Plato's Phaedo


In a remote Peloponnesian township Echecrates catches up on the
details of Socrates' death. At last a traveller had arrived who could
tell them - Phaedo of Elis, a follower of Socrates who had been
with him on his final day.


ECHECRATES: Were you there with Socrates yourself, Phaedo,
the day when he drank the poison, or did you hear about it from
somebody else?

PHAEDO: I was there myself, Echecrates.

ECHECRATES: Then what did the Master say before he died, and
how did he meet his end? I should very much like to hear. None of
the people in Phlius go to Athens much in these days, and it is a
long time since we had a visitor from there who could give us any
definite information, except that he was executed by drinking
hemlock; nobody could tell us anything more than that.

PHAEDO: Then haven't you even heard how his trial went?

ECHECRATES: Yes, someone told us about that; and we were
surprised because there was obviously a long interval between it
and the execution. How was that, Phaedo?

PHAEDO: A fortunate coincidence, Echecrates. It so happened that
on the day before the trial they had just finished garlanding the
stern of the ship which Athens sends to Delos.

ECHECRATES: What ship is that?

PHAEDO: The Athenians say it's the one in which Theseus sailed
away to Crete with the seven youths and seven maidens, and saved
their lives and his own as well. The story says that the Athenians
made a vow to Apollo that if these young people's lives were saved
they would send a solemn mission to Delos every year; and ever
since then they have kept their vow to the god, right down to the
present day. They have a law that as soon as this mission begins
the city must be kept pure, and no public executions may take
place until the ship has reached Delos and returned again; which
sometimes takes a long time, if they meet winds which hold it
back. The mission is considered to begin as soon as the priest of
Apollo has garlanded the stern of the ship; and this happened, as I
say, on the day before the trial. That's why Socrates spent such a
long time in prison between his trial and execution.

ECHECRATES: What about the actual circumstances of his death,
Phaedo? What was said and done, and which of the man's companions
were with him? Or did the authorities refuse them admission,
making him pass away without a friend at his side?

PHAEDO: Oh no; some of them were there - quite a number, in
fact.

ECHECRATES: Please be kind enough to give us a really detailed
account - unless you are pressed for time.

PHAEDO: No, I have the time, and I'll try to describe it for you.
Nothing gives me more pleasure than recalling the memory of
Socrates, either by talking myself or by listening to someone else.

ECHECRATES: Well, Phaedo, you'll find that your audience feels
just the same about it. Now try to describe every detail as carefully
as you can.

PHAEDO: In the first place, my own feelings at the time were quite
extraordinary. It never occurred to me to feel sorry for him, as you
might have expected me to feel at the deathbed of a very close
friend. The man actually seemed quite happy, Echecrates, both in
his manner and in what he said; he met his death so fearlessly and
nobly. I could not help feeling that even on his way to the other
world he would have divine protection, and that when he arrived
there too all would be well with him, if that could ever be said of
anybody. So I felt no sorrow at all, as you might have expected
on such an occasion of mourning; and at the same time I felt no
pleasure at being occupied in our usual philosophical discussions -
that was the form that our conversation took - I experienced a
quite weird sensation, a sort of curious blend of pleasure and pain
combined, as my mind took it in that in a little while my friend
was going to die. All of us who were there were afflicted in much
the same way, alternating between laughter and tears; one of us in
particular, Apollodorus - you know the man and what he's like,
don't you?

ECHECRATES: Of course I do.

PHAEDO: Well, he quite lost control of himself; and I and the
others were very much upset.

ECHECRATES: Who were actually there, Phaedo?

PHAEDO: Why, of the Athenians there were this man Apollodorus,
and Critobulus and his father, and then there were Hermogenes
and Epigenes and Aeschines and Antisthenes. Oh yes, and Ctesippus
of Paeanis, and Menexenus, and some other local people. I believe
that Plato was ill.

ECHECRATES: Were there any visitors from outside?

PHAEDO: Yes: Simmias of Thebes, with Cebes and Phaedondas;
and Euclides and Terpsion from Megara.

ECHECRATES: Oh, Weren't Aristippus and Cleombrotus there?

PHAEDO: No, they were in Aegina, apparently.

ECHECRATES: Was there anybody else?

PHAEDO: I think that's about all.

ECHECRATES: Well, what path did the discussion take?

PHAEDO: I will try to tell you all about it from the very beginning.
We had all made it our regular practice, even in the period before,
to visit Socrates every day; we used to meet at daybreak by the
court-house where the trial was held, because it was close to the
prison. We always spent some time in conversation while we
waited for the door to open, which was never very early; and
when it did open, we used to go in to see Socrates, and spend the
best part of the day with him. On this particular day we met
earlier than usual, because when we left the prison on the evening
before, we heard that the boat had just arrived back from Delos;
so we urged one another to meet at the usual place as early as
possible. When we arrived, the porter, instead of letting us in as
usual, told us to wait and not to come in until he gave us the
word. 'The Eleven are taking off Socrates' chains,' he said, 'and
warning him that he is to die today.' After a short interval he came
back and told us to go in.

When we went inside we found Socrates just released from his
chains, and Xanthippe - you know her! - sitting by him with the
little boy on her knee. As soon as Xanthippe saw us she burst out
into the kind of thing women generally say: 'Oh, Socrates, this is the
last time that you and your friends will be able to talk together!'
Socrates looked at Crito. 'Crito,' he said, 'someone had better take
her home.' Some of Crito's servants led her away crying hysterically,
Socrates sat up on the bed and drew up his leg and massaged it,
saying as he did so, 'What a queer thing it is, my friends, this
sensation which is popularly called pleasure! It is remarkable how
closely it is connected with its apparent opposite, pain.' They will
never come to a man both at once, but if you pursue one of them
and catch it, you are virtually compelled always to have the other
as well; they are like two bodies attached to the same head. I am
sure that if Aesop had thought of it he would have made up a
fable about them, something like this: God wanted to stop their
continual quarrellmg,' and when he found that it was impossible,
he fastened their heads together; so wherever one of them appears,
the other is sure to follow after. That's exactly what seems to be
happening to me. Because I had a pain in my leg from the fetter,
the pleasure seems to have come as a consequence of it.'

Here Cebes broke in and said, 'Oh yes, Socrates, I am glad you
reminded me. Evenus asked me a day or two ago, as others have
done before, about the lyrics which you have been composing
lately by adapting Aesop's fables and the prelude to Apollo; he
wanted to know what induced you to write them now after you
had gone to prison, when you had never done anything of the kind
before. If you would like me to be able to answer Evenus when he
asks me again - as I am sure he will - tell me what I am to say.'

'Tell him the truth,' said Socrates, 'I did not compose them to
rival either him or his poetry--which I knew would not be easy; I
did it in the attempt to discover the meaning of certain dreams,
and to clear my conscience, in case this was the art which I had
been told to practise. It's like this, you see. In the course of my life
I have often had the same dream, appearing in different forms at
different times, but always saying the same thing: "Socrates,
practise and cultivate the arts." In the past I used to think that it
was impelling and exhorting me to do what I was actually doing; I
mean that the dream, like a spectator encouraging a runner in a
race, was urging me on to do what I was doing already, that is,
practising the arts; because philosophy is the greatest of the arts,
and I was practising it. But when my trial had taken place, and
this god's festival was delaying my execution, I decided that, in
case it should be this popular form of art that the dream intended
me to practise, I ought to compose and not disobey; I reasoned
that it would be safer not to take my departure before I had
cleared my conscience by writing poetry in obedience to the
dream. I began with some verses in honour of the god whose
festival it was. When I had finished my hymn, I reflected that a
poet, if he is to be worthy of the name, ought to work on stories,
not discourses; and I was no story-writer. So it was the stories that
I knew and had handy which I versified--Aesop's, the first ones
that occurred to me. You can tell Evenus this, Cebes, and bid him
farewell from me, and tell him, if he's wise, to follow me as
quickly as he can. I shall be going today, it seems; those are my
country's orders.'

Section A: The philosopher avoids suicide but welcomes death.

'What a piece of advice for Evenus, Socrates!' said Simmias. 'I
have had a good deal to do with him before now, and from what I
know of him he will not be at all ready to obey you.'

'Why?' he asked. 'Isn't Evenus a philosopher?'

'So I believe,' said Simmias.

'Well then, he will be quite willing, just like anyone else worthy
of his role in philosophy. However, he will hardly do himself
violence, because they say that it is not legitimate.' As he spoke he
lowered his feet to the ground, and sat like this for the rest of the
discussion.

Cebes now asked him, 'Socrates, what do you mean by saying
that it is not legitimate to do one's self violence, although a
philosopher will be willing to follow a friend who dies?'

'Why, Cebes, have you and Simmias never heard about these
things while you have been with Philolaus?'

'Nothing definite, Socrates.'

'Well, even my information is only based on hearsay; but I don't
mind at all telling you what I have heard. I suppose that for one who
is soon to leave this world there is no more suitable occupation than
inquiring into our views about the future life, and trying to imagine
what it is like. What else can one do in the time before sunset?'

'Tell me then, Socrates, what are the grounds for saying that
suicide is not legitimate? I have heard it described as wrong before
now (as you suggested) both by Philolaus, when he was staying
with us, and by others as well; but I have never yet heard any
definite explanation for it.'

'Well, you must not lose heart,' he said; 'perhaps you are about
to hear one. However, no doubt you will think it amazing that
this should be the one straightforward moral question, and that
it should never happen in the case of life and death (as it does in
all other cases) that sometimes and for some people death is better
than life; and it probably seems amazing to you that it should be
unholy for any to whom death would be an advantage to benefit
themselves, but that they should have to await the services of
someone else.'

Cebes laughed gently and said, 'Aye, that it does,' slipping into
his own dialect,

'Yes,' went on Socrates, 'put in that way it would seem unreason-
able--but no, perhaps it has good reason. The hidden message
about it from mystics who say that we men are put in a sort of
lock-up, from which one must not release oneself or run away,
seems to me to be a lofty belief and difficult to understand. All the
same, Cebes, I believe that this much is true: that we men are in
the care of the gods, one of their possessions. Don't you think so?'

'Yes, I do,' said Cebes.

'Then take your own case; if one of your possessions were to
destroy itself without intimation from you that you wanted it to
die, wouldn't you be angry with it and punish it, if you had any
means of doing so?'

'Certainly.'

'So if you look at it in this way I suppose it is not unreasonable
to say that we must not put an end to ourselves until God sends
some necessary circumstance like the one which we are facing
now.'

'That seems likely, I admit,' said Cebes. 'But what you were
saying just now, that philosophers would be willing to die without
qualms--that seems illogical, Socrates, assuming that we were
right in saying a moment ago that God is our keeper and we are
his possessions. If our service here is directed by the gods, who are
the very best of directors, it is inexplicable that the very wisest of
men should not be grieved at quitting it; because he surely cannot
expect to provide for himself any better when he is free. On the
other hand a stupid person might get the idea that it would be to
his advantage to escape from his master; he might not reason it
out that one should not escape from a good master, but remain
with him as long as possible; and so he might run away unreflect-
ingly. A sensible man would surely wish to remain always with his
superior. If you look at it this way, Socrates, the reasonable thing
is just the opposite of what we said just now - it's natural for the
wise to be grieved when they die, and for fools to be happy.'

When Socrates had listened to this he seemed to me to be
delighted with Cebes' persistence, and looking round at us he said,
'You know, Cebes is always tracking down arguments, and he is
not at all willing to accept every statement at first hearing.'

Simmias said, 'Well, but, Socrates, I actually think that this time
there is something in what he says. Why should a really wise man
want to desert masters who are better than himself, and to get rid
of them so lightly? I think Cebes is aiming his criticism at you,
because of the extent to which you make light of leaving not just
us, but the gods too, who as you admit are good masters.'

'What you and Cebes say is perfectly fair,' said Socrates. 'You
mean, I suppose, that I must make a court-style defence against
this charge.'

Section B: The new defence speech. Socrates replies to the charge
that he is leaving this world far too readily, deserting a world in
which he has kindly gods for his masters. He explains why the
philosopher should be happy at the prospect of death. The philoso-
pher desires to understand the Ideas of things, and is hindered by
the distractions of the body. Death will be the culmination of a
life's work in search of wisdom - on which alone morality can be
founded.

