no part in the communion of the divine and pure and

simple.

Most true, Socrates, answered Cebes.

And this, Cebes, is the reason why the true lovers of knowledge are

temperate and brave; and not for the reason which the world gives.

Certainly not.

Certainly not! The soul of a philosopher will reason in quite another

way; she will not ask philosophy to release her in order that when

released she may deliver herself up again to the thraldom of pleasures

and pains, doing a work only to be undone again, weaving instead of

unweaving her Penelope's web. But she will calm passion, and follow

reason, and dwell in the contemplation of her, beholding the true

and divine (which is not matter of opinion), and thence deriving

nourishment. Thus she seeks to live while she lives, and after death she

hopes to go to her own kindred and to that which is like her, and to be

freed from human ills. Never fear, Simmias and Cebes, that a soul which

has been thus nurtured and has had these pursuits, will at her departure

from the body be scattered and blown away by the winds and be nowhere

and nothing.

When Socrates had done speaking, for a considerable time there was

silence; he himself appeared to be meditating, as most of us were, on

what had been said; only Cebes and Simmias spoke a few words to one

another. And Socrates observing them asked what they thought of the

argument, and whether there was anything wanting? For, said he, there

are many points still open to suspicion and attack, if any one were

disposed to sift the matter thoroughly. Should you be considering

some other matter I say no more, but if you are still in doubt do not

hesitate to say exactly what you think, and let us have anything better

which you can suggest; and if you think that I can be of any use, allow

me to help you.

Simmias said: I must confess, Socrates, that doubts did arise in our

minds, and each of us was urging and inciting the other to put the

question which we wanted to have answered and which neither of us liked

to ask, fearing that our importunity might be troublesome under present

at such a time.

Socrates replied with a smile: O Simmias, what are you saying? I am

not very likely to persuade other men that I do not regard my present

situation as a misfortune, if I cannot even persuade you that I am no

worse off now than at any other time in my life. Will you not allow that

I have as much of the spirit of prophecy in me as the swans? For they,

when they perceive that they must die, having sung all their life long,

do then sing more lustily than ever, rejoicing in the thought that

they are about to go away to the god whose ministers they are. But men,

because they are themselves afraid of death, slanderously affirm of the

swans that they sing a lament at the last, not considering that no bird

sings when cold, or hungry, or in pain, not even the nightingale, nor

the swallow, nor yet the hoopoe; which are said indeed to tune a lay of

sorrow, although I do not believe this to be true of them any more than

of the swans. But because they are sacred to Apollo, they have the gift

of prophecy, and anticipate the good things of another world, wherefore

they sing and rejoice in that day more than they ever did before. And I

too, believing myself to be the consecrated servant of the same God, and

the fellow-servant of the swans, and thinking that I have received from

my master gifts of prophecy which are not inferior to theirs, would not

go out of life less merrily than the swans. Never mind then, if this be

your only objection, but speak and ask anything which you like, while

the eleven magistrates of Athens allow.

Very good, Socrates, said Simmias; then I will tell you my difficulty,

and Cebes will tell you his. I feel myself, (and I daresay that you have

the same feeling), how hard or rather impossible is the attainment of

any certainty about questions such as these in the present life. And yet

I should deem him a coward who did not prove what is said about them to

the uttermost, or whose heart failed him before he had examined them

on every side. For he should persevere until he has achieved one of two

things: either he should discover, or be taught the truth about them;

or, if this be impossible, I would have him take the best and most

irrefragable of human theories, and let this be the raft upon which he

sails through life--not without risk, as I admit, if he cannot find some

word of God which will more surely and safely carry him. And now, as

you bid me, I will venture to question you, and then I shall not have to

reproach myself hereafter with not having said at the time what I think.

For when I consider the matter, either alone or with Cebes, the argument

does certainly appear to me, Socrates, to be not sufficient.

Socrates answered: I dare say, my friend, that you may be right, but I

should like to know in what respect the argument is insufficient.

In this respect, replied Simmias:--Suppose a person to use the same

argument about harmony and the lyre--might he not say that harmony is

a thing invisible, incorporeal, perfect, divine, existing in the lyre

which is harmonized, but that the lyre and the strings are matter and

material, composite, earthy, and akin to mortality? And when some one

breaks the lyre, or cuts and rends the strings, then he who takes this

view would argue as you do, and on the same analogy, that the harmony

survives and has not perished--you cannot imagine, he would say, that

the lyre without the strings, and the broken strings themselves which

are mortal remain, and yet that the harmony, which is of heavenly and

immortal nature and kindred, has perished--perished before the mortal.

The harmony must still be somewhere, and the wood and strings will decay

before anything can happen to that. The thought, Socrates, must have

occurred to your own mind that such is our conception of the soul;

and that when the body is in a manner strung and held together by the

elements of hot and cold, wet and dry, then the soul is the harmony or

due proportionate admixture of them. But if so, whenever the strings of

the body are unduly loosened or overstrained through disease or other

injury, then the soul, though most divine, like other harmonies of music

or of works of art, of course perishes at once, although the material

remains of the body may last for a considerable time, until they are

either decayed or burnt. And if any one maintains that the soul, being

the harmony of the elements of the body, is first to perish in that

which is called death, how shall we answer him?

Socrates looked fixedly at us as his manner was, and said with a smile:

Simmias has reason on his side; and why does not some one of you who

is better able than myself answer him? for there is force in his attack

upon me. But perhaps, before we answer him, we had better also hear what

Cebes has to say that we may gain time for reflection, and when they

have both spoken, we may either assent to them, if there is truth in

what they say, or if not, we will maintain our position. Please to tell

me then, Cebes, he said, what was the difficulty which troubled you?

Cebes said: I will tell you. My feeling is that the argument is where it

was, and open to the same objections which were urged before; for I am

ready to admit that the existence of the soul before entering into

the bodily form has been very ingeniously, and, if I may say so, quite

sufficiently proven; but the existence of the soul after death is still,

in my judgment, unproven. Now my objection is not the same as that of

Simmias; for I am not disposed to deny that the soul is stronger and

more lasting than the body, being of opinion that in all such respects

the soul very far excels the body. Well, then, says the argument to me,

why do you remain unconvinced?--When you see that the weaker continues

in existence after the man is dead, will you not admit that the more

lasting must also survive during the same period of time? Now I will

ask you to consider whether the objection, which, like Simmias, I will

express in a figure, is of any weight. The analogy which I will adduce

is that of an old weaver, who dies, and after his death somebody

says:--He is not dead, he must be alive;--see, there is the coat which

he himself wove and wore, and which remains whole and undecayed. And

then he proceeds to ask of some one who is incredulous, whether a man

lasts longer, or the coat which is in use and wear; and when he is

answered that a man lasts far longer, thinks that he has thus certainly

demonstrated the survival of the man, who is the more lasting, because

the less lasting remains. But that, Simmias, as I would beg you to

remark, is a mistake; any one can see that he who talks thus is talking

nonsense. For the truth is, that the weaver aforesaid, having woven and

worn many such coats, outlived several of them, and was outlived by the

last; but a man is not therefore proved to be slighter and weaker than

a coat. Now the relation of the body to the soul may be expressed in a

similar figure; and any one may very fairly say in like manner that the

soul is lasting, and the body weak and shortlived in comparison. He may

argue in like manner that every soul wears out many bodies, especially

if a man live many years. While he is alive the body deliquesces and

decays, and the soul always weaves another garment and repairs the

waste. But of course, whenever the soul perishes, she must have on her

last garment, and this will survive her; and then at length, when

the soul is dead, the body will show its native weakness, and quickly

decompose and pass away. I would therefore rather not rely on the

argument from superior strength to prove the continued existence of the

soul after death. For granting even more than you affirm to be possible,

and acknowledging not only that the soul existed before birth, but also

that the souls of some exist, and will continue to exist after death,

and will be born and die again and again, and that there is a

natural strength in the soul which will hold out and be born many

times--nevertheless, we may be still inclined to think that she will

weary in the labours of successive births, and may at last succumb in

one of her deaths and utterly perish; and this death and dissolution of

the body which brings destruction to the soul may be unknown to any of

us, for no one of us can have had any experience of it: and if so,

then I maintain that he who is confident about death has but a foolish

confidence, unless he is able to prove that the soul is altogether

immortal and imperishable. But if he cannot prove the soul's

immortality, he who is about to die will always have reason to fear that

when the body is disunited, the soul also may utterly perish.

