Phaedo
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