'Exactly,' said Simmias.

'Very well then; let me try to make a more convincing defence
to you than I made at my trial. If I did not expect to enter the
company, first, of other wise and good gods, and secondly of
men now dead who are better than those who are in this world
now, it is true that it would be unjust for me not to grieve at
death. As it is, you can be assured that I expect to find myself
among good men; while I would not particularly insist on this, I
assure you that I could commit myself upon the next point if I
could upon anything: that I shall find there divine masters who
are supremely good. That is why I am not so much distressed as I
might be, and why I have a firm hope that there is something in
store for those who have died, and (as we have been told since
antiquity) something much better for the good than for the
wicked.'

'Why is this, Socrates?' asked Simmias. 'Do you mean to leave
us with your ideas locked in your own mind, or will you communi-
cate them to us too? I think that we also have a claim on this
benefit; besides, it will serve as your defence, if we are satisfied
with what you say.'

'Very well, I will try,' he replied. 'But before I begin, Crito here
seems to have been wanting to say something for some time; let us
find out what it is.'

'Only this, Socrates,' said Crito, 'that the man who is to give
you the poison has been asking me for an equally long time to tell
you to talk as little as possible; he says that as you talk more it
increases your heat, and that you ought not to do anything to
affect the action of the poison. Otherwise it is sometimes nec-
essary to take a second dose, or even a third.'

'Leave him to his own devices,' said Socrates. 'Let him for his
part make ready to administer it twice or three times if necessary.'

'I virtually knew your answer,' said Crito, 'but he's been bothering
me for ages.'

'Never mind him,' said Socrates. 'Now for you, my jury, I want
to explain to you how natural it seems to me that a man who has
really devoted his life to philosophy should be confident in the
face of death, and hopeful of winning the greatest of prizes in
the next world after death. I will try to make clear to you, Simmias
and Cebes, how this can be so.

'Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply
themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their
own accord preparing themselves for dying and death. If this is
true, and they have actually been looking forward to death all
their lives, it would of course be absurd to be troubled when the
thing comes for which they have so long been preparing and
looking forward.'

Simmias laughed and said, 'Upon my word, Socrates, you have
b made me laugh, though I was not at all in the mood for it. I am
sure that if they heard what you said, most people would think -
and our fellow-countrymen would heartily agree - that it was a
very good hit at the philosophers to say that they are half dead
already, and that normal people like themselves are quite aware
that death would serve the philosophers right.'

'And they would be quite correct, Simmias; except in thinking
that they are "quite aware". They are not at all aware in what
sense true philosophers are half dead, or in what sense they
deserve death, or what sort of death they deserve. But let us
dismiss them and talk among ourselves. Do we believe that there is
such a thing as death?'

'Most certainly,' said Simmias in reply.

'Is it simply the release of the soul from the body? Is death
nothing more or less than this, the separate condition of the body
by itself when it is released from the soul, and the separate
condition by itself of the soul when released from the body? Is
death anything else than this?'

'No, just that.'

'Well then, Simmias, see whether you agree with me; I fancy
that this will help us to find out the answer to our problem. Do
you think that it's a philosopher's business to concern himself with
what people call pleasures - food and drink, for instance?'

'Certainly not, Socrates,' said Simmias.

'What about those of sex?'

'Not in the least.'

'And what about the other ways in which we devote attention
to our bodies? Do you think that a philosopher attaches any
importance to them? I mean things like providing himself with
smart clothes and shoes and other bodily ornaments; do you think
that he values them or despises them - in so far as there is no real
necessity for him to go in for that sort of thing?'

'I think the true philosopher despises them,' he said.

'Then it is your opinion in general that a man of this kind is not
preoccupied with the body, but keeps his attention directed as
much as he can away from it and towards the soul?'

'Yes, it is.'

'So it is clear first of all in the case of physical pleasures that the
philosopher frees his soul from association with the body (so far
as is possible) in a way that other men don't?'

'It seems so.'

'And most people think, do they not, Simmias, that a man who
takes neither pleasure nor part in these things does not deserve to
live, and that anyone who thinks nothing of pleasures connected
with the body has one foot in the grave?'

'That is perfectly true.'

'Now take the acquisition of wisdom; is the body a hindrance
or not, if one takes it into partnership to share an investigation?
What I mean is this: is there any certainty in human sight and
hearing, or is it true, as the poets' are always dinning into our
ears, that we neither hear nor see anything accurately? Yet if these
senses are not clear and accurate, the rest can hardly be so,
because they are all inferior to the first two. Don't you agree?'

'Certainly.'

'Then when is it that the soul attains to truth? When it tries to
investigate anything with the help of the body, it is obviously
liable to be led astray.'

'Quite so.'

'Is it not in the course of reasoning, if at all, that the soul gets a
clear view of reality?'

'Yes.'

'Surely the soul can reason best when it is free of all distractions
such as hearing or sight or pain or pleasure of any kind - that is,
when it leaves the body to its own devices, becomes as isolated
as possible, and strives for reality while avoiding as much physical
contact and association as it can.'

'That is so.'

'Then here again the philosopher's soul is most disdainful of the
body, shunning it and seeking to isolate itself.'

'It seems so.'

'Here are some more questions, Simmias. Do we recognize such
a thing as justice itself?'

'Indeed we do.'

'And beauty itself and goodness too?'

'Of course.'

'Have you ever seen any of these things with your eyes?'

'Certainly not,' said he.

'Well, have you ever apprehended them with any other bodily
sense? By "them" I mean them all, including tallness or health or
strength in themselves, the real nature of any given thing - what it
actually is. Is it through the body that we get our truest view of
them? Isn't it true that in any inquiry you are likely to attain more
nearly to knowledge of your object in proportion to the care and
accuracy with which you have prepared yourself to understand
that object in itself?'

'Certainly.'

'Don't you think that the person who is most likely to achieve
this flawlessly is the one who approaches each object, as far as
possible, with the unaided intellect, without taking account of any
sense of sight in his thinking, or dragging any other sense into
his reckoning - the man who pursues the truth by applying his
pure and unadulterated thought to the pure and unadulterated
object, cutting himself off as much as possible from his eyes and
ears and virtually all the rest of his body, as an impediment which,
if present, prevents the soul from attaining to the truth and clear
thinking? Is not this the person, Simmias, who will reach the goal
of reality, if anybody can?'

'What you say is absolutely true, Socrates,' said Simmias.

'All these considerations,' said Socrates, 'must surely prompt
serious philosophers to review the position in some such way as
this. "It looks as if it's a side-track, to divert us - and reason along
with us - in our investigation. So long as we keep to the body
and our soul is contaminated with this imperfection, there is no
chance of our ever attaining satisfactorily to our object, which we
assert to be Truth. In the first place, the body provides us with
innumerable distractions in the pursuit of its necessary sustenance,
and any diseases which attack us hinder our quest for reality.
Besides, the body fills us with loves and desires and fears and all
sorts of fancies and a great deal of nonsense, with the result that
we literally never get an opportunity to think at all about anything.
Wars and revolutions and battles, you see, are due simply and
solely to the body and its desires. All wars are undertaken for the
acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire
wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service. That is
why, on all these accounts, we have so little time for philosophy.
Worst of all, if we do obtain any leisure from the body's claims
and turn to some line of inquiry, the body intrudes once more into
our investigations, interrupting, disturbing, distracting, and preventing
us from getting a glimpse of the truth. We are in fact convinced
that if we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we must
get rid of the body and contemplate things in isolation with the
soul in isolation. It's likely, to judge from our argument, that the
wisdom which we desire and upon which we profess to have set
our hearts will be attainable only when we are dead, and not in
our lifetime. If no pure knowledge is possible in the company of
the body, then either it is totally impossible to acquire knowledge,
or it is only possible after death, because it is only then that the
soul will be isolated and independent of the body. It seems that so
long as we are alive, we shall keep as close as possible to knowledge
if we avoid as much as we can all contact and association with the
body, except when they are absolutely necessary; and instead of
allowing ourselves to become infected with its nature, purify
ourselves from it until God himself gives us deliverance. In this
way, by keeping ourselves uncontaminated by the follies of the
body, we shall probably reach the company of others like ourb
selves and gain direct knowledge of all that is pure and uncon-
taminated - that is, presumably, of Truth. For one who is not pure
himself to attain to the realm of purity would no doubt be a
breach of the divine order." Something to this effect, Simmias, is
what I imagine all real lovers of learning must say to one another
and believe themselves; don't you agree with me?'

'Most emphatically, Socrates.'

'Very well, then,' said Socrates; 'if this is true, there is good
reason for anyone who reaches the end of this journey which lies
before me to hope that there, if anywhere, he will attain the object
to which all our efforts have been directed in life gone by. So this
journey which is now ordained for me carries a happy prospect for
any other man also who believes that his mind has been made
ready - and pure, so to speak.'

'It does indeed,' said Simmias.

'And doesn't this "purification", as we saw some time ago in our
discussion, consist in separating the soul as much as possible from
the body, and accustoming it to withdraw from its dispersal
throughout the body and concentrate itself in isolation? And to
have its dwelling, so far as it can, both now and in the future, alone
by itself, freed from the chains of the body. Does not that follow?'

'Yes, it does,' said Simmias.

'Is not what we call death a freeing and separation of soul from
body?'

'Certainly,' he said.

'And the desire to free the soul is found chiefly, or rather only, in
the true philosopher; in fact the philosopher's occupation consists
precisely in the freeing and separation of soul from body. Isn't that
so?'

'Apparently.'

'Well then, as I said at the beginning, if a man has trained himself
throughout his life to live in a state as close as possible to death,
would it not be ridiculous for him to be distressed when death
comes to him?'

'It would, of course.'

'Then it is a fact, Simmias, that true philosophers make dying
their profession, and that to them of all men death is least
alarming. Look at it in this way. If they are thoroughly dissatisfied
with the body, and long to have their souls in isolation, when this
happens would it not be entirely unreasonable to panic and be
annoyed? Would they not naturally be glad to set out for the place
where there is a prospect of attaining the object of their lifelong
desire, which is wisdom, and of escaping from an association of
which they disapproved? Surely there are many who have chosen
of their own free will to follow dead beloveds [and wives and
sons] to the next world, in the hope of seeing and meeting there
the persons whom they loved. If this is so, will a true lover of
wisdom who has firmly grasped this same conviction - that he will
never attain to wisdom worthy of the name elsewhere than in the fa
next world - will he be grieved at dying? Will he not be glad to
make that journey? We must suppose so, my comrade; that is, if
he is a genuine "philosopher"; because then he will be of the
firm belief that he will never find wisdom in all its purity in any
other place. If this is so, would it not be quite unreasonable (as I
said just now) for such a man to be afraid of death?'

'It would, indeed.'

'So if you see anyone distressed at the prospect of dying,' said
Socrates, 'it will be proof enough that he is a lover not of wisdom
but of the body (this same man would presumably be a lover of
money) and of prestige, one or the other, or both.'

'Yes, you are quite right.'

'Doesn't it follow, Simmias,' he went on, 'that the virtue which we
call courage belongs primarily to those of philosophic disposition?'

'Yes, no doubt it does,' he said.

'Take temperance, too, as it is understood even in the popular
sense - not being carried away by the desires, but preserving a
decent indifference towards them: is not this appropriate only to
those who regard the body with the greatest indifference and
spend their lives in philosophy?'

'Certainly,' he said.

'If you care to consider courage and temperance as practised by
other people,' said Socrates, 'you will find them illogical.

'How so, Socrates?'

'You know, don't you, that everyone except the philosopher
regards death as a great evil?'

'Yes, indeed.'

'Isn't it true that when a brave man faces death he does so
through fear of something worse?'

'Yes, it is true.'

'So in everyone except the philosopher courage is due to fear
and dread; although it is illogical that fear and cowardice should
make a man brave.'

'Quite so.'