All of us, as we afterwards remarked to one another, had an unpleasant

feeling at hearing what they said. When we had been so firmly convinced

before, now to have our faith shaken seemed to introduce a confusion and

uncertainty, not only into the previous argument, but into any future

one; either we were incapable of forming a judgment, or there were no

grounds of belief.

ECHECRATES: There I feel with you--by heaven I do, Phaedo, and when you

were speaking, I was beginning to ask myself the same question: What

argument can I ever trust again? For what could be more convincing than

the argument of Socrates, which has now fallen into discredit? That

the soul is a harmony is a doctrine which has always had a wonderful

attraction for me, and, when mentioned, came back to me at once, as my

own original conviction. And now I must begin again and find another

argument which will assure me that when the man is dead the soul

survives. Tell me, I implore you, how did Socrates proceed? Did he

appear to share the unpleasant feeling which you mention? or did he

calmly meet the attack? And did he answer forcibly or feebly? Narrate

what passed as exactly as you can.

PHAEDO: Often, Echecrates, I have wondered at Socrates, but never more

than on that occasion. That he should be able to answer was nothing,

but what astonished me was, first, the gentle and pleasant and approving

manner in which he received the words of the young men, and then his

quick sense of the wound which had been inflicted by the argument, and

the readiness with which he healed it. He might be compared to a general

rallying his defeated and broken army, urging them to accompany him and

return to the field of argument.

ECHECRATES: What followed?

PHAEDO: You shall hear, for I was close to him on his right hand, seated

on a sort of stool, and he on a couch which was a good deal higher.

He stroked my head, and pressed the hair upon my neck--he had a way of

playing with my hair; and then he said: To-morrow, Phaedo, I suppose

that these fair locks of yours will be severed.

Yes, Socrates, I suppose that they will, I replied.

Not so, if you will take my advice.

What shall I do with them? I said.

To-day, he replied, and not to-morrow, if this argument dies and we

cannot bring it to life again, you and I will both shave our locks; and

if I were you, and the argument got away from me, and I could not hold

my ground against Simmias and Cebes, I would myself take an oath, like

the Argives, not to wear hair any more until I had renewed the conflict

and defeated them.

Yes, I said, but Heracles himself is said not to be a match for two.

Summon me then, he said, and I will be your Iolaus until the sun goes

down.

I summon you rather, I rejoined, not as Heracles summoning Iolaus, but

as Iolaus might summon Heracles.

That will do as well, he said. But first let us take care that we avoid

a danger.

Of what nature? I said.

Lest we become misologists, he replied, no worse thing can happen to a

man than this. For as there are misanthropists or haters of men, there

are also misologists or haters of ideas, and both spring from the same

cause, which is ignorance of the world. Misanthropy arises out of the

too great confidence of inexperience;--you trust a man and think him

altogether true and sound and faithful, and then in a little while he

turns out to be false and knavish; and then another and another, and

when this has happened several times to a man, especially when it

happens among those whom he deems to be his own most trusted and

familiar friends, and he has often quarreled with them, he at last hates

all men, and believes that no one has any good in him at all. You must

have observed this trait of character?

I have.

And is not the feeling discreditable? Is it not obvious that such an

one having to deal with other men, was clearly without any experience of

human nature; for experience would have taught him the true state of

the case, that few are the good and few the evil, and that the great

majority are in the interval between them.

What do you mean? I said.

I mean, he replied, as you might say of the very large and very small,

that nothing is more uncommon than a very large or very small man; and

this applies generally to all extremes, whether of great and small, or

swift and slow, or fair and foul, or black and white: and whether

the instances you select be men or dogs or anything else, few are the

extremes, but many are in the mean between them. Did you never observe

this?

Yes, I said, I have.

And do you not imagine, he said, that if there were a competition in

evil, the worst would be found to be very few?

Yes, that is very likely, I said.

Yes, that is very likely, he replied; although in this respect arguments

are unlike men--there I was led on by you to say more than I had

intended; but the point of comparison was, that when a simple man who

has no skill in dialectics believes an argument to be true which he

afterwards imagines to be false, whether really false or not, and

then another and another, he has no longer any faith left, and great

disputers, as you know, come to think at last that they have grown to be

the wisest of mankind; for they alone perceive the utter unsoundness and

instability of all arguments, or indeed, of all things, which, like the

currents in the Euripus, are going up and down in never-ceasing ebb and

flow.

That is quite true, I said.

Yes, Phaedo, he replied, and how melancholy, if there be such a thing as

truth or certainty or possibility of knowledge--that a man should have

lighted upon some argument or other which at first seemed true and then

turned out to be false, and instead of blaming himself and his own want

of wit, because he is annoyed, should at last be too glad to transfer

the blame from himself to arguments in general: and for ever afterwards

should hate and revile them, and lose truth and the knowledge of

realities.

Yes, indeed, I said; that is very melancholy.

Let us then, in the first place, he said, be careful of allowing or of

admitting into our souls the notion that there is no health or soundness

in any arguments at all. Rather say that we have not yet attained to

soundness in ourselves, and that we must struggle manfully and do our

best to gain health of mind--you and all other men having regard to the

whole of your future life, and I myself in the prospect of death. For at

this moment I am sensible that I have not the temper of a philosopher;

like the vulgar, I am only a partisan. Now the partisan, when he is

engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question,

but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions.

And the difference between him and me at the present moment is merely

this--that whereas he seeks to convince his hearers that what he says is

true, I am rather seeking to convince myself; to convince my hearers

is a secondary matter with me. And do but see how much I gain by the

argument. For if what I say is true, then I do well to be persuaded of

the truth, but if there be nothing after death, still, during the short

time that remains, I shall not distress my friends with lamentations,

and my ignorance will not last, but will die with me, and therefore

no harm will be done. This is the state of mind, Simmias and Cebes, in

which I approach the argument. And I would ask you to be thinking of

the truth and not of Socrates: agree with me, if I seem to you to be

speaking the truth; or if not, withstand me might and main, that I may

not deceive you as well as myself in my enthusiasm, and like the bee,

leave my sting in you before I die.

And now let us proceed, he said. And first of all let me be sure that

I have in my mind what you were saying. Simmias, if I remember rightly,

has fears and misgivings whether the soul, although a fairer and diviner

thing than the body, being as she is in the form of harmony, may not

perish first. On the other hand, Cebes appeared to grant that the soul

was more lasting than the body, but he said that no one could know

whether the soul, after having worn out many bodies, might not perish

herself and leave her last body behind her; and that this is death,

which is the destruction not of the body but of the soul, for in the

body the work of destruction is ever going on. Are not these, Simmias

and Cebes, the points which we have to consider?

They both agreed to this statement of them.

He proceeded: And did you deny the force of the whole preceding

argument, or of a part only?

Of a part only, they replied.

And what did you think, he said, of that part of the argument in which

we said that knowledge was recollection, and hence inferred that the

soul must have previously existed somewhere else before she was enclosed

in the body?

Cebes said that he had been wonderfully impressed by that part of the

argument, and that his conviction remained absolutely unshaken. Simmias

agreed, and added that he himself could hardly imagine the possibility

of his ever thinking differently.

But, rejoined Socrates, you will have to think differently, my Theban

friend, if you still maintain that harmony is a compound, and that the

soul is a harmony which is made out of strings set in the frame of the

body; for you will surely never allow yourself to say that a harmony is

prior to the elements which compose it.

Never, Socrates.

But do you not see that this is what you imply when you say that the

soul existed before she took the form and body of man, and was made up

of elements which as yet had no existence? For harmony is not like

the soul, as you suppose; but first the lyre, and the strings, and the

sounds exist in a state of discord, and then harmony is made last of

all, and perishes first. And how can such a notion of the soul as this

agree with the other?

Not at all, replied Simmias.

And yet, he said, there surely ought to be harmony in a discourse of

which harmony is the theme.

There ought, replied Simmias.

But there is no harmony, he said, in the two propositions that knowledge

is recollection, and that the soul is a harmony. Which of them will you

retain?

I think, he replied, that I have a much stronger faith, Socrates, in the

first of the two, which has been fully demonstrated to me, than in

the latter, which has not been demonstrated at all, but rests only on

probable and plausible grounds; and is therefore believed by the many. I

know too well that these arguments from probabilities are impostors, and

unless great caution is observed in the use of them, they are apt to

be deceptive--in geometry, and in other things too. But the doctrine of

knowledge and recollection has been proven to me on trustworthy grounds;

and the proof was that the soul must have existed before she came into

the body, because to her belongs the essence of which the very name

implies existence. Having, as I am convinced, rightly accepted this

conclusion, and on sufficient grounds, I must, as I suppose, cease to

argue or allow others to argue that the soul is a harmony.

Let me put the matter, Simmias, he said, in another point of view: Do

you imagine that a harmony or any other composition can be in a state

other than that of the elements, out of which it is compounded?

Certainly not.

Or do or suffer anything other than they do or suffer?

He agreed.

Then a harmony does not, properly speaking, lead the parts or elements

which make up the harmony, but only follows them.

He assented.

For harmony cannot possibly have any motion, or sound, or other quality

which is opposed to its parts.

That would be impossible, he replied.

And does not the nature of every harmony depend upon the manner in which

the elements are harmonized?

I do not understand you, he said.

I mean to say that a harmony admits of degrees, and is more of a

harmony, and more completely a harmony, when more truly and fully

harmonized, to any extent which is possible; and less of a harmony, and

less completely a harmony, when less truly and fully harmonized.

True.

But does the soul admit of degrees? or is one soul in the very least

degree more or less, or more or less completely, a soul than another?

Not in the least.

Yet surely of two souls, one is said to have intelligence and virtue,

and to be good, and the other to have folly and vice, and to be an evil

soul: and this is said truly?

Yes, truly.

But what will those who maintain the soul to be a harmony say of this

presence of virtue and vice in the soul?--will they say that here is

another harmony, and another discord, and that the virtuous soul is

harmonized, and herself being a harmony has another harmony within her,

and that the vicious soul is inharmonical and has no harmony within her?

I cannot tell, replied Simmias; but I suppose that something of the sort

would be asserted by those who say that the soul is a harmony.

And we have already admitted that no soul is more a soul than another;

which is equivalent to admitting that harmony is not more or less

harmony, or more or less completely a harmony?

Quite true.

And that which is not more or less a harmony is not more or less

harmonized?

True.

And that which is not more or less harmonized cannot have more or less

of harmony, but only an equal harmony?

Yes, an equal harmony.

Then one soul not being more or less absolutely a soul than another, is

not more or less harmonized?

Exactly.

And therefore has neither more nor less of discord, nor yet of harmony?

She has not.

And having neither more nor less of harmony or of discord, one soul

has no more vice or virtue than another, if vice be discord and virtue

harmony?

Not at all more.

Or speaking more correctly, Simmias, the soul, if she is a harmony, will

never have any vice; because a harmony, being absolutely a harmony, has

no part in the inharmonical.

No.

And therefore a soul which is absolutely a soul has no vice?

How can she have, if the previous argument holds?

Then, if all souls are equally by their nature souls, all souls of all

living creatures will be equally good?

I agree with you, Socrates, he said.

And can all this be true, think you? he said; for these are the

consequences which seem to follow from the assumption that the soul is a

harmony?

It cannot be true.

Once more, he said, what ruler is there of the elements of human nature

other than the soul, and especially the wise soul? Do you know of any?

Indeed, I do not.

And is the soul in agreement with the affections of the body? or is she

at variance with them? For example, when the body is hot and thirsty,

does not the soul incline us against drinking? and when the body

is hungry, against eating? And this is only one instance out of ten

thousand of the opposition of the soul to the things of the body.

Very true.

But we have already acknowledged that the soul, being a harmony, can

never utter a note at variance with the tensions and relaxations and

vibrations and other affections of the strings out of which she is

composed; she can only follow, she cannot lead them?

It must be so, he replied.

And yet do we not now discover the soul to be doing the exact

opposite--leading the elements of which she is believed to be composed;

almost always opposing and coercing them in all sorts of ways throughout

life, sometimes more violently with the pains of medicine and gymnastic;

then again more gently; now threatening, now admonishing the desires,

passions, fears, as if talking to a thing which is not herself, as Homer

in the Odyssee represents Odysseus doing in the words--

'He beat his breast, and thus reproached his heart: Endure, my heart;

far worse hast thou endured!'

Do you think that Homer wrote this under the idea that the soul is a

harmony capable of being led by the affections of the body, and not

rather of a nature which should lead and master them--herself a far

diviner thing than any harmony?

Yes, Socrates, I quite think so.

Then, my friend, we can never be right in saying that the soul is a

harmony, for we should contradict the divine Homer, and contradict

ourselves.

True, he said.

Thus much, said Socrates, of Harmonia, your Theban goddess, who has

graciously yielded to us; but what shall I say, Cebes, to her husband

Cadmus, and how shall I make peace with him?

I think that you will discover a way of propitiating him, said Cebes; I

am sure that you have put the argument with Harmonia in a manner that

I could never have expected. For when Simmias was mentioning his

difficulty, I quite imagined that no answer could be given to him, and

therefore I was surprised at finding that his argument could not sustain

the first onset of yours, and not impossibly the other, whom you call

Cadmus, may share a similar fate.

Nay, my good friend, said Socrates, let us not boast, lest some evil eye

should put to flight the word which I am about to speak. That, however,

may be left in the hands of those above, while I draw near in Homeric

fashion, and try the mettle of your words. Here lies the point:--You

want to have it proven to you that the soul is imperishable and

immortal, and the philosopher who is confident in death appears to you

to have but a vain and foolish confidence, if he believes that he will

fare better in the world below than one who has led another sort of

life, unless he can prove this; and you say that the demonstration of

the strength and divinity of the soul, and of her existence prior to our

becoming men, does not necessarily imply her immortality. Admitting the

soul to be longlived, and to have known and done much in a former state,

still she is not on that account immortal; and her entrance into

the human form may be a sort of disease which is the beginning of

dissolution, and may at last, after the toils of life are over, end in

that which is called death. And whether the soul enters into the body

once only or many times, does not, as you say, make any difference in

the fears of individuals. For any man, who is not devoid of sense,

must fear, if he has no knowledge and can give no account of the soul's

immortality. This, or something like this, I suspect to be your notion,

Cebes; and I designedly recur to it in order that nothing may escape us,

and that you may, if you wish, add or subtract anything.

But, said Cebes, as far as I see at present, I have nothing to add or

subtract: I mean what you say that I mean.

Socrates paused awhile, and seemed to be absorbed in reflection. At

length he said: You are raising a tremendous question, Cebes, involving

the whole nature of generation and corruption, about which, if you like,

I will give you my own experience; and if anything which I say is likely

to avail towards the solution of your difficulty you may make use of it.

I should very much like, said Cebes, to hear what you have to say.

Then I will tell you, said Socrates. When I was young, Cebes, I had a

prodigious desire to know that department of philosophy which is called

the investigation of nature; to know the causes of things, and why

a thing is and is created or destroyed appeared to me to be a lofty

profession; and I was always agitating myself with the consideration of

questions such as these:--Is the growth of animals the result of some

decay which the hot and cold principle contracts, as some have said? Is

the blood the element with which we think, or the air, or the fire? or

perhaps nothing of the kind--but the brain may be the originating

power of the perceptions of hearing and sight and smell, and memory

and opinion may come from them, and science may be based on memory and

opinion when they have attained fixity. And then I went on to examine

the corruption of them, and then to the things of heaven and earth, and

at last I concluded myself to be utterly and absolutely incapable

of these enquiries, as I will satisfactorily prove to you. For I was

fascinated by them to such a degree that my eyes grew blind to things

which I had seemed to myself, and also to others, to know quite well; I

forgot what I had before thought self-evident truths; e.g. such a fact

as that the growth of man is the result of eating and drinking; for when

by the digestion of food flesh is added to flesh and bone to bone, and

whenever there is an aggregation of congenial elements, the lesser

bulk becomes larger and the small man great. Was not that a reasonable

notion?