'What about self-controlled people? Is it not, in just the same
way, a sort of self-indulgence that makes them temperate? We may
say that this is impossible, but all the same those who practise this
simple form of temperance are in much the same case as that
which I have just described. They are afraid of losing other
pleasures which they desire, so they refrain from one kind because
they cannot resist the other. Although they define self-indulgence
as the condition of being ruled by pleasure, it is really because they
cannot resist some pleasures that they succeed in resisting others;
which amounts to what I said just now - that they control themselves,
in a sense, by self-indulgence.'

'Yes, that seems to be true.'

'Wonderful, Simmias. No, I am afraid that, from the moral stand-
point, it is not the right method to exchange one denomination
of pleasure or pain or fear for another, like coins of different
values. I suspect there is only one currency for which all these
things should be exchanged, and that is wisdom. When they are
b sold for wisdom and purchased with it, - that's when they really
amount to courage and self-control and justice or, in a word,
true virtue, when pleasures, fears, and all such things are added or
subtracted with wisdom's help; whereas when they're exchanged
in isolation from wisdom, I suspect that the resulting 'virtue' is a
mere illusion, slavish in fact, with nothing sound or honest about
it. The real thing, whether self-control or justice or courage, is in
fact a kind of purification from all this kind of motivation, and
wisdom itself is a sort of cleansing agent. Perhaps these people
who have established religious initiations are not so far from the
mark, and all the time there has been a hidden meaning beneath
their claim that he who enters the next world uninitiated and
unenlightened shall lie in the mire, but he who arrives there
purified and enlightened shall dwell among the gods. You know
how those involved in initiations say:

"Many bear the emblem, but the devotees are few."

Well, in my opinion these devotees are simply those who have
lived the philosophic life in the right way; a company which, all
through my life, I have done my best in every way to join, leaving
nothing undone which I could do to attain this end. Whether I was
right in this ambition, and whether we have achieved anything, we
shall know for certain (God willing) when we reach the other
world; and that, I imagine, will be fairly soon.

'This is the defence which I offer you, Simmias and Cebes, to
show that it is natural for me to leave you and my earthly rulers
without any feeling of grief or bitterness, since I believe that I shall
find there, no less than here, good rulers and good friends. If I am
any more convincing in my defence to you than I was to my
Athenian jury, I shall be satisfied.'

Section C: The challenge of Cebes and the Argument from Opposites.
Socrates tries to establish the principle that opposites emerge
from opposites, and consequently that the dead come from the
living and the living from the dead. There are a number of
problems, including ones of definition. The trickiest is what is
actually meant by opposites, and indeed whether Plato consistently
adheres to a single concept of an opposite. The principal opposites
used to explain the Presocratic universe had been such physical
pairs as wet/dry, light/dark, hot/cold. Plato tends to convert these
to wetter/drier, etc. (cf. Philebus 25c-d), and he is concerned with
the kind of process by which a given thing becomes wetter than it
was previously rather than wetter than some other thing. Obviously
what becomes wetter must have been drier before. The claim is that
whatever substrate acquires a new predicate does so by acquiring
{more of) a given quality than it previously had, and that, where the
predicate has an opposite, it would previously have had {more of)
the opposite quality. But Plato wants his rule to hold where there is
no scale of {e.g.) temperature or humidity: becoming awake involves
coming from a state of sleep, and becoming asleep involves departing
from the waking state. So does not being dead involve coming from
a state of life? And does not becoming alive involve coming from a
state of death? One must also ask what it is that Plato can possibly
think of as able to be alive and dead. Not souls, one might assume,
for they are never dead, just embodied or disembodied; and how
can it be argued that bodies become living which were previously
dead? Is it previously dead people who become living people? The
shadow of Heraclitus, who seems to have believed in a natural
harmonious balance between opposite powers and opposite processes
{and that this balance is the source of the preservation of the
universe), is present throughout this section.

When Socrates had finished, Cebes made his reply. 'The rest of
your statement, Socrates,' he said, 'seems excellent to me; but
what you said about the soul leaves the average person with grave
misgivings that when it's released from the body it may no longer
exist anywhere, but be dispersed and destroyed on the very day
that the man himself dies, as soon as it is freed from the body; that
as it emerges it may be dissipated like breath or smoke, and vanish
away, so that it will nowhere amount to anything/ Of course if it
still existed as a complete unity in itself, released from all the evils
which you have just described, there would be a strong and
b glorious hope, Socrates, that what you say is true. But I fancy that
it requires no little faith and assurance to believe that the soul
exists after death and retains some active force and intelligence.'

'Quite true, Cebes,' said Socrates. 'But what are we to do about
it? Is it your wish that we should go on speculating about the
subject, to see whether this view is likely to be true or not?'

'For my part,' said Cebes, 'I should be very glad to hear what
you think about it.'

'At any rate,' said Socrates, I hardly think that anyone who
heard us now - even a comic poet - would say that I am playing
about and discoursing on subjects which do not concern me. So
if that is how you feel, we had better continue our inquiry. Let us
approach it from this point of view: do the souls of the departed
exist in the other world or not?

'There is an old legend, which we've been recalling, to the effect
that they do exist there, after leaving here; and that they return
again to this world and come into being from the dead. If this is so
- that the living come into being again from the dead - does it not
follow that our souls would exist in the other world? They could
not come into being again if they did not exist; and it will be
sufficient proof that my contention is true if it really becomes
apparent that the living come from the dead, and from nowhere
else. But if this is not so, we shall need some other argument.'

'Quite so,' said Cebes.

'If you want to understand the question more readily,' said
Socrates, 'consider it with reference not only to human beings but
to all animals and plants. Let us see whether in general everything
that comes to be so of anything comes to be in this way and no
other - opposites from opposites, wherever there is an opposite;
as for instance beauty is opposite to ugliness and right to wrong,
and there are countless other examples. Let us consider whether it
is a necessary law that everything which has an opposite is
brought about from that opposite and from no other source: for
example, when a thing becomes bigger, it must, I suppose, have
been smaller first before it became bigger?'

'Yes.'

'And similarly if it becomes smaller, it must be bigger first, and
become smaller afterwards?'

'That is so,' said Cebes.

'And the weaker comes from the stronger, and the faster from
the slower?'

'Certainly.'

'What about this: if a thing becomes worse, is it not from being
better, and if more just, from being more unjust?'

'Of course.'

'Are we satisfied, then,' said Socrates, 'that all opposites are
brought about in this way - from opposites?'

'Perfectly.'

'Here is another question. Do not these examples present another
feature, that between each pair of opposites there are two processes
of generation, one from the first to the second, and another from
the second to the first? Between a larger and a smaller object are
there not the processes of increase and decrease, and do we not
describe them in this way as increasing and decreasing?'

'Yes,' said Cebes.

'Is it not the same with separating and combining, cooling and
heating, and all the rest of them? Even if we sometimes do not use
the actual terms, must it not in fact hold good universally that
they come one from the other, and that there is a process from
each which brings about the other?'

'Certainly,' said Cebes.

'Well then,' said Socrates, 'is there an opposite to living, as
sleeping is opposite to waking?'

'Certainly.'

'What?'

'Being dead.'

'So if they are opposites, they come from one another, and have
their two processes of generation between the two of them?'

'Of course.'

'Very well, then,' said Socrates, 'I will state one pair of opposites
which I mentioned just now; the opposites themselves and the
processes between them; and you shall state the other. My opposites
are sleeping and waking, and I say that waking comes from
sleeping and sleeping from waking, and that the processes between
them are going to sleep and waking up. Does that satisfy you,' he
asked, 'or not?'

'Perfectly.'

'Now you tell me in the same way,' he went on, 'about life and
death. Do you not admit that death is the opposite of life?'

'I do.'

'And that they come from one another?'

'Yes.'

'Then what comes from the living?'

'The dead.'

'And what,' asked Socrates, 'comes from the dead?'

'I must admit,' he said, 'that it is the living.'

'So it is from the dead, Cebes, that living things and people
come?'

'Evidently.'

'Then our souls do exist in the other world?'

'So it seems.'

'And one of the two processes in this case is really quite certain
- dying is certain enough, isn't it?'

'Yes, it is,' said Cebes.

'What shall we do, then? Shall we omit the complementary pro-
cess, and leave a defect here in the law of nature? Or must we
supply an opposite process to that of dying?'

'Surely we must supply it,' he said.

'And what is it?'

'Coming to life again.

'Then if there is such a thing as coming to life again,' said
Socrates, 'it must be a process from death to life?'

'Quite so.'

'So we agree upon this too: that the living have come from the
dead no less than the dead from the living. But I think we
decided that if this was so, it was a sufficient proof that the souls
of the dead must exist in some place from which they are reborn.'

'It seems to me, Socrates,' he said, 'that this follows necessarily
from our agreement.'

'I think there is another way too, Cebes, in which you can see
that we were not wrong in our agreement.' If there were not a
constant correspondence in the process of generation between the
two sets of opposites, going round in a sort of cycle; if generation
were a straight path to the opposite extreme without any return to
the starting-point or any deflection, do you realize that in the end
everything would have the same quality and reach the same state,
and change would cease altogether?'

'What do you mean?'

'Nothing difficult to understand,' replied Socrates. 'For example,
if "falling asleep" existed, and "waking up" did not balance it by
making something come out of sleep, you must realize that in the
end everything would make Endymion look foolish; he would be
nowhere, because the whole world would be in the same state -
asleep. And if everything were combined and nothing separated,
we should soon have Anaxagoras's "all things together." In just
the same way, my dear Cebes, if everything that has some share of
life were to die, and if after death the dead remained in that form
and did not come to life again, would it not be quite inevitable
that in the end everything should be dead and nothing alive? If
living things came from other living things, and the living things
died, what possible means could prevent their number from being
exhausted by death?'

'None that I can see, Socrates,' said Cebes. 'What you say seems
to be perfectly true.'

'Yes, Cebes,' he said, 'if anything is true, I believe that this is,
and we were not mistaken in our agreement upon it; coming to life
again is a fact, and it is a fact that the living come from the dead,
and a fact that the souls of the dead exist.'

Section D: The Theory of Recollection is introduced as further
evidence that our souls have an existence before this earthly life.
Cebes no doubt thinks of the theory as supporting the Orphic
doctrines to which the previous argument had tried to give credence.
That some learning is in fact the recollection of knowledge
familiar from a previous existence is 'proved' in this dialogue by
the fact that men appear to have clear concepts of [e.g.) equality
itself, untainted by the imperfections of any earthly pair of equals.
The difference between earthly equals and actual equality is est-
ablished by the way in which the former may look unequal from a
particular viewpoint, but no viewpoint could give the Idea of
equality an unequal appearance. It is granted that earthly equals
bring to mind the concept of actual equality, yet cannot strictly
teach us that concept, since there is at least one predicate applicable
to the concept at odds with a predicate of the earthly instances.
Plato's purpose here seems to go beyond the desire to prove the
soul pre-exists the body. There is a discussion of the mechanics of
recollection processes in general, which, being not strictly necessary
for the argument, must have had its own independent importance
for Plato in the context of this work.'' There is also considerable
attention to the difference between the particulars of this world
and the Platonic Ideas, and more effort devoted to picturing the
Ideas as a worthy object of the philosopher's knowledge which
can only be properly experienced in isolation from the body.

'Besides, Socrates,' rejoined Cebes, 'there is that theory which
you have often mentioned to us - that what we call learning
is really just recollection. If that is true, then surely what we
recollect now we must have learned at some time before; which is
impossible unless our souls existed somewhere before they entered
this human shape. So in that way too it seems likely that the soul
is immortal.'

'How did the proof of that theory go, Cebes?' broke in Simmias.
'Remind me, because at the moment I can't quite remember. '

'One very good argument,' said Cebes, 'is that when people are
asked questions, if the question is put in the right way they can
answer everything correctly, which they could not possibly do
unless they were in possession of knowledge and a correct ex-
planation. Then again, if you confront people with a diagram or
anything like that, the way in which they react provides the
clearest proof that the theory is correct.'

'And if you don't find that convincing, Simmias,' said Socrates,
'see whether this appeals to you. I suppose that you find it hard to
understand how what we call learning can be recollection?'

'Not at all,' said Simmias. 'All that I want is to be helped to do
what we are talking about - to recollect. I can practically remember
enough to satisfy me already, from the way Cebes set about
explaining it; but I should be none the less glad to hear how you
meant to explain it.'