Yes, said Cebes, I think so.

Well; but let me tell you something more. There was a time when I

thought that I understood the meaning of greater and less pretty well;

and when I saw a great man standing by a little one, I fancied that one

was taller than the other by a head; or one horse would appear to

be greater than another horse: and still more clearly did I seem to

perceive that ten is two more than eight, and that two cubits are more

than one, because two is the double of one.

And what is now your notion of such matters? said Cebes.

I should be far enough from imagining, he replied, that I knew the cause

of any of them, by heaven I should; for I cannot satisfy myself that,

when one is added to one, the one to which the addition is made becomes

two, or that the two units added together make two by reason of the

addition. I cannot understand how, when separated from the other, each

of them was one and not two, and now, when they are brought together,

the mere juxtaposition or meeting of them should be the cause of their

becoming two: neither can I understand how the division of one is the

way to make two; for then a different cause would produce the same

effect,--as in the former instance the addition and juxtaposition of one

to one was the cause of two, in this the separation and subtraction of

one from the other would be the cause. Nor am I any longer satisfied

that I understand the reason why one or anything else is either

generated or destroyed or is at all, but I have in my mind some confused

notion of a new method, and can never admit the other.

Then I heard some one reading, as he said, from a book of Anaxagoras,

that mind was the disposer and cause of all, and I was delighted at this

notion, which appeared quite admirable, and I said to myself: If mind

is the disposer, mind will dispose all for the best, and put each

particular in the best place; and I argued that if any one desired to

find out the cause of the generation or destruction or existence of

anything, he must find out what state of being or doing or suffering was

best for that thing, and therefore a man had only to consider the best

for himself and others, and then he would also know the worse, since the

same science comprehended both. And I rejoiced to think that I had found

in Anaxagoras a teacher of the causes of existence such as I desired,

and I imagined that he would tell me first whether the earth is flat or

round; and whichever was true, he would proceed to explain the cause and

the necessity of this being so, and then he would teach me the nature of

the best and show that this was best; and if he said that the earth was

in the centre, he would further explain that this position was the best,

and I should be satisfied with the explanation given, and not want any

other sort of cause. And I thought that I would then go on and ask him

about the sun and moon and stars, and that he would explain to me their

comparative swiftness, and their returnings and various states, active

and passive, and how all of them were for the best. For I could not

imagine that when he spoke of mind as the disposer of them, he would

give any other account of their being as they are, except that this was

best; and I thought that when he had explained to me in detail the cause

of each and the cause of all, he would go on to explain to me what was

best for each and what was good for all. These hopes I would not have

sold for a large sum of money, and I seized the books and read them as

fast as I could in my eagerness to know the better and the worse.

What expectations I had formed, and how grievously was I disappointed!

As I proceeded, I found my philosopher altogether forsaking mind or any

other principle of order, but having recourse to air, and ether, and

water, and other eccentricities. I might compare him to a person who

began by maintaining generally that mind is the cause of the actions

of Socrates, but who, when he endeavoured to explain the causes of my

several actions in detail, went on to show that I sit here because my

body is made up of bones and muscles; and the bones, as he would say,

are hard and have joints which divide them, and the muscles are elastic,

and they cover the bones, which have also a covering or environment of

flesh and skin which contains them; and as the bones are lifted at their

joints by the contraction or relaxation of the muscles, I am able

to bend my limbs, and this is why I am sitting here in a curved

posture--that is what he would say, and he would have a similar

explanation of my talking to you, which he would attribute to sound, and

air, and hearing, and he would assign ten thousand other causes of the

same sort, forgetting to mention the true cause, which is, that the

Athenians have thought fit to condemn me, and accordingly I have thought

it better and more right to remain here and undergo my sentence; for

I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have

gone off long ago to Megara or Boeotia--by the dog they would, if they

had been moved only by their own idea of what was best, and if I had not

chosen the better and nobler part, instead of playing truant and running

away, of enduring any punishment which the state inflicts. There is

surely a strange confusion of causes and conditions in all this. It may

be said, indeed, that without bones and muscles and the other parts

of the body I cannot execute my purposes. But to say that I do as I do

because of them, and that this is the way in which mind acts, and

not from the choice of the best, is a very careless and idle mode of

speaking. I wonder that they cannot distinguish the cause from the

condition, which the many, feeling about in the dark, are always

mistaking and misnaming. And thus one man makes a vortex all round and

steadies the earth by the heaven; another gives the air as a support to

the earth, which is a sort of broad trough. Any power which in arranging

them as they are arranges them for the best never enters into their

minds; and instead of finding any superior strength in it, they rather

expect to discover another Atlas of the world who is stronger and more

everlasting and more containing than the good;--of the obligatory and

containing power of the good they think nothing; and yet this is the

principle which I would fain learn if any one would teach me. But as I

have failed either to discover myself, or to learn of any one else,

the nature of the best, I will exhibit to you, if you like, what I have

found to be the second best mode of enquiring into the cause.

I should very much like to hear, he replied.

Socrates proceeded:--I thought that as I had failed in the contemplation

of true existence, I ought to be careful that I did not lose the eye of

my soul; as people may injure their bodily eye by observing and gazing

on the sun during an eclipse, unless they take the precaution of only

looking at the image reflected in the water, or in some similar medium.

So in my own case, I was afraid that my soul might be blinded altogether

if I looked at things with my eyes or tried to apprehend them by the

help of the senses. And I thought that I had better have recourse to the

world of mind and seek there the truth of existence. I dare say that

the simile is not perfect--for I am very far from admitting that he who

contemplates existences through the medium of thought, sees them only

'through a glass darkly,' any more than he who considers them in action

and operation. However, this was the method which I adopted: I first

assumed some principle which I judged to be the strongest, and then I

affirmed as true whatever seemed to agree with this, whether relating

to the cause or to anything else; and that which disagreed I regarded

as untrue. But I should like to explain my meaning more clearly, as I do

not think that you as yet understand me.

No indeed, replied Cebes, not very well.

There is nothing new, he said, in what I am about to tell you; but

only what I have been always and everywhere repeating in the previous

discussion and on other occasions: I want to show you the nature of that

cause which has occupied my thoughts. I shall have to go back to those

familiar words which are in the mouth of every one, and first of all

assume that there is an absolute beauty and goodness and greatness, and

the like; grant me this, and I hope to be able to show you the nature of

the cause, and to prove the immortality of the soul.

Cebes said: You may proceed at once with the proof, for I grant you

this.

Well, he said, then I should like to know whether you agree with me

in the next step; for I cannot help thinking, if there be anything

beautiful other than absolute beauty should there be such, that it can

be beautiful only in as far as it partakes of absolute beauty--and I

should say the same of everything. Do you agree in this notion of the

cause?

Yes, he said, I agree.

He proceeded: I know nothing and can understand nothing of any other of

those wise causes which are alleged; and if a person says to me that

the bloom of colour, or form, or any such thing is a source of beauty,

I leave all that, which is only confusing to me, and simply and singly,

and perhaps foolishly, hold and am assured in my own mind that nothing

makes a thing beautiful but the presence and participation of beauty in

whatever way or manner obtained; for as to the manner I am uncertain,

but I stoutly contend that by beauty all beautiful things become

beautiful. This appears to me to be the safest answer which I can give,

either to myself or to another, and to this I cling, in the persuasion

that this principle will never be overthrown, and that to myself or

to any one who asks the question, I may safely reply, That by beauty

beautiful things become beautiful. Do you not agree with me?

I do.

And that by greatness only great things become great and greater

greater, and by smallness the less become less?

True.

Then if a person were to remark that A is taller by a head than B, and

B less by a head than A, you would refuse to admit his statement, and

would stoutly contend that what you mean is only that the greater is

greater by, and by reason of, greatness, and the less is less only by,

and by reason of, smallness; and thus you would avoid the danger of

saying that the greater is greater and the less less by the measure of

the head, which is the same in both, and would also avoid the monstrous

absurdity of supposing that the greater man is greater by reason of the

head, which is small. You would be afraid to draw such an inference,

would you not?

Indeed, I should, said Cebes, laughing.

In like manner you would be afraid to say that ten exceeded eight by,

and by reason of, two; but would say by, and by reason of, number; or

you would say that two cubits exceed one cubit not by a half, but by

magnitude?-for there is the same liability to error in all these cases.

Very true, he said.

Again, would you not be cautious of affirming that the addition of

one to one, or the division of one, is the cause of two? And you would

loudly asseverate that you know of no way in which anything comes

into existence except by participation in its own proper essence,

and consequently, as far as you know, the only cause of two is

the participation in duality--this is the way to make two, and the

participation in one is the way to make one. You would say: I will let

alone puzzles of division and addition--wiser heads than mine may answer

them; inexperienced as I am, and ready to start, as the proverb says,

at my own shadow, I cannot afford to give up the sure ground of a

principle. And if any one assails you there, you would not mind him,

or answer him, until you had seen whether the consequences which follow

agree with one another or not, and when you are further required to give

an explanation of this principle, you would go on to assume a higher

principle, and a higher, until you found a resting-place in the best of

the higher; but you would not confuse the principle and the consequences

in your reasoning, like the Eristics--at least if you wanted to discover

real existence. Not that this confusion signifies to them, who never

care or think about the matter at all, for they have the wit to be well

pleased with themselves however great may be the turmoil of their ideas.

But you, if you are a philosopher, will certainly do as I say.

What you say is most true, said Simmias and Cebes, both speaking at

once.

ECHECRATES: Yes, Phaedo; and I do not wonder at their assenting. Any

one who has the least sense will acknowledge the wonderful clearness of

Socrates' reasoning.

PHAEDO: Certainly, Echecrates; and such was the feeling of the whole

company at the time.

ECHECRATES: Yes, and equally of ourselves, who were not of the company,

and are now listening to your recital. But what followed?

PHAEDO: After all this had been admitted, and they had that ideas exist,

and that other things participate in them and derive their names from

them, Socrates, if I remember rightly, said:--

This is your way of speaking; and yet when you say that Simmias is

greater than Socrates and less than Phaedo, do you not predicate of

Simmias both greatness and smallness?

Yes, I do.

But still you allow that Simmias does not really exceed Socrates, as

the words may seem to imply, because he is Simmias, but by reason of the

size which he has; just as Simmias does not exceed Socrates because he

is Simmias, any more than because Socrates is Socrates, but because he

has smallness when compared with the greatness of Simmias?

True.

And if Phaedo exceeds him in size, this is not because Phaedo is

Phaedo, but because Phaedo has greatness relatively to Simmias, who is

comparatively smaller?

That is true.

And therefore Simmias is said to be great, and is also said to be small,

because he is in a mean between them, exceeding the smallness of the one

by his greatness, and allowing the greatness of the other to exceed his

smallness. He added, laughing, I am speaking like a book, but I believe

that what I am saying is true.

Simmias assented.

I speak as I do because I want you to agree with me in thinking, not

only that absolute greatness will never be great and also small, but

that greatness in us or in the concrete will never admit the small or

admit of being exceeded: instead of this, one of two things will happen,

either the greater will fly or retire before the opposite, which is the

less, or at the approach of the less has already ceased to exist; but

will not, if allowing or admitting of smallness, be changed by that;

even as I, having received and admitted smallness when compared with

Simmias, remain just as I was, and am the same small person. And as the

idea of greatness cannot condescend ever to be or become small, in like

manner the smallness in us cannot be or become great; nor can any other

opposite which remains the same ever be or become its own opposite, but

either passes away or perishes in the change.

That, replied Cebes, is quite my notion.

Hereupon one of the company, though I do not exactly remember which of

them, said: In heaven's name, is not this the direct contrary of what

was admitted before--that out of the greater came the less and out of

the less the greater, and that opposites were simply generated from

opposites; but now this principle seems to be utterly denied.

Socrates inclined his head to the speaker and listened. I like your

courage, he said, in reminding us of this. But you do not observe that

there is a difference in the two cases. For then we were speaking of

opposites in the concrete, and now of the essential opposite which, as

is affirmed, neither in us nor in nature can ever be at variance with

itself: then, my friend, we were speaking of things in which opposites

are inherent and which are called after them, but now about the

opposites which are inherent in them and which give their name to them;

and these essential opposites will never, as we maintain, admit of

generation into or out of one another. At the same time, turning to

Cebes, he said: Are you at all disconcerted, Cebes, at our friend's

objection?

No, I do not feel so, said Cebes; and yet I cannot deny that I am often

disturbed by objections.

Then we are agreed after all, said Socrates, that the opposite will

never in any case be opposed to itself?

To that we are quite agreed, he replied.

Yet once more let me ask you to consider the question from another point

of view, and see whether you agree with me:--There is a thing which you

term heat, and another thing which you term cold?

Certainly.

But are they the same as fire and snow?

Most assuredly not.

Heat is a thing different from fire, and cold is not the same with snow?

Yes.

And yet you will surely admit, that when snow, as was before said, is

under the influence of heat, they will not remain snow and heat; but at

the advance of the heat, the snow will either retire or perish?

Very true, he replied.

And the fire too at the advance of the cold will either retire or

perish; and when the fire is under the influence of the cold, they will

not remain as before, fire and cold.

That is true, he said.

And in some cases the name of the idea is not only attached to the idea

in an eternal connection, but anything else which, not being the idea,

exists only in the form of the idea, may also lay claim to it. I will

try to make this clearer by an example:--The odd number is always called

by the name of odd?

Very true.

But is this the only thing which is called odd? Are there not other

things which have their own name, and yet are called odd, because,

although not the same as oddness, they are never without oddness?--that

is what I mean to ask--whether numbers such as the number three are not

of the class of odd. And there are many other examples: would you not

say, for example, that three may be called by its proper name, and also

be called odd, which is not the same with three? and this may be said

not only of three but also of five, and of every alternate number--each

of them without being oddness is odd, and in the same way two and

four, and the other series of alternate numbers, has every number even,

without being evenness. Do you agree?

Of course.

Then now mark the point at which I am aiming:--not only do essential

opposites exclude one another, but also concrete things, which, although

not in themselves opposed, contain opposites; these, I say, likewise

reject the idea which is opposed to that which is contained in them,

and when it approaches them they either perish or withdraw. For example;

Will not the number three endure annihilation or anything sooner than be

converted into an even number, while remaining three?

Very true, said Cebes.

And yet, he said, the number two is certainly not opposed to the number

three?

It is not.

Then not only do opposite ideas repel the advance of one another, but

also there are other natures which repel the approach of opposites.

Very true, he said.

Suppose, he said, that we endeavour, if possible, to determine what

these are.

By all means.

Are they not, Cebes, such as compel the things of which they have

possession, not only to take their own form, but also the form of some

opposite?

What do you mean?

I mean, as I was just now saying, and as I am sure that you know, that

those things which are possessed by the number three must not only be

three in number, but must also be odd.

Quite true.

And on this oddness, of which the number three has the impress, the

opposite idea will never intrude?

No.

And this impress was given by the odd principle?

Yes.

And to the odd is opposed the even?

True.

Then the idea of the even number will never arrive at three?

No.

Then three has no part in the even?

None.

Then the triad or number three is uneven?

Very true.

To return then to my distinction of natures which are not opposed, and

yet do not admit opposites--as, in the instance given, three, although

not opposed to the even, does not any the more admit of the even, but

always brings the opposite into play on the other side; or as two does

not receive the odd, or fire the cold--from these examples (and there

are many more of them) perhaps you may be able to arrive at the general

conclusion, that not only opposites will not receive opposites, but also

that nothing which brings the opposite will admit the opposite of

that which it brings, in that to which it is brought. And here let me

recapitulate--for there is no harm in repetition. The number five will

not admit the nature of the even, any more than ten, which is the

double of five, will admit the nature of the odd. The double has another

opposite, and is not strictly opposed to the odd, but nevertheless

rejects the odd altogether. Nor again will parts in the ratio 3:2, nor

any fraction in which there is a half, nor again in which there is a

third, admit the notion of the whole, although they are not opposed to

the whole: You will agree?