'I look at it in this way,' said Socrates. 'We are agreed, I supp-
ose, that if a person is to be reminded of anything, he must
first know it at some time or other?'

'Quite so.'

'Are we also agreed in calling it recollection when knowledge
comes in a particular way? I will explain it rather like this. Suppose
that a person on seeing or hearing or otherwise noticing one thing not
only becomes conscious of that thing but also thinks of something else
which is an object of a different sort of knowledge; are we not justifed
in saying that he was reminded of the object which he thought of?'

'What do you mean?'

'Let me give you an example. It's a different thing, I suppose
you will agree, to know a man and to know a lyre.'

'Yes, certainly.'

'Well, you know what happens to lovers when they see a lyre or
a piece of clothing or any other private property of the lad they
love; when they recognize the lyre, their minds conjure up a
picture of the lad who owns it. That is recollection. In the same
way the sight of Simmias often reminds one of Cebes; and of
course there are thousands of other examples.'

'Yes, of course there are thousands,' said Simmias.

'So by recollection we mean the sort of experience which I have
just described, especially when it happens with reference to things
which we had not taken a look at for such a long time that we had
forgotten them.'

'Quite so.'

'Well, then, is it possible for a person who sees a picture of a
horse or a musical instrument to be reminded of a person, or for
someone who sees a picture of Simmias to be reminded of Cebes?'

'Perfectly.'

'And is it possible for someone who sees a portrait of Simmias
to be reminded of Simmias himself?'

'Yes, it is.'

'Does it not follow from all this that recollection may be caused
either by similar or by dissimilar objects?"

'Yes, it does.'

'When you are reminded by similarity, surely you must also be
conscious whether the similarity is perfect or only partial.'

'Yes, you must.'

'Here is a further step,' said Socrates. 'We admit, I suppose, that
there is such a thing as equality - not the equality of stick to stick
and stone to stone, and so on, but something beyond all that and
distinct from it - absolute equality. Are we to admit this or not?'

'Yes indeed,' said Simmias, 'most emphatically.'

'And do we know what it is?'

'Certainly.'

'Where did we get our knowledge? Was it not as a result of the
particular examples that we mentioned just now - from seeing
equal sticks or stones or other equal objects - that the notion of
equality came to mind, although it is something quite distinct from
them? Look at it in this way. Is it not true that equal stones and
sticks, the very same ones, sometimes appear equal to one and
unequal to another?'

'Certainly.'

'Well, now, have you ever thought that what were actually
equal were unequal, or that equality was inequality?'

'No, never, Socrates.'

'Then these equal things are not the same as actual equality.'

'Not in the least, as I see it, Socrates.'

'And yet it is these equal things that have actively brought to
mind your knowledge of absolute equality, although they are
distinct from it?'

'Perfectly true.'

'Whether it is similar to them or dissimilar?'

'Certainly.'

'It makes no difference,' said Socrates. 'So long as the sight of
one thing suggests another to you, it must be a cause of recollec-
tion, whether the two things are alike or not.'

'Quite so.'

'Well, now,' he said, 'what do we find in the case of the equal
sticks and other things of which we were speaking just now: do
they seem to us to be equal in the sense of actual equality, or do
they fall short of it in so far as they only approximate to equality?
Or don't they fall short at all?'

'They do,' said Simmias, 'a long way.'

'Suppose that when you see something you say to yourself,
"This thing which I can see is intended to be like something else,
but it falls short and cannot be really like it, only a poor imitation";
don't you agree with me that anyone who is conscious of this must
in fact have previous knowledge of that thing which he says the
other inadequately resembles?'

'Certainly he must.'

'Well then, is our own experience of equal things and actual
equality like this?'

'Exactly.'

'Then we must have had some previous knowledge of equality
before the time when we first realized, on seeing equal things, that
they were striving after equality, but fell short of it.'

'That is so.'

'And at the same time we are agreed also upon this point, that
this notion of deficiency did not and could not have occurred to
us except by sight or touch or one of the other senses, I am
treating all senses as being all the same.'

'They are the same, Socrates, for the purpose of our argument.'

'So it must be as a result of the senses that we obtained the
notion that all sensible equals are striving to realize actual equality
but falling short of it. Is that correct?'

'Yes, it is.'

'So before we began to see and hear and otherwise perceive
equals we must somewhere have acquired the knowledge of
equality as it really is; otherwise we could never have realized, by
using it as a standard for comparison, that all equal objects of
sense are desirous of being like it, but are only imperfect copies.'

'That is the logical conclusion, Socrates.'

'Did we not begin to see and hear and utilize our other senses
from the moment of birth?'

'Certainly.'

'But we admitted that we must have obtained our knowledge of
equality before we obtained them.'

'Yes.'

'So we must have obtained it before birth.'

'So it seems.'

'Then if we obtained it before our birth, and kept hold of it
when we were born, we had knowledge, both before and at the
moment of birth, not only of what's actually equal, or greater or
smaller, but of all such things. Our present argument applies no
more to equality itself than it does to beauty itself, or goodness,
justice, holiness - all those qualities, I maintain, which we designate
in our question-and-answer discussions by the term "itself". So
we would have had to obtain knowledge of all these things before
our birth.'

'That is so.'

'And unless we invariably forget it after obtaining it, we must
always be born knowing and continue to know all through our
lives; because "to know" means simply to retain the knowledge
which one has acquired, and not to lose it. Is not what we call
"forgetting" simply the loss of knowledge, Simmias?'

'Most certainly, Socrates.'

'And if it is true that we acquired our knowledge before our
birth, and lost it at the moment of birth, but afterwards by
pertinent exercise of our senses, recover the knowledge which we
had once before, I suppose that what we call learning will be the
recovery of our own knowledge; and surely we should be right in
calling this recollection.'

'Quite so.'

'Yes, because we saw that it is possible for the perception of an
object by sight or hearing or any of the other senses to suggest to
the percipient another associated object which he has forgotten
(whether there is any similarity or not). So, as I maintain, there
are two alternatives: either we are all born with knowledge of
these standards, and retain it throughout our lives; or else, when
we speak of people learning, they are simply recollecting what
they knew before; in other words, learning is recollection.'

'Yes, that must be so, Socrates.'

'Which do you choose, then, Simmias? That we are born with
knowledge, or that we recollect after we are born the things of
which we possessed knowledge before we were born?'

'I don't know which to choose on the spur of the moment,
Socrates.'

'Well, here is another choice for you to make. What do you
think about this? Can a person who knows a subject thoroughly
explain what he knows?'

'Most certainly he can.'

'Do you think that everyone can explain these questions about
which we have just been talking?'

'I should like to think so,' said Simmias, 'but I am very much
afraid that by this time tomorrow there will be no one on this
earth who can give a worthwhile explanation.'

'So you don't think, Simmias, that everyone has knowledge
about them?'

'Far from it.'

'Then they just recollect what they once learned.'

'That must be the right answer.'

'When do our souls acquire this knowledge? It cannot be after
the beginning of our mortal life.'

'No, of course not.'

'Then it must be before.'

'Yes.'

'Then our souls had a previous existence, Simmias, before they
took on this human shape - they were independent of our bodies
and had intelligence.''

'Unless perhaps it is at the moment of birth that we acquire know-
ledge of these things, Socrates; there is still that time available.'

'No doubt, my dear fellow, but just tell me, what other time is
there to lose it in? We have just agreed that we do not possess it
when we are born. Do we lose it at the same moment that we
acquire it? Or can you suggest any other time?'

'No, of course not, Socrates; I didn't realize what nonsense I
was talking. '

'Well, how do we stand now, Simmias? If all these things which
we're for ever talking about, a Beauty, a Goodness, and all such
entities, really exist - if it is to them that we refer all the objects of
our physical perception as copies to their patterns, as we rediscover
our own former knowledge of them - does it not follow that our
souls too must exist even before our birth, whereas if they do not
exist, our discussion would seem to be a waste of time? Is this the
position, that it is just as inevitable that our souls exist before our
birth as it is that these realities exist, and that without the one
there's not the other?'

'I find it very compelling, Socrates,' said Simmias, 'that there
should be this same inevitability. It suits me very well that your
argument should have recourse to the thesis that our soul's exist-
ence before our birth is a similar case to the existence of these
realities of yours. I cannot imagine anything more self-evident
than the fact that Beauty and Goodness and all the rest that you
mentioned just now exist in the fullest possible sense. In my
opinion the proof is quite satisfactory.'

Section E: The combination of the recollection argument with the
opposites argument becomes a proof for the existence of an
afterlife. If the argument from opposites were adequate, then the
recollection argument would not strictly be needed, but the latter
seems to have commanded more conviction, and it also suggested
something relevant to Plato's purpose about what 'being dead'
might be like. Once the recollection argument gives additional
credence to the notion of a stock of disembodied and intelligent
souls waiting to be born, we need no more convincing that the
soul can live apart from the body {so that at the very least being
apart from the body cannot in itself kill off the soul), and we should
be faced with the problem of explaining the origin of those disem-
bodied souls if it were not from previous soul-body combinations.

'What about Cebes?' said Socrates. 'We must convince Cebes
too.'

'To the best of my belief he is satisfied,' replied Simmias. 'It's
true that he's the most determined of persons in refusing to be
convinced by argument, but I should think that he needs nothing
more to satisfy him that our souls existed before birth. As for their
still existing after we are dead, even I don't feel that that has been
proved, Socrates; the problem that Cebes mentioned still applies -
the ordinary man's fear that the soul may be disintegrated at the
very moment of his death, and that this may be the end of its
existence. Supposing that there is some other source from which it
is constituted at birth, and that it exists before it enters a human
body: after it has entered one, is there any reason why, at the
moment of release, it should not come to an end and be destroyed
Itself?'

'Quite right, Simmias,' said Cebes. 'It seems that we've managed
to prove about half of what we wanted - that the soul existed
before birth - but now we need also to prove that it will exist after
death no less than before birth, if our proof is to be complete.'

'It has been proved already, Simmias and Cebes,' said Socrates,
'if you're prepared to combine this last argument with the one
about which we agreed before, that every living thing comes from
the dead. If (i) the soul exists before birth, and if (ii) when it's
born into life, it can only be born from death or the dead state,
surely it must also exist after death, bearing in mind that it has to
be born again. So the point which you mention has been proved
already. Even so I believe that you and Simmias would like to
hammer out the issue still more, and that you're afraid, as children
are, that when the soul emerges from the body the wind may
really puff it away and scatter it - especially when it's a person's
luck to die with a gale blowing rather than in a calm!

Cebes laughed. 'Suppose that we are afraid, Socrates,' he said,
'and try to convince us. Or not so much that it's our true selves
who are afraid - perhaps there's a kind of child with this kind of
fear hidden in us too. Try to persuade him not to be afraid of
death as though it were a bogey.'

'What you should do,' said Socrates, 'is to pronounce an enchantment
over him every day until you have charmed his fears away.'

'But, Socrates,' said Simmias, 'where shall we find an enchanter
who understands these spells, now that you are leaving us?

'Greece is a large country, Cebes,' he replied, 'which must have
good men in it; and there are many foreign races too. You must
ransack all of them in your search for this enchanter, without
sparing money or trouble; because you could not spend your
money more opportunely on any other object. And you must
search also by your own united efforts; because you may not easily
find anyone better fitted for the task than yourselves.'

'We will see to that,' said Cebes. 'But let's get back to the point
b where we left off, if you don't mind.'

'Of course not; why should I?'

'Splendid,' said Cebes.

Section F: The Argument from Affinity. The unseen soul, parti-
cularly when it avoids the company of the body, is more like the
unchanging and indestructible Ideas than the visible, changing,
perishable entities we are familiar with. According to the epis-
temology of the Meno, to which the Phaedo is general closely
related, one cannot hope to know what sort a thing is until one
has discovered what it is. Here Socrates argues from one property
of the soul to another, but not from what it actually is. He will
later be able to show the lack of total conviction which flows from
this kind of argument, and discuss more fully what the soul is in
the course of his reply to the doubts that still linger.