Yes, he said, I entirely agree and go along with you in that.

And now, he said, let us begin again; and do not you answer my question

in the words in which I ask it: let me have not the old safe answer of

which I spoke at first, but another equally safe, of which the truth

will be inferred by you from what has been just said. I mean that if any

one asks you 'what that is, of which the inherence makes the body

hot,' you will reply not heat (this is what I call the safe and

stupid answer), but fire, a far superior answer, which we are now in a

condition to give. Or if any one asks you 'why a body is diseased,' you

will not say from disease, but from fever; and instead of saying that

oddness is the cause of odd numbers, you will say that the monad is the

cause of them: and so of things in general, as I dare say that you will

understand sufficiently without my adducing any further examples.

Yes, he said, I quite understand you.

Tell me, then, what is that of which the inherence will render the body

alive?

The soul, he replied.

And is this always the case?

Yes, he said, of course.

Then whatever the soul possesses, to that she comes bearing life?

Yes, certainly.

And is there any opposite to life?

There is, he said.

And what is that?

Death.

Then the soul, as has been acknowledged, will never receive the opposite

of what she brings.

Impossible, replied Cebes.

And now, he said, what did we just now call that principle which repels

the even?

The odd.

And that principle which repels the musical, or the just?

The unmusical, he said, and the unjust.

And what do we call the principle which does not admit of death?

The immortal, he said.

And does the soul admit of death?

No.

Then the soul is immortal?

Yes, he said.

And may we say that this has been proven?

Yes, abundantly proven, Socrates, he replied.

Supposing that the odd were imperishable, must not three be

imperishable?

Of course.

And if that which is cold were imperishable, when the warm principle

came attacking the snow, must not the snow have retired whole and

unmelted--for it could never have perished, nor could it have remained

and admitted the heat?

True, he said.

Again, if the uncooling or warm principle were imperishable, the fire

when assailed by cold would not have perished or have been extinguished,

but would have gone away unaffected?

Certainly, he said.

And the same may be said of the immortal: if the immortal is also

imperishable, the soul when attacked by death cannot perish; for the

preceding argument shows that the soul will not admit of death, or ever

be dead, any more than three or the odd number will admit of the even,

or fire or the heat in the fire, of the cold. Yet a person may say: 'But

although the odd will not become even at the approach of the even, why

may not the odd perish and the even take the place of the odd?' Now to

him who makes this objection, we cannot answer that the odd principle is

imperishable; for this has not been acknowledged, but if this had been

acknowledged, there would have been no difficulty in contending that

at the approach of the even the odd principle and the number three took

their departure; and the same argument would have held good of fire and

heat and any other thing.

Very true.

And the same may be said of the immortal: if the immortal is also

imperishable, then the soul will be imperishable as well as immortal;

but if not, some other proof of her imperishableness will have to be

given.

No other proof is needed, he said; for if the immortal, being eternal,

is liable to perish, then nothing is imperishable.

Yes, replied Socrates, and yet all men will agree that God, and the

essential form of life, and the immortal in general, will never perish.

Yes, all men, he said--that is true; and what is more, gods, if I am not

mistaken, as well as men.

Seeing then that the immortal is indestructible, must not the soul, if

she is immortal, be also imperishable?

Most certainly.

Then when death attacks a man, the mortal portion of him may be supposed

to die, but the immortal retires at the approach of death and is

preserved safe and sound?

True.

Then, Cebes, beyond question, the soul is immortal and imperishable, and

our souls will truly exist in another world!

I am convinced, Socrates, said Cebes, and have nothing more to object;

but if my friend Simmias, or any one else, has any further objection to

make, he had better speak out, and not keep silence, since I do not know

to what other season he can defer the discussion, if there is anything

which he wants to say or to have said.

But I have nothing more to say, replied Simmias; nor can I see any

reason for doubt after what has been said. But I still feel and cannot

help feeling uncertain in my own mind, when I think of the greatness of

the subject and the feebleness of man.

Yes, Simmias, replied Socrates, that is well said: and I may add that

first principles, even if they appear certain, should be carefully

considered; and when they are satisfactorily ascertained, then, with a

sort of hesitating confidence in human reason, you may, I think, follow

the course of the argument; and if that be plain and clear, there will

be no need for any further enquiry.

Very true.

But then, O my friends, he said, if the soul is really immortal, what

care should be taken of her, not only in respect of the portion of time

which is called life, but of eternity! And the danger of neglecting her

from this point of view does indeed appear to be awful. If death had

only been the end of all, the wicked would have had a good bargain in

dying, for they would have been happily quit not only of their body, but

of their own evil together with their souls. But now, inasmuch as the

soul is manifestly immortal, there is no release or salvation from evil

except the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom. For the soul

when on her progress to the world below takes nothing with her but

nurture and education; and these are said greatly to benefit or greatly

to injure the departed, at the very beginning of his journey thither.

For after death, as they say, the genius of each individual, to whom

he belonged in life, leads him to a certain place in which the dead are

gathered together, whence after judgment has been given they pass into

the world below, following the guide, who is appointed to conduct them

from this world to the other: and when they have there received their

due and remained their time, another guide brings them back again after

many revolutions of ages. Now this way to the other world is not, as

Aeschylus says in the Telephus, a single and straight path--if that were

so no guide would be needed, for no one could miss it; but there are

many partings of the road, and windings, as I infer from the rites and

sacrifices which are offered to the gods below in places where three

ways meet on earth. The wise and orderly soul follows in the straight

path and is conscious of her surroundings; but the soul which desires

the body, and which, as I was relating before, has long been fluttering

about the lifeless frame and the world of sight, is after many struggles

and many sufferings hardly and with violence carried away by her

attendant genius, and when she arrives at the place where the other

souls are gathered, if she be impure and have done impure deeds, whether

foul murders or other crimes which are the brothers of these, and the

works of brothers in crime--from that soul every one flees and turns

away; no one will be her companion, no one her guide, but alone she

wanders in extremity of evil until certain times are fulfilled, and

when they are fulfilled, she is borne irresistibly to her own fitting

habitation; as every pure and just soul which has passed through life in

the company and under the guidance of the gods has also her own proper

home.

Now the earth has divers wonderful regions, and is indeed in nature

and extent very unlike the notions of geographers, as I believe on the

authority of one who shall be nameless.

What do you mean, Socrates? said Simmias. I have myself heard many

descriptions of the earth, but I do not know, and I should very much

like to know, in which of these you put faith.

And I, Simmias, replied Socrates, if I had the art of Glaucus would tell

you; although I know not that the art of Glaucus could prove the truth

of my tale, which I myself should never be able to prove, and even if

I could, I fear, Simmias, that my life would come to an end before the

argument was completed. I may describe to you, however, the form and

regions of the earth according to my conception of them.

That, said Simmias, will be enough.

Well, then, he said, my conviction is, that the earth is a round body

in the centre of the heavens, and therefore has no need of air or any

similar force to be a support, but is kept there and hindered from

falling or inclining any way by the equability of the surrounding heaven

and by her own equipoise. For that which, being in equipoise, is in the

centre of that which is equably diffused, will not incline any way in

any degree, but will always remain in the same state and not deviate.

And this is my first notion.

Which is surely a correct one, said Simmias.