'We ought, I think,' said Socrates, 'to ask ourselves this: What sort
of thing is it that would naturally suffer the fate of being dispersed?
What sort of thing should we be afraid of this happening to, and
what should we not? When we have answered this, we should next
consider to which class the soul belongs; and then we shall know
whether to feel confidence or fear about the fate of our souls.'

'Quite true.'

'Would you not expect a compound or a naturally composite
object to be liable to break up where it was put together? And
ought not anything which is really incomposite to be the one thing
of all others which is not affected in this way?'

'That seems to be the case,' said Cebes.

'Is it not extremely probable that what is always constant and
invariable is incomposite, and what is inconstant and variable is
composite?'

'That is how it seems to me.'

'Then let us return to the same examples which we were
discussing before. Does that actual nature of things - their true
being which we try to describe in our discussions - remain
always constant and invariable, or not? Does equality itself or
beauty itself or any other thing as it is in itself ever admit change
of any kind? Or does each one of these entities, being uniform and
self-contained, remain always constant and invariable, never admitting
any alteration in any respect or in any sense?'

'They must be constant and invariable, Socrates,' said Cebes.

'Well, what about the many instances of beauty - such as men,
horses, clothes, and so on--or of equality, or any other things
which have the same name as those others? Are they constant,
or are they, on the contrary, scarcely ever in the same relation in
any sense either to themselves or to one another?'

'You're right again about them, Socrates; they are never free
from variation.'

'And these latter things you can touch or see or perceive by your
other senses, but those constant entities you cannot possibly appre-
hend except by the workings of the mind; such things are invisible
to our sight.'

'That is perfectly true,' said Cebes.

'So you think that we should assume two classes of things that
may be such-and-such, one visible and the other invisible?'

'Yes, we should.'

'The invisible being invariable, and the visible never being the
same?'

'Yes, let's assume that too.'

'Well, now,' said Socrates, 'are we not part body, part soul?'

'Certainly.'

'Then to which class do we say that the body would have the
closer resemblance and relation?'

'That's obvious to anybody - to the visible.'

'And the soul, is it visible or invisible?'

'Invisible to men, at any rate, Socrates,' he said.

'But surely we have been speaking of things visible or invisible
to our human nature. Do you think that we had some other nature
in view?'

'No, human nature,'

'What do we say about the soul, then? Is it visible or invisible?"

'Not visible.'

'Invisible, then?'

'Yes.'

'So soul IS more like the invisible, and body more like the visible?'

'Inevitably, Socrates.'

'Did we not say some time ago that when the soul uses the
instrumentality of the body for any inquiry, whether through sight
or hearing or any other sense (because using the body means using
the senses), it is drawn away by the body into the realm of the
variable, and loses its way and becomes confused and dizzy, as
though it were tipsy, through contact with that kind of thing?'

'Certainly.'

'But when it investigates by itself, it passes into the realm of the
pure and everlasting and deathless and changeless; and being of a
kindred nature, when it is once independent and free from inter-
ference, consorts with it always and strays no longer, but remains
constant and invariable when busied with them, through contact
with things of a similar nature. And this condition of the soul we
call Wisdom.'

'An excellent description, and perfectly true, Socrates.'

'Very well, then; in the light of all that we have said, both now
and before, to which class do you think that the soul bears the
closer resemblance and relation?'

'I think, Socrates,' said Cebes, 'that even the most slow-witted
person, approaching the subject in this way, would agree that the
soul is in every possible way more like the invariable than the variable.'

'And the body?'

'Like the other.'

'Look at it in this way too. When soul and body share the same
place, nature teaches the one to serve and be subject, the other to
rule and govern. In this relation, which do you think resembles the
divine and which is like what's mortal?' Don't you think that it
is the nature of the divine to rule and direct, and that of the mortal
to be subject and serve?'

'I do.'

'Then which does the soul resemble?'

'Obviously, Socrates, soul resembles the divine, and body the
mortal.'

'Now, Cebes,' he said, 'see whether this is our conclusion from
all that we have said. The soul is most like that which is divine,
immortal, intelligible, uniform, indissoluble, and ever self-consistent
and invariable, whereas body is most like that which is human,
mortal, multiform, unintelligible, dissoluble, and never self-consistent.
Can we adduce any conflicting argument, my dear Cebes, to show
that this is not so?'

'No, we cannot.'

'Very well, then; in that case is it not natural for body to disin-
tegrate rapidly, but for soul to be quite or very nearly indissoluble?'

'Certainly.'

'Of course you know that when a person dies, although it is
natural for the visible and physical part of him, which lies here in
the visible world and which we call his corpse, to decay and fall to
pieces and be dissipated, none of this happens to it immediately; it
remains as it was for quite some time, particularly so if death
takes place when the body is in attractive condition and the
weather is also fine. Indeed, when the body is dried and embalmed,
as in Egypt,'' it remains almost intact for an incredible time; and
even if the rest of the body decays, some parts of it - the bones
and sinews and anything else like them - are practically everlasting.
That is so, is it not?'

'Yes.'

'But the soul, the invisible part, which goes away to a place that
is, like itself, glorious, pure, and invisible - the true Hades or
unseen world"' - into the presence of the good and wise God
(where, if God so wills, my soul must shortly go) - will it, if its
very nature is such as I have described, be blown to bits and
destroyed at the moment of its release from the body, as most
people claim? Far from it, my dear Simmias and Cebes.

Section G: Reflections after the similarity argument concerning the
fate of those souls which have and which have not separated
themselves from bodily concerns.

'The truth is much more like this: if at its release the soul is
pure and does not drag along with it any trace of the body,
because it has never willingly associated with it in life; if it has
shunned it and isolated itself because that is what it always
practises - I mean doing philosophy in the right way and really
getting used to facing death calmly: wouldn't you call this
"practising death"?'

'Most decidedly.'

'Very well; if this is its condition, then it departs to the place
where things are like itself - invisible, divine, immortal and
wise; where, on its arrival, happiness awaits it, and release from
uncertainty and folly, from fears and gnawing desires, and all
other human evils; and where (as they say of the initiates in the
Mysteries) it really spends the rest of time with divine beings. Shall
we adopt this view, Cebes, or some other?'

'This one, by all means,' said Cebes.

'But, I suppose, if at the time of its release the soul is tainted
and impure, because it has always associated with the body and
cared for it and loved it, and has been so beguiled by the body and
its passions and pleasures that nothing seems real to it but those
physical things which can be touched and seen and eaten and
drunk and used for sexual enjoyment, making it accustomed to
hate and fear and avoid what is invisible and obscure to our eyes,
but intelligible and comprehensible by philosophy - if the soul is
in this state, do you think that it will be released just by itself,
uncontaminated?'

'Not in the least,' he said.

'On the contrary, it will, I imagine, be permeated by the corporeal,
which fellowship and intercourse with the body will have ingrained
in its very nature through constant association and long practice.'

'Certainly.'

'And we must suppose, my dear fellow, that the corporeal is
heavy, oppressive, earthly and visible. So the soul which is tainted
by its presence is weighed down and dragged back into the visible
world, through fear (as they say) of Hades or the invisible, and
hovers about tombs and graveyards. The shadowy apparitions
which have actually been seen there are the ghosts of those souls
which have not got clear away, but still retain some portion of the
visible; which is why they can be seen.'

'That seems likely enough, Socrates.'

'Yes, it does, Cebes. Of course these are not the souls of the
good, but of inferior people, and they are compelled to wander
about these places as a punishment for their bad conduct in the
past. They continue wandering until at last, through craving for
the corporeal, which unceasingly pursues them, they are impris-
oned once more in a body. And as you might expect, they are
attached to the same sort of character or nature which they have
developed during life.'

'What sort do you mean, Socrates?'

'Well, those who have cultivated gluttony or assault or drunken-
ness, instead of taking pains to avoid them, are likely to assume
the form of donkeys and other perverse animals; don't you think
so?'

'Yes, that is very likely.'

'And those who have deliberately preferred a life of injustice,
suppression, and robbery with violence become wolves and hawks
and kites; unless we can suggest any other more likely animals.'

'No, the ones which you mention are exactly right.'

'So it is easy to imagine into what sort of animals all the other
kinds of soul will go, in accordance with their conduct during life.'

'Yes, certainly.'

'I suppose that the happiest people, and those who reach the
best destination, are the ones who have cultivated the goodness of
an ordinary citizen, so-called 'temperance' and 'justice', which is
acquired by habit and practice, without the help of philosophy and
reason.

'How are these the happiest?'

'Because they will probably pass into some other kind of social
and disciplined creature like bees, wasps and ants; or even back
into the human race again, becoming decent citizens.'

'Very likely,'

'But no soul which has not practised philosophy, and is not
absolutely pure when it leaves the body, may attain to the divine
nature; that is only for the lover of learning. This is the reason, my
dear Simmias and Cebes, why true philosophers abstain from all
bodily desires and withstand them and do not yield to them. It is
not because they are afraid of financial loss or poverty, like the
average man who thinks of money first; nor because they shrink
from dishonour and a bad reputation, like lovers of prestige and
authority.

'No, those would be unworthy motives, Socrates,' said Cebes.

'They would indeed,' he agreed. 'And so, Cebes, those who care
about their souls and do not devote themselves to the body
dissociate themselves firmly from these others and refuse to ac-
company them on their haphazard journey; they believe that it is
wrong to oppose philosophy with her offer of liberation and
purification, so they turn and follow her wherever she leads.'

'What do you mean, Socrates?'

'I will explain,' he said. 'Every seeker after wisdom knows that
up to the time when philosophy takes it over his soul is a helpless
prisoner, chained hand and foot in the body, compelled to view
reality not directly but only through its prison bars, and wallowing
in utter ignorance. And philosophy can see the ingenuity of the
imprisonment, which is brought about by the prisoner's own
active desire, which makes him first accessory to his own con-
finement. Well, philosophy takes over the soul in this condition
and by gentle persuasion tries to set it free. She points out that
observation by means of the eyes and ears and all the other senses
abounds with deception, and she urges the soul to refrain from
using them unless it is necessary to do so, and encourages it to
collect and concentrate itself in isolation, trusting nothing but its
own isolated judgement upon realities considered in isolation, and
attributing no truth to any other thing which it views through
another medium in some other thing;" such objects, she knows,
are sensible and visible but what she herself sees is intelligible and
invisible. Now the soul of the true philosopher feels that it must
not reject this opportunity for release, and so it abstains as far as
possible from pleasures and desires and griefs, because it reflects
that the result of giving way to pleasure, fear, pain, or desire is
not as might be supposed the trivial misfortune of becoming ill or
wasting money through self-indulgence, but the last and worst
calamity of all, which the sufferer does not take into account.'

'What is that, Socrates?' asked Cebes.

'When anyone's soul feels a keen pleasure or pain it cannot help
supposing that whatever causes the most violent emotion is the
plainest and truest reality; which it is not. It is chiefly visible
things that have this effect, isn't it?'

'Quite so.'

'Is it not on this sort of occasion that soul passes most completely
into the bondage of body?'

'How is that?'

'Because every pleasure or pain has a sort of rivet with which it
fastens the soul to the body and pins it down and makes it
corporeal, accepting as true whatever the body certifies. The result
of agreeing with the body and finding pleasure in the same things
is, I imagine, that it cannot help coming to share its character and
its diet, so that it can never get clean away to the unseen world,
but is always saturated with the body when it sets out, and so
soon falls back again into another body, where it takes root and
grows. Consequently it has no share of fellowship with the pure
and uniform and divine.'

'Yes, that is perfectly true, Socrates,' said Cebes.

'It is for these reasons, Cebes, that true philosophers exhibit
self-control and courage; not for the reasons that most people
do. Or do you think it's for the same reasons?'

'No, certainly not.'

'No, indeed. A philosopher's soul will take the view which I
have described. It will not first expect to be set free by philoso-
phy, and then allow pleasure and pain to reduce it once more to
bondage, thus condemning itself to an endless task, like Pene-
lope, when she worked to undo her own weaving; no, this soul
brings calm to the seas of desire by following Reason and
abiding always in her company, and by contemplating the true and
divine and unambiguous, and drawing inspiration from it; because
such a soul believes that this is the right way to live while life
endures, and that after death it reaches a place which is kindred
and similar to its own nature, and there is rid for ever of human
ills. After such a training, my dear Simmias and Cebes, the soul
can have no grounds for fearing that on its separation from the
body it will be blown away and scattered by the winds, and so
disappear into thin air, and cease to exist altogether.'

Section H: The objections of Simmias and Cebes. Simmias feels
that Socrates' theory of the soul's immortality is inconsistent with
an attractive Pythagorean doctrine which views the soul as an
attunement, for an instrument's harmony - its condition of being
'tuned' - is gone as soon as the instrument is broken. Cebes feels
that Socrates has proved that the soul is more enduring than the
body, but not that it is completely impervious to the forces of
destruction. In this section we are expected to ponder a great deal
over what the soul really is like, and what sort of relationship it
should have with the body - whether, for instance, it 'harmonizes'
the body, whether it arranges for its perpetual renewal, and
whether it can in fact be worn out by such tasks.

There was silence for some time after Socrates had said this. He
himself, to judge from his appearance, was still pondering the
account which he had just given, and so were most of us; but
Simmias and Cebes went on talking in a low voice. When Socrates
noticed them, he said, 'Why, surely you don't feel my account
inadequate? Of course it is still open to a number of doubts and
objections, if you want to examine it in detail. If it is something
else that you two are considering, never mind; but if you feel any
difficulty about our discussion, don't hesitate to put forward your
own views, and point out any way in which you think that my
account could be improved; and by all means make use of my
services too, if you think I can help at all to solve the difficulty.'

'Very well, Socrates,' said Simmias, 'I will be quite open with
you. We have both been feeling difficulties for some time, and
each of us has been urging the other to ask questions. We are
anxious to have your answers, but we did not like to trouble you,
for fear of upsetting you in your present misfortune.'

When Socrates heard this he laughed gently and said, 'I am
surprised at you, Simmias. I shall certainly find it difficult to
convince the outside world that I do not regard my present lot as a
misfortune if I cannot even convince you, and you are afraid that I
am more irritable now than I used to be. Evidently you think that
I have less insight into the future than a swan; because when these
birds feel that the time has come for them to die, they sing more
loudly and sweetly than they have sung in all their lives before, for
joy that they are going away into the presence of the god whose
servants they are. It is quite wrong for human beings to make out
that the swans sing their last song as an expression of grief at their
approaching end; people who say this are misled by their own
fear of death, and fail to reflect that no bird sings when it is
hungry or cold or distressed in any other way; not even the
nightingale or swallow or hoopoe, whose songs are supposed to be
a lament. In my opinion neither they nor the swans sing because
they are sad. I believe that the swans, belonging as they do to
Apollo, have prophetic powers and sing because they know the
good things that await them, in the unseen world; and they are
happier on that day than they have ever been before. Now I
consider that I am in the same service as the swans, and dedicated
to the same god; and that I am no worse endowed with prophetic
powers by my master than they are, and no more disconsolate at
leaving this life. So far as that fear of yours is concerned, you may
say and ask whatever you like, for as long as the eleven officers of
the Athenians permit."

'Thank you,' said Simmias. 'I will tell you my problem first and
then Cebes shall tell you where he finds your theory unacceptable.
I think, just as you do, Socrates, that although it is very difficult if
not impossible in this life to achieve certainty about these questions,
at the same time it is utterly feeble not to use every effort in
testing the available theories, or to leave off before we have
considered them in every way, and come to the end of our
resources. It is our duty to do one of two things: either to ascertain
the facts, whether by seeking instruction or by personal discovery;
or, if this is impossible, to select the best and most dependable
theory that human intelligence can supply, and use it as a raft to
ride the seas of life - that is, assuming that we cannot make our
journey with greater confidence and security by the surer means of
a divine revelation. And so now, after what you have said, I shall
not let any diffidence prevent me from asking my question, and so
make me blame myself afterwards for not having spoken my mind
now. The fact is, Socrates, that on thinking it over, and discussing
it with Cebes here, I feel your explanation not altogether adequate.'

'Your feeling is very likely right, my comrade,' said Socrates, 'but
tell me where you think the inadequacies are.'

Section H (i): The attunement theory. Given that one accepts that
there is something constantly in the living body which brings it
life, unity and perception, one is confronted with the following
choice: either it will be some part of the individual distinct from
the parts of the body, something which arrives when the body is in
a condition apt for life and departs thereafter {whether intact and
intelligent or not); or it will be some relation between the rest of
the parts of the individual. Simmias understands the present theory
as being of the latter type, and the 'attunement' (or 'harmony') as
the lyre's state of being ready to play - with all its parts standing
in the correct relation to one another and the strings at the correct
tension. Thus the soul would be the body's state of being ready to
live, with all its parts adequately 'attuned'. This type of theory
offers an obvious challenge, since it does not allow the soul to be
an independent entity of the type which Socrates advocates, thus
threatening the moral theory of the Phaedo as well as the theory of
the soul's immortality. The origin of the theory may be complex.
That the soul is some kind of appropriate mixture of the physical
forces hot, cold, wet and dry (86b) was a natural view for the
Greek medical theorists to hold. Yet harmonic theory was particularly
dear to the Pythagoreans, and the Pythagorean Echecrates
(88d) had long adhered to a soul-harmony theory - in spite of the
Pythagorean belief in an after-life. They did not have to understand
the 'harmony' as Simmias does, and indeed the soul which Plato
employs in the Timaeus is very much a harmony without in any
sense being an 'attunement' of bodily elements. Since for Pythagor-
eans mathematical entities were the primary reality, it makes sense
that the lyre's harmony should have been an external and independent
force attracted almost magically into the material lyre as soon
as it was ready to be played. In criticizing the doctrine at De
Anima 407b27-8, Aristotle implies that the theory was a popular
one, without specifying any particular advocates of it.

'What I mean is this,' said Simmias. 'You might say the same
thing about tuning the strings of a musical instrument: that the
attunement is something invisible and incorporeal and splendid
and divine, and located in the tuned instrument, while the instrument
itself and its strings are material and corporeal and composite
and earthly and closely related to what is mortal. Now suppose
that the instrument is broken, or its strings cut or snapped.
According to your theory the attunement must still exist - it
cannot have been destroyed; because it would be inconceivable
that when the strings are broken the instrument and the strings
themselves, which have a mortal nature, should still exist, and the
attunement, which shares the nature and characteristics of the
divine and immortal, should exist no longer, having predeceased
its mortal counterpart. You would say that the attunement must
still exist somewhere just as it was; and that the wood and strings
will rot away before anything happens to it. I say this, Socrates,
because, as I think you yourself are aware, this is very much the
kind of thing that we take the soul to be; the body is held toge-
ther at a certain tension between the extremes of hot and cold,
and dry and wet, and so on, and our soul is a balance or attune-
ment of these same extremes, when they are combined in just
the right proportion. Well, if the soul is really an adjustment,
obviously as soon as the tension of our body is lowered or
increased beyond the proper point, the soul must be destroyed,
divine though it is; just like any other attunement, either in music
or in any product of the arts and crafts, although in each case the
physical remains last considerably longer until they are burnt up
or rot away. Find us an answer to this argument, if someone in-
sists that the soul, being a balance of physical constituents, is the
first thing to be destroyed by what we call death.'

Section H (ii): Cebes' problem. Cebes accepts the notion that the
soul is an independent part of the individual, and a long-lasting
part at that. He rightly points out that something long-lasting does
not have to be imperishable. And he raises the crucial issue that
the same body may not after all last a man's lifetime since parts
are constantly expended and replaced, so that the more enduring
soul could last longer without lasting beyond death.

Socrates opened his eyes very wide - a favourite trick of his -
and smiled. 'Really,' he said, 'Simmias's criticism is quite justified,
so if any of you are more resourceful than I am, you had better
answer him; it seems to me that he is not handling the argument at
all badly. However, before we have the answer, I think we should
hear what criticisms Cebes has to make in his turn, so that we may
have time to decide what to say; when we have heard him, we can
either agree with them if they seem to have hit the right note
somewhere, or if not, we can then take on the defence of my
account. Come on, Cebes,' he said, 'tell us what has been troubling
you.'

'Very well,' said Cebes. 'It seems to me that the argument is just
where it was; I mean that it is open to the same criticism that we
made before. The proof that our soul existed before it took on this
present shape is perfectly satisfying - convincing even, if that's not
too strong a word for you; I am not changing my position about
that. But as for its still existing somewhere after we are dead, I
think that the proof fails at this point. Mind you, I don't agree
that soul is not stronger and more durable than body, as implied
by Simmias's objection; it seems to me to be far superior in all
those ways. "Then why," your theory might inquire, "are you still
sceptical, when you can see that after a man dies even the weaker
part of him continues to exist? Don't you think the more durable
part of him must logically survive as long?" Well, here is my
answer; I want you to consider whether there is anything in what I
say - because like Simmias I must have recourse to an illustration.

'Suppose that an elderly tailor has just died. Your theory would
be just like saying that the man is not dead, but still exists
somewhere safe and sound; and offering as proof the fact that the
cloak which he had made for himself and was wearing has not
perished but is still intact. If anyone was sceptical, I suppose you
would ask him which is likely to last longer, a man or a cloak
which is being regularly used and worn; and when he replied that
the former was far more likely, you would imagine that you had
proved conclusively that the man is safe and sound, since the less
enduring object has not perished. But surely this is not so, Simmias
- because I want your opinion too; anyone would dismiss such a
view as silly. The tailor makes and wears out any number of
cloaks, but although he outlives all the others, presumably he
perishes before the last one; and this does not mean that a man is
lowlier or more frail than a cloak. I believe that this analogy could
apply to the relation of soul to body; and I think that it would be
reasonable to say of them in the same way that soul is a long-lived
thing, whereas body is relatively feeble and short-lived. But while
one might admit that each soul wears out a number of bodies,
especially if it lives a great many years - because although the
body is continually changing and disintegrating all through life,
the soul never stops patching up what is worn away - even so,
when the soul dies, it would still have to be in possession of its
final garment, and must perish before it in this case only; and it's
when the soul has perished that the body at last reveals its natural
frailty and quickly rots away. If you accept this view there is no
justification yet for any confidence that after death our souls still
exist somewhere. Suppose that one conceded even more to the
exponent of your case, granting not only that our souls existed
before our birth, but also that some of them may still exist when
we die, and go on existing, and be born and die again several
times (soul having such natural vitality that it persists through
successive incarnations); unless in granting this he made the further
concession that the soul suffers no ill-effects in its various rebirths,
and so does not, at one of its "deaths", perish altogether; if he had
to admit that nobody knows which of these "deaths" or separations
from the body may prove fatal to the soul (because such insight is
impossible for any of us) - on these terms, Socrates, no one has
the right to face death with any but a fool's confidence, unless he
can prove that the soul is absolutely immortal and indestructible.
Otherwise everyone must always feel apprehension at the approach
of death for fear that in this particular separation from the body
his soul may be finally and utterly destroyed.'

Well, when we had heard them state their objections, we all felt
very much depressed, as we told one another later. We had been
quite convinced by the earlier part of the discussion, and now we
felt that they had upset our convictions and destroyed our confi-
dence not only in what had been said already, but also in anything
that was to follow later, fearing that either we were incompetent
judges, or these matters themselves are inherently obscure.

Section 1: Interlude, with comment from Echecrates.

ECHECRATES: You certainly have my full sympathy, Phaedo.
After hearing your account I find myself faced with the same
misgiving. How can we believe in anything after that? Socrates'
argument was very convincing, and now it's fallen into discredit.
That theory that our soul is some sort of attunement has an
extraordinary attraction for me, now as much as ever, and your
account of it reminded me that I myself had come to the same
conclusion. What I really need now is another proof, right from
the beginning, to convince me that when a man dies his soul does
not die with him. Tell me, please, how did Socrates pick up the
trail again? And did he show any sign of regret, like the rest of
you, or did he come quietly to the rescue of the argument? And
did he rescue it effectively or not? Tell us every detail as accurately
as you can.

PHAEDO: I can assure you, Echecrates, that though Socrates often
astonished me, I never admired him more than on this particular
occasion. That he should have been ready with an answer was, I
suppose, nothing unusual; but what impressed me was first, the
pleasant, kindly, appreciative way in which he received the young
men's thoughts, then his quick recognition of how the turn of the
discussion had affected us; and lastly the skill with which he
healed our wounds, rallied our scattered forces, and encouraged us
to join him in pursuing the inquiry.

ECHECRATES: How did he do that?

Section J: Reasons for not mistrusting argument. The section is
notable in that it brings the narrator into the story, thereby adding
a personal touch and maintaining the focus upon the reactions of
Socrates' ordinary followers.

PHAEDO: I will tell you. I happened to be sitting to the right of his
bed, on a footstool, and he was much higher than I was. So he laid
his hand on my head and gathered up the hair on my neck - he
never missed a chance of teasing me about my hair - and said,
'Tomorrow, I suppose, Phaedo, you will cut off this beautiful crop.'

'I expect so, Socrates,' I said.

'Not if you take my advice.'

'Why not?' I asked.

'Because I shall cut off mine today, and you ought to do the
same,' said Socrates, 'that is, if our argument dies and and we fail
to bring it back to life again. What is more, if I were you, and let
the truth escape me, I should make a vow like the Argives' never
to let my hair grow again until I had defeated the argument of
Simmias and Cebes in a return battle.'

'But', I objected, 'not even Heracles can take on two at once.'
'You had better call upon me to be your lolaus,' he said, 'while
the daylight lasts.
''
'Very well,' I said, 'but I am lolaus appealing to Heracles, not
Heracles to lolaus.'

'The effect will be just the same,' he said. 'But first there is one
danger that we must guard against.'

'What sort of danger?' I asked.

'Of becoming "misologic",' he said, 'in the sense that people
become misanthropic. No greater misfortune could happen to
anyone than that of developing a dislike for argument. "Misology"
and misanthropy arise in just the same way. Misanthropy is
induced by believing in somebody quite uncritically. You assume
that a person is absolutely truthful and sincere and reliable, and a
little later you find that he is shoddy and unreliable. Then the
same thing happens again. After repeated disappointments at the
hands of the very people who might be supposed to be your
nearest and most intimate friends, constant irritation finally makes
you dislike everybody and suppose that there is no sincerity to be
found anywhere. Have you never noticed this happening?'

'Indeed, I have.'

'Don't you feel that it is reprehensible? Isn't it obvious that such
a person is trying to manage human relationships without a basic
knowledge of humans? Otherwise he would surely recognize the
truth: that there are not many very good or very bad people, but
the great majority are something between the two.'

'How do you mean?' I asked.

'On the analogy of very large or small objects,' he said. 'Can
you think of anything more unusual than coming across a very
large or small man, or dog, or any other creature? Or one which is
very swift or slow, ugly or beautiful, white or black? Have you
never realized that extreme instances are few and rare, while
intermediate ones are many and plentiful?'

'Certainly.'

'So you think that if there were a competition in wickedness,
very few would distinguish themselves even there?'

'Probably.'

'Yes, it is probable,' said Socrates. 'However, you've led me into
a digression. The resemblance between arguments and human
beings lies not in what I said just now, but in what I said before:
that when one beheves that an argument is true without possessing
skill in logic, and then a little later decides rightly or wrongly that
it is false, and the same thing happens again and again - you know
how it is, especially with those who spend their time in arguing
both sides; they end by believing that they are wiser than
anyone else, because they alone have discovered that there is
nothing stable or dependable either in things or in arguments, and
that everything fluctuates just like the Euripus, and never stays
at one point for any time.'

'That is perfectly true,' I said.

'Well, then, Phaedo,' he said, 'supposing that there is a kind of
argument which is true and valid and capable of having its truth
ascertained, if anyone nevertheless, through his experience of these
arguments which seem to the same people to be sometimes true
and sometimes false, attached no responsibility to himself and his
lack of skill, but was finally content, in exasperation, to shift the
blame from himself to arguments, and spend the rest of his life
loathing and decrying them, and so missed the chance of knowing
the truth about reality; would it not be a pitiable thing?'

'It would indeed be pitiable,' I said.

'Very well,' he said, 'that is the first thing that we must guard
against; we must not let it enter our minds that there may be no
health in argument. On the contrary we should recognize that we
ourselves are still intellectual invalids, but that we must brace
ourselves and do our best to become healthy - you and the others
with a view to the rest of your lives too, but in my case in view of
of my death itself; because at the moment I might easily handle
this argument like a competitor instead of a philosopher. You know
how, in an argument, people who have no real education care
nothing for the facts of the case, and are only anxious to get their
point of view accepted by the audience? Well, I feel that at this
present moment I am nearly as bad as they are, apart from this:
that my anxiety will be not to convince my audience (except
incidentally) but to produce the strongest possible conviction in
myself. This is how I weigh the position, my dear fellow - see how
out for profit I am! If my theory is really true, it's best to believe
it; while even if death is extinction, at any rate during this time
before my death I shall be less likely to distress my companions by
giving way to self-pity; and this ignorance of mine will not live on
with me (that would be a bad thing) but will shortly come to an
end.

'That, my dear Simmias and Cebes, is the spirit in which I am
prepared to approach the argument. As for you, if you will take
my advice you will think very little of Socrates, and much more of
the truth. If you think that anything I say is true, you must agree
with me; if not, oppose it with every argument that you have. You
must not allow me, in my enthusiasm, to deceive both myself and
you, and, like a bee, to leave my sting behind when I fly away.

Section K: Socrates replies to Simmias's theory that the soul may
be a kind of attunement. The theory is (i) incompatible with the
Theory of Recollection, (ii) inadequate in so far as there are
degrees of attunement but not of soul (iii) inconsistent with the
fact that our souls can be well or badly 'tuned' themselves, and
(iv) inconsistent with the soul's role as leader of the body.

'Well, we must go ahead,' he continued. 'First remind me of
what you said, if you find my memory inaccurate. Simmias's
doubts, I believe, are based on the fear that, though the soul is
more divine and a nobler thing than the body, it may nevertheless
be destroyed first, as being a kind of attunement. Cebes, on the
other hand, appeared to agree with me that soul is more enduring
than body, but to maintain that no one can be sure that, after
repeatedly wearing out a great many bodies, it does not at last
perish itself, leaving the last body behind; and he thinks that death
may be precisely this, the destruction of the soul, because the
body never stops perishing all the time. Am I right, Simmias and
Cebes, in thinking that these are the objections which we have to
investigate?'

They agreed that this was so.

'Well, then,' he said, 'do you reject all our previous arguments,
or only some of them?'

'Only some of them,' they said.

'What is your opinion of that argument by which we claimed
that learning is recollection, and that, if this is so, our souls must
have existed somewhere else before they were confined in the
body?'

'Speaking for myself,' said Cebes, 'I found it remarkably convincing
at the time, and I stick to it still as I do to no other theory.'

'Yes, indeed,' said Simmias, 'it is just the same with me; I
should be very much surprised if I ever changed my opinion about
that.'

'But you will have to change it, my Theban friend,' said Socrates,
'if your belief still stands that an attunement is a composite thing,
and that the soul is an attunement composed of our physical
elements at a given tension. I imagine that you would not accept
even from yourself the assertion that a composite attunement
existed before the elements of which it was to be composed. Or
would you?'

'Not for a moment, Socrates.'

'Don't you see that that is just what it amounts to when you say
that the soul exists before it enters the human form or body, and
also that it is composed of elements which do not yet exist? Surely
an attunement is not at all like the object of your comparison. The
instrument and the strings and their untuned sounds come first;
the attunement is the last of all to be constituted and the first to
be destroyed. How will this account harmonize with the other?'

'Not at all,' said Simmias.

'And yet,' said Socrates, 'if any account ought to be harmonious,
it should be an account of attunement!'

'Yes, it should,' said Simmias.

'Well,' said Socrates, 'this one does not harmonize with your
view. Make up your mind which theory you prefer: that learning
is recollection, or that soul is an attunement.'

'The former, without any hesitation, Socrates,' he said. 'The
other appealed to me, without any proof to support it, because it
came with a certain likelihood and attractiveness; which is why it
appeals to most people. But I realize that theories which rest their
proof upon likelihood are impostors, and unless you are on your
guard, they deceive you properly, both in geometry and everywhere
else. On the other hand, the theory of recollection and learning
derives from a hypothesis which is worthy of acceptance. It was
surely stated that the theory that our soul exists even before it
enters the body has the same status as its grasp of that reality of
which we say "as it is itself";' a view which I have, to the best of
my belief, fully and rightly accepted. It seems therefore that I must
not accept, either from myself or from anyone else, the assertion
that soul is an attunement.'

'There is this way of looking at it too, Simmias,' said Socrates. 'Do
you think that an attunement, or any other composite thing, should
be in a condition different from that of its component elements?'

'No, I do not.'

'And it should not act, or be acted upon, I presume, differently
from them?'

He agreed.

'So an attunement should not control its elements, but should
follow their lead?'

He assented.

'There is no question of its conflicting with them, either in
movement or in sound or in any other way?

'None at all.'

'Very well, then; is it not the nature of every attunement to be
an attunement in so far as it is tuned?'

'I don't understand.'

'Surely,' said Socrates, 'if it is tuned more, that is, in a greater
degree (supposing this to be possible), it must be more of an
attunement; and if it is tuned less, that is, in a lesser degree, it
must be less of an attunement.'

'Quite so.'

'And is this the case with the soul - that one soul is, even
minutely, more or less of a soul than another?'

'Not in the least.'

'Now please give me your closest attention,' said Socrates. 'Do
we say that one kind of soul possesses intelligence and goodness,
and is good, and that another possesses ignorance and wickedness,
and is bad? And is this true?'

'Yes, it is true.'

'Then how will a person who holds that the soul is an attunement
account for the presence in it of goodness and badness? Will
he describe them as yet another attunement or lack of it? Will he
say that the good soul is in tune, and not only is an attunement
itself, but contains another, whereas the bad soul is out of tune
and does not contain another attunement?'

'I really could not say,' replied Simmias; 'but obviously anyone
who held that view would have to say something of the sort.'

'But we have already agreed,' said Socrates, 'that no soul can be
more or less of a soul than another; and this is tantamount to
agreeing that it can be no more or less of an attunement, nor can it
be an attunement in a greater or lesser degree. Is that not so?'

'Certainly.'

'And that what is neither more nor less of an attunement is
neither more nor less in tune. Is that so?'

'Yes.'

'Does that which is neither more nor less in tune contain a
greater or smaller proportion of attunement, or an equal one?'

'An equal one.'

'Then since no soul is any more or less than just a soul, it is
neither more nor less in tune.'

'That is so.'

'Under this condition it cannot contain a greater proportion of
discord or attunement.'

'Certainly not.'

'And again under this condition, can one soul contain a greater
proportion of badness or goodness than another, assuming that
badness is discord and goodness attunement?'

'No, it cannot.'

'Or rather, I suppose, Simmias, by strict reasoning no soul will
contain any share of badness, if it is an attunement; because surely
since attunement is absolutely attunement and nothing else, it can
never contain any share of discord.'

'No, indeed.'

'Nor can the soul, since it is absolutely soul, contain a share of
badness.'

'Not in the light of what we have said.'

'So on this theory every soul of every living creature will be
equally good - assuming that it is the nature of all souls to be
equally souls and nothing else.'

'I think that follows, Socrates.'

'Do you also think that this view is right? Would the argument
ever have come to this if our hypothesis, that the soul is an
attunement, had been correct?'

'Not the least chance of it.'

'Well,' said Socrates, 'do you hold that it is any other part of a
man than the soul that governs him, especially if it is a wise one?'

'No, I do not.'

'Does it yield to the feelings of the body, or oppose them? I
mean, for instance, that when a person is feverish and thirsty it
impels him the other way, not to drink; and when he is hungry,
not to eat; and there are thousands of other ways in which we see
the soul opposing the physical instincts. Is that not so?'

'Certainly.'

'Did we not also agree a little while ago that if it is an
attunement it can never sound a note that conflicts with the
tension or relaxation or vibration or any other condition of its
constituents, but must always follow them and never direct them?'

'Yes, we did, of course.'

'Well, surely we can see now that the soul works in just the
opposite way. It directs all the elements of which it is said to
consist, opposing them in almost everything all through life, and
exercising every form of control; sometimes by severe and unplea-
sant methods like those of physical training and medicine, and
sometimes by milder ones; sometimes threatening, sometimes warn-
ing; and conversing with the desires and passions and fears as
though it were quite separate and distinct from them. It is just like
Homer's description in the Odyssey where he says that Odysseus

Then beat his breast, and thus reproved his heart.
"Endure, my heart; still worse hast thou endured. "

Do you suppose that when he wrote that he thought that the soul
was an attunement, liable to be swayed by physical feelings?
Surely he regarded it as capable of leading and controlling them;
as something much too divine to rank as an attunement.'

'That is certainly how it seems to me, Socrates.'

'Good. In that case there is no justification for our saying that
soul is a kind of attunement. We should neither agree with
Homer nor be consistent ourselves.'

'That is so.'

Section L: Socrates begins his response to Cebes.

'Well now,' said Socrates, 'we seem to have placated the Theban
Harmonia with moderate success. But what about Cadmus,
Cebes? How shall we placate him, and what argument shall we use?'

'I think that you will find a way,' said Cebes. 'This argument
which you brought forward against the attunement theory far
surpassed all my expectations. When Simmias was explaining his
difficulties I wondered very much whether anyone would be able
to do anything with his argument; so I was quite astonished that it
could not stand up against your very first attack. I should not be
surprised if Cadmus's argument met the same fate.'

'My dear fellow,' said Socrates, 'don't tempt fate, or some jinx
will turn around the argument that's on its way. However, that's
God's affair; it is our task to come to close quarters in the
Homeric manner and test the substance of what you say.
'What you require, in a nutshell, is this. You consider that,
unless the confidence of a philosopher, who at the point of dying
believes that after death he will be better off for having lived and
died in philosophy rather than in any other pursuit, is to be a
blind and foolish confidence, the soul must be proved to be
indestructible and immortal. To show that it has great vitality and
a godlike nature, and even that it existed before we were born -
all this, you say, may very well indicate not that the soul is
immortal, but merely that it is long-lived, and pre-existed somewhere
for a prodigious period of time, enjoying a great measure of
knowledge and activity. But all this did not make it any the more
immortal, indeed its very entrance into the human body was, like
a disease, the beginning of its destruction; it lives this life in
increasing weariness, and finally perishes in what we call death.
You also say that, to our individual fears, it makes no difference
whether it enters the body once or often; anyone who does not
know and cannot prove that the soul is immortal must be afraid,
unless he is a fool,

'That, I believe, is the substance of your objection, Cebes. I am
deliberately reviewing it more than once, in order than nothing
may escape us, and that you may add to it or subtract from it
anything that you wish.'

Cebes said: 'But at the present moment there is no need for me
to add or subtract anything; that is precisely my point of view.'

After spending some time in reflection, Socrates said, 'What you
require is no light undertaking, Cebes. It involves a full treatment
of the reasons for generation and destruction. If you like, I will
describe my own experiences in this connection; and then, if you
find anything helpful in my account, you can use it to reassure
yourself about your own objections.'

'Yes, indeed,' said Cebes, 'I should like that very much.'

Section M: Socrates' progress in the philosophy of reasons or
causes. Note that from the beginning he has been looking for
the causes or explanations of coming-to-be, passing away, or
being in existence: not just things coming-to-be, etc., but also the
coming-to-be, etc. of those attributes which come to apply to
them. He sought such causes first in the various theories of the
Presocratic philosophers, but this gave rise to a new set of problems
for him. The theory of Anaxagoras that intelligence governs the
world awakens in him the outline of a different approach, by
which physical things would be shown to conform with the
requirements of intelligence, but Anaxagoras himself gives no lead
in the application of such a method.

'Then listen, and I will tell you. When I was young, Cebes, I had
an extraordinary passion for that branch of learning which is
called natural science; I thought it would be marvellous to know
the reasons for which each thing comes and ceases and continues
to be. I was constantly veering to and fro, puzzling primarily
over this sort of question: "Is it when heat and cold produce
fermentation, as some have said, that living creatures are bred?
Is it with the blood that we become aware, or with the air or the
fire that is in us? Or is it none of these, but the brain that
supplies our senses of hearing and sight and smell; and from these
that memory and opinion arise, and from memory and opinion,
when established, that knowledge comes?" Then again I would
consider how these things are destroyed, and study celestial and
terrestrial phenomena, until at last I came to the conclusion that I
was uniquely unfitted for this form of inquiry. I will give you a
sufficient indication of what I mean. I had understood some things
plainly before, in my own and other people's estimation; but now
I was so befogged by these speculations that I unlearned even what
I had thought I knew, especially about the reason for growth in
human beings. Previously I had thought it obvious to anybody that
it was due to eating and drinking; that when, from the food which
we consume, flesh is added to flesh and bone to bone, and when in
the same way the other parts of the body are augmented by their
appropriate particles, the bulk which was small is now large; and
in this way the small man becomes a big one. That is what I
used to believe; reasonably, don't you think?'

'I do,' said Cebes.

'Consider a little further. I had been content to think, when I
saw a tall man standing beside a short one, that he was taller by a
head; and similarly in the case of horses. And it seemed to me
even more obvious that ten is more than eight because it contains
two more; and that two feet is bigger than one because it exceeds
it by half its own length.'

'And what do you believe about them now?' asked Cebes.

'Why, upon my word, that I am very far from supposing that I
know the explanation of any of these things. I cannot even
convince myself that when you add one to one either the first or
the second one becomes two, or they both become two by the
addition of the one to the other. I find it hard to believe that,
although when they were separate each of them was one and they
were not two, now that they have come together the reason for
their becoming two is simply the union explained by their juxtapo-
sition. Nor can I believe now, when you divide one, that this time
the reason for its becoming two is the division; because this reason
for its becoming two is the opposite of the former one: then it was
because they were brought close together and added one to the
other, but now it is because they are taken apart and separated
one from the other. Nor can I now persuade myself that I un-
derstand how it is that things become one; nor, in short, why
anything else comes or ceases or continues to be, according to
this method of inquiry. So I reject it altogether, and muddle out a
haphazard method of my own.

'However, I once heard someone reading from some book - of
Anaxagoras, he claimed - and asserting that it is Intelligence that
organizes things and is the reason for everything. This explanation
pleased me. Somehow it seemed right that Intelligence should
be the reason for everything; and I reflected that if this is so, in the
course of its arrangement Intelligence sets everything in order and
arranges each individual thing in the way that is best for it.
Therefore if anyone wished to discover the reason why any given
thing came, continued, or ceased to be, he must find out how it
was best for that thing to be, or to act or be acted upon in any
way. On this view there was only one thing for a man to consider,
with regard both to himself and to anything else, namely the best
and highest good; although this would necessarily imply knowing
what is less good, since both were covered by the same knowledge.
'When I weighed this up, I assumed to my delight that here I
had found an authority on causation who was after my own heart
- Anaxagoras. I assumed that he would begin by informing us
whether the earth is flat or round and would then proceed to
explain in detail the reason why it had to be with reference to
what's better - i.e. that it was better that it should be like this. So
if he asserted that the earth was in the centre, he would explain in
detail that it was better for it to be there; and if he made this clear,
I was prepared to give up hankering after any other kind of
reason. I was prepared also to learn about the sun and moon and
the other heavenly bodies in this way, about their relative velocities
and their orbits and all the other phenomena connected with them
- how it is better for each one of them to act or be acted upon as
it is. It never entered my head that a man who asserted that the
ordering of things is due to Intelligence would offer any other
explanation for them than that it is best for them to be as they are.
I thought that by assigning a reason to each phenomenon separately
and to the universe as a whole he would make perfectly clear what
is best for each and what is the universal good. I would not have
parted with my hopes for a great sum of money. I lost no time in
procuring the books, and began to read them as quickly as I
possibly could, so that I might know as soon as possible about
what's best and what's inferior.

'It was a wonderful hope, my friend, but it was quickly dashed.
As I read on I discovered a man who made no use of his
Intelligence and assigned to it no responsibility for the order of
the world, but adduced reasons like air and ether and water and
many other oddities. It seemed to me that he was just about as
inconsistent as if someone were to say: "The reason for everything
that Socrates does is intelligence", and then, in trying to account
for my several actions, said first that the reason why I am sitting
here now is that my body is composed of bones and sinews, and
that the bones are rigid and separated at the joints, but the sinews
are capable of contraction and relaxation, and form an envelope
for the bones with the help of the flesh and skin, the latter holding
all together; and since the bones move freely in their joints, the
sinews by relaxing and contracting enable me somehow to bend
my limbs; and that is the reason for my sitting here in a bent
position. Or again, if he tried to account in the same way for my
conversing with you, adducing reasons such as sound and air and
hearing and a thousand others, and never troubled to mention the
real reasons; which are that since Athens has thought it better to
condemn me, therefore I for my part have thought it better to sit
here, and more right to stay and submit to whatever penalty she
orders - because, by Dog! I fancy that these sinews and bones
would have been in the neighbourhood of Megara or Boeotia
long ago (impelled by a conviction of what is best!) if I did not
think that it was more just and honourable to submit to whatever
penalty my country orders rather than take to my heels and run
away. But to call things like that reasons is too peculiar. If it were
said that without such bones and sinews and all the rest of them I
should not be able to do what I think is right, it would be true; but
to say that it is because of them that I do what I am doing, and
not through choice of what is best - although my actions are
controlled by intelligence - would be a very lax and inaccurate
form of expression. Fancy being unable to distinguish between the
reason for a thing, and the condition without which the reason
couldn't be operative! It is this latter, as it seems to me, that
most people, groping in the dark, call a reason - attaching to it a
name to which it has no right. That is why one person surrounds
the earth with a vortex, and so keeps it in place by means of the
heavens; and another props it up on a pedestal of air, as though it
were a wide platter. As for a power which keeps things ever in
the best position, they neither search for it nor believe that it has
any remarkable force; they imagine that they will some day find a
more mighty and immortal and all-sustaining Atlas;' and they do
not think that anything is really bound and held together because
goodness requires it. For my part, I should be delighted to learn
about the workings of such a reason from anyone at all, but since
I've been denied it, and have been unable either to discover it
myself or to learn about it from another, I've worked out my own
secondary approach to the problem of causation. Would you like
me to give you a demonstration of it, Cebes?'

I should like it very much indeed.'

'Well, after this,' said Socrates, 'when I was worn out with my
investigations into reality, it occurred to me that I must guard
against the same sort of risk which people run when they watch
and study an eclipse of the sun; some of them, you see, injure their
eyes, unless they study its reflection in water or some other
medium. I conceived of something like this happening to myself,
and I was afraid that by observing objects with my eyes and trying
to comprehend them with each of my other senses I might blind
my soul altogether. So I decided that I must have recourse to
theories, and use them in trying to discover the truth about things.
Perhaps my illustration is not quite apt; because I do not entirely
agree that an inquiry by means of theory employs 'images' any
more than one which confines itself to facts. But however that
may be, I started off in this way; and in every case I first lay
down the theory which I judge to be least vulnerable; and then
whatever seems to agree with it - with regard either to reasons or
to anything else - I assume to be true, and whatever does not I
assume to be untrue. But I should like to express my meaning
more clearly; because at present I don't think that you understand.'

'No, indeed I don't,' said Cebes, 'not a bit.'

Section N: Socrates explains his new theory. Particulars are what
they are by participation in the Idea, and receive their descriptions
from the name of that Idea. We are now entering some of the most
difficult and most discussed theory of Plato's middle period. Yet
Plato seems to find much of what he says perfectly obvious;
Socrates thinks his method is unadventurously safe, and the inter-
locutors, with Echecrates too, are depicted as eager to agree on
much of what we should hesitate over. While not denying that
Plato would have had a more technical theory, traces of which
emerge here through his choice of language, we should be wary of
importing unnecessary technicalities into our understanding of
texts such as this.

'Well,' said Socrates, 'what I mean is this, and there is nothing
new about it; I have always said it, in fact I have never stopped