Also I believe that the earth is very vast, and that we who dwell in

the region extending from the river Phasis to the Pillars of Heracles

inhabit a small portion only about the sea, like ants or frogs about a

marsh, and that there are other inhabitants of many other like places;

for everywhere on the face of the earth there are hollows of various

forms and sizes, into which the water and the mist and the lower

air collect. But the true earth is pure and situated in the pure

heaven--there are the stars also; and it is the heaven which is commonly

spoken of by us as the ether, and of which our own earth is the sediment

gathering in the hollows beneath. But we who live in these hollows are

deceived into the notion that we are dwelling above on the surface of

the earth; which is just as if a creature who was at the bottom of the

sea were to fancy that he was on the surface of the water, and that the

sea was the heaven through which he saw the sun and the other stars,

he having never come to the surface by reason of his feebleness and

sluggishness, and having never lifted up his head and seen, nor ever

heard from one who had seen, how much purer and fairer the world above

is than his own. And such is exactly our case: for we are dwelling in a

hollow of the earth, and fancy that we are on the surface; and the air

we call the heaven, in which we imagine that the stars move. But the

fact is, that owing to our feebleness and sluggishness we are prevented

from reaching the surface of the air: for if any man could arrive at the

exterior limit, or take the wings of a bird and come to the top, then

like a fish who puts his head out of the water and sees this world, he

would see a world beyond; and, if the nature of man could sustain the

sight, he would acknowledge that this other world was the place of the

true heaven and the true light and the true earth. For our earth, and

the stones, and the entire region which surrounds us, are spoilt and

corroded, as in the sea all things are corroded by the brine, neither

is there any noble or perfect growth, but caverns only, and sand, and an

endless slough of mud: and even the shore is not to be compared to the

fairer sights of this world. And still less is this our world to be

compared with the other. Of that upper earth which is under the heaven,

I can tell you a charming tale, Simmias, which is well worth hearing.

And we, Socrates, replied Simmias, shall be charmed to listen to you.

The tale, my friend, he said, is as follows:--In the first place, the

earth, when looked at from above, is in appearance streaked like one of

those balls which have leather coverings in twelve pieces, and is decked

with various colours, of which the colours used by painters on earth are

in a manner samples. But there the whole earth is made up of them,

and they are brighter far and clearer than ours; there is a purple of

wonderful lustre, also the radiance of gold, and the white which is in

the earth is whiter than any chalk or snow. Of these and other colours

the earth is made up, and they are more in number and fairer than the

eye of man has ever seen; the very hollows (of which I was speaking)

filled with air and water have a colour of their own, and are seen like

light gleaming amid the diversity of the other colours, so that the

whole presents a single and continuous appearance of variety in unity.

And in this fair region everything that grows--trees, and flowers, and

fruits--are in a like degree fairer than any here; and there are hills,

having stones in them in a like degree smoother, and more transparent,

and fairer in colour than our highly-valued emeralds and sardonyxes and

jaspers, and other gems, which are but minute fragments of them: for

there all the stones are like our precious stones, and fairer still

(compare Republic). The reason is, that they are pure, and not, like

our precious stones, infected or corroded by the corrupt briny elements

which coagulate among us, and which breed foulness and disease both in

earth and stones, as well as in animals and plants. They are the jewels

of the upper earth, which also shines with gold and silver and the like,

and they are set in the light of day and are large and abundant and in

all places, making the earth a sight to gladden the beholder's eye.

And there are animals and men, some in a middle region, others dwelling

about the air as we dwell about the sea; others in islands which the air

flows round, near the continent: and in a word, the air is used by them

as the water and the sea are by us, and the ether is to them what the

air is to us. Moreover, the temperament of their seasons is such that

they have no disease, and live much longer than we do, and have

sight and hearing and smell, and all the other senses, in far greater

perfection, in the same proportion that air is purer than water or the

ether than air. Also they have temples and sacred places in which the

gods really dwell, and they hear their voices and receive their answers,

and are conscious of them and hold converse with them, and they see the

sun, moon, and stars as they truly are, and their other blessedness is

of a piece with this.

Such is the nature of the whole earth, and of the things which are

around the earth; and there are divers regions in the hollows on the

face of the globe everywhere, some of them deeper and more extended than

that which we inhabit, others deeper but with a narrower opening

than ours, and some are shallower and also wider. All have numerous

perforations, and there are passages broad and narrow in the interior of

the earth, connecting them with one another; and there flows out of and

into them, as into basins, a vast tide of water, and huge subterranean

streams of perennial rivers, and springs hot and cold, and a great fire,

and great rivers of fire, and streams of liquid mud, thin or thick (like

the rivers of mud in Sicily, and the lava streams which follow them),

and the regions about which they happen to flow are filled up with them.

And there is a swinging or see-saw in the interior of the earth which

moves all this up and down, and is due to the following cause:--There is

a chasm which is the vastest of them all, and pierces right through the

whole earth; this is that chasm which Homer describes in the words,--

'Far off, where is the inmost depth beneath the earth;'

and which he in other places, and many other poets, have called

Tartarus. And the see-saw is caused by the streams flowing into and out

of this chasm, and they each have the nature of the soil through which

they flow. And the reason why the streams are always flowing in and out,

is that the watery element has no bed or bottom, but is swinging and

surging up and down, and the surrounding wind and air do the same; they

follow the water up and down, hither and thither, over the earth--just

as in the act of respiration the air is always in process of inhalation

and exhalation;--and the wind swinging with the water in and out

produces fearful and irresistible blasts: when the waters retire with

a rush into the lower parts of the earth, as they are called, they flow

through the earth in those regions, and fill them up like water raised

by a pump, and then when they leave those regions and rush back hither,

they again fill the hollows here, and when these are filled, flow

through subterranean channels and find their way to their several

places, forming seas, and lakes, and rivers, and springs. Thence they

again enter the earth, some of them making a long circuit into many

lands, others going to a few places and not so distant; and again fall

into Tartarus, some at a point a good deal lower than that at which they

rose, and others not much lower, but all in some degree lower than the

point from which they came. And some burst forth again on the opposite

side, and some on the same side, and some wind round the earth with one

or many folds like the coils of a serpent, and descend as far as they

can, but always return and fall into the chasm. The rivers flowing in

either direction can descend only to the centre and no further, for

opposite to the rivers is a precipice.

Now these rivers are many, and mighty, and diverse, and there are four

principal ones, of which the greatest and outermost is that called

Oceanus, which flows round the earth in a circle; and in the opposite

direction flows Acheron, which passes under the earth through desert

places into the Acherusian lake: this is the lake to the shores of

which the souls of the many go when they are dead, and after waiting an

appointed time, which is to some a longer and to some a shorter time,

they are sent back to be born again as animals. The third river passes

out between the two, and near the place of outlet pours into a vast

region of fire, and forms a lake larger than the Mediterranean Sea,

boiling with water and mud; and proceeding muddy and turbid, and winding

about the earth, comes, among other places, to the extremities of the

Acherusian Lake, but mingles not with the waters of the lake, and after

making many coils about the earth plunges into Tartarus at a deeper

level. This is that Pyriphlegethon, as the stream is called, which

throws up jets of fire in different parts of the earth. The fourth river

goes out on the opposite side, and falls first of all into a wild and

savage region, which is all of a dark-blue colour, like lapis lazuli;

and this is that river which is called the Stygian river, and falls into

and forms the Lake Styx, and after falling into the lake and receiving

strange powers in the waters, passes under the earth, winding round

in the opposite direction, and comes near the Acherusian lake from the

opposite side to Pyriphlegethon. And the water of this river too mingles

with no other, but flows round in a circle and falls into Tartarus over

against Pyriphlegethon; and the name of the river, as the poets say, is

Cocytus.

Such is the nature of the other world; and when the dead arrive at the

place to which the genius of each severally guides them, first of all,

they have sentence passed upon them, as they have lived well and piously

or not. And those who appear to have lived neither well nor ill, go to

the river Acheron, and embarking in any vessels which they may find, are

carried in them to the lake, and there they dwell and are purified of

their evil deeds, and having suffered the penalty of the wrongs which

they have done to others, they are absolved, and receive the rewards of

their good deeds, each of them according to his deserts. But those who

appear to be incurable by reason of the greatness of their crimes--who

have committed many and terrible deeds of sacrilege, murders foul and

violent, or the like--such are hurled into Tartarus which is their

suitable destiny, and they never come out. Those again who have

committed crimes, which, although great, are not irremediable--who in

a moment of anger, for example, have done violence to a father or a

mother, and have repented for the remainder of their lives, or, who

have taken the life of another under the like extenuating

circumstances--these are plunged into Tartarus, the pains of which they

are compelled to undergo for a year, but at the end of the year the

wave casts them forth--mere homicides by way of Cocytus, parricides and

matricides by Pyriphlegethon--and they are borne to the Acherusian lake,

and there they lift up their voices and call upon the victims whom they

have slain or wronged, to have pity on them, and to be kind to them,

and let them come out into the lake. And if they prevail, then they come

forth and cease from their troubles; but if not, they are carried back

again into Tartarus and from thence into the rivers unceasingly, until

they obtain mercy from those whom they have wronged: for that is the

sentence inflicted upon them by their judges. Those too who have been

pre-eminent for holiness of life are released from this earthly prison,

and go to their pure home which is above, and dwell in the purer earth;

and of these, such as have duly purified themselves with philosophy live

henceforth altogether without the body, in mansions fairer still which

may not be described, and of which the time would fail me to tell.

Wherefore, Simmias, seeing all these things, what ought not we to do

that we may obtain virtue and wisdom in this life? Fair is the prize,

and the hope great!

A man of sense ought not to say, nor will I be very confident, that the

description which I have given of the soul and her mansions is exactly

true. But I do say that, inasmuch as the soul is shown to be immortal,

he may venture to think, not improperly or unworthily, that something of

the kind is true. The venture is a glorious one, and he ought to comfort

himself with words like these, which is the reason why I lengthen out

the tale. Wherefore, I say, let a man be of good cheer about his soul,

who having cast away the pleasures and ornaments of the body as alien to

him and working harm rather than good, has sought after the pleasures of

knowledge; and has arrayed the soul, not in some foreign attire, but

in her own proper jewels, temperance, and justice, and courage, and

nobility, and truth--in these adorned she is ready to go on her journey

to the world below, when her hour comes. You, Simmias and Cebes, and all

other men, will depart at some time or other. Me already, as the tragic

poet would say, the voice of fate calls. Soon I must drink the poison;

and I think that I had better repair to the bath first, in order that

the women may not have the trouble of washing my body after I am dead.

When he had done speaking, Crito said: And have you any commands for us,

Socrates--anything to say about your children, or any other matter in

which we can serve you?

Nothing particular, Crito, he replied: only, as I have always told

you, take care of yourselves; that is a service which you may be ever

rendering to me and mine and to all of us, whether you promise to do so

or not. But if you have no thought for yourselves, and care not to walk

according to the rule which I have prescribed for you, not now for the

first time, however much you may profess or promise at the moment, it

will be of no avail.

We will do our best, said Crito: And in what way shall we bury you?

In any way that you like; but you must get hold of me, and take care

that I do not run away from you. Then he turned to us, and added with a

smile:--I cannot make Crito believe that I am the same Socrates who have

been talking and conducting the argument; he fancies that I am the other

Socrates whom he will soon see, a dead body--and he asks, How shall he

bury me? And though I have spoken many words in the endeavour to show

that when I have drunk the poison I shall leave you and go to the joys

of the blessed,--these words of mine, with which I was comforting you

and myself, have had, as I perceive, no effect upon Crito. And therefore

I want you to be surety for me to him now, as at the trial he was surety

to the judges for me: but let the promise be of another sort; for he

was surety for me to the judges that I would remain, and you must be my

surety to him that I shall not remain, but go away and depart; and then

he will suffer less at my death, and not be grieved when he sees my body

being burned or buried. I would not have him sorrow at my hard lot, or

say at the burial, Thus we lay out Socrates, or, Thus we follow him to

the grave or bury him; for false words are not only evil in themselves,

but they infect the soul with evil. Be of good cheer, then, my dear

Crito, and say that you are burying my body only, and do with that

whatever is usual, and what you think best.

When he had spoken these words, he arose and went into a chamber to

bathe; Crito followed him and told us to wait. So we remained behind,

talking and thinking of the subject of discourse, and also of the

greatness of our sorrow; he was like a father of whom we were being

bereaved, and we were about to pass the rest of our lives as orphans.

When he had taken the bath his children were brought to him--(he had two

young sons and an elder one); and the women of his family also came,

and he talked to them and gave them a few directions in the presence of

Crito; then he dismissed them and returned to us.

Now the hour of sunset was near, for a good deal of time had passed

while he was within. When he came out, he sat down with us again after

his bath, but not much was said. Soon the jailer, who was the servant of

the Eleven, entered and stood by him, saying:--To you, Socrates, whom

I know to be the noblest and gentlest and best of all who ever came to

this place, I will not impute the angry feelings of other men, who rage

and swear at me, when, in obedience to the authorities, I bid them drink

the poison--indeed, I am sure that you will not be angry with me; for

others, as you are aware, and not I, are to blame. And so fare you well,

and try to bear lightly what must needs be--you know my errand. Then

bursting into tears he turned away and went out.

Socrates looked at him and said: I return your good wishes, and will do

as you bid. Then turning to us, he said, How charming the man is: since

I have been in prison he has always been coming to see me, and at times

he would talk to me, and was as good to me as could be, and now see how

generously he sorrows on my account. We must do as he says, Crito; and

therefore let the cup be brought, if the poison is prepared: if not, let

the attendant prepare some.

Yet, said Crito, the sun is still upon the hill-tops, and I know that

many a one has taken the draught late, and after the announcement has

been made to him, he has eaten and drunk, and enjoyed the society of his

beloved; do not hurry--there is time enough.

Socrates said: Yes, Crito, and they of whom you speak are right in so

acting, for they think that they will be gainers by the delay; but I am

right in not following their example, for I do not think that I should

gain anything by drinking the poison a little later; I should only be

ridiculous in my own eyes for sparing and saving a life which is already

forfeit. Please then to do as I say, and not to refuse me.

Crito made a sign to the servant, who was standing by; and he went out,

and having been absent for some time, returned with the jailer

carrying the cup of poison. Socrates said: You, my good friend, who

are experienced in these matters, shall give me directions how I am to

proceed. The man answered: You have only to walk about until your legs

are heavy, and then to lie down, and the poison will act. At the same

time he handed the cup to Socrates, who in the easiest and gentlest

manner, without the least fear or change of colour or feature, looking

at the man with all his eyes, Echecrates, as his manner was, took the

cup and said: What do you say about making a libation out of this cup

to any god? May I, or not? The man answered: We only prepare, Socrates,

just so much as we deem enough. I understand, he said: but I may

and must ask the gods to prosper my journey from this to the other

world--even so--and so be it according to my prayer. Then raising the

cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank off the poison.

And hitherto most of us had been able to control our sorrow; but now

when we saw him drinking, and saw too that he had finished the draught,

we could no longer forbear, and in spite of myself my own tears were

flowing fast; so that I covered my face and wept, not for him, but at

the thought of my own calamity in having to part from such a friend. Nor

was I the first; for Crito, when he found himself unable to restrain his

tears, had got up, and I followed; and at that moment, Apollodorus, who

had been weeping all the time, broke out in a loud and passionate cry

which made cowards of us all. Socrates alone retained his calmness: What

is this strange outcry? he said. I sent away the women mainly in order

that they might not misbehave in this way, for I have been told that

a man should die in peace. Be quiet, then, and have patience. When we

heard his words we were ashamed, and refrained our tears; and he walked

about until, as he said, his legs began to fail, and then he lay on his

back, according to the directions, and the man who gave him the poison

now and then looked at his feet and legs; and after a while he pressed

his foot hard, and asked him if he could feel; and he said, No; and then

his leg, and so upwards and upwards, and showed us that he was cold and

stiff. And he felt them himself, and said: When the poison reaches the

heart, that will be the end. He was beginning to grow cold about the

groin, when he uncovered his face, for he had covered himself up,

and said--they were his last words--he said: Crito, I owe a cock to

Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt? The debt shall be

paid, said Crito; is there anything else? There was no answer to

this question; but in a minute or two a movement was heard, and the

attendants uncovered him; his eyes were set, and Crito closed his eyes

and mouth.

Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend; concerning whom I may

truly say, that of all the men of his time whom I have known, he was the

wisest and justest and best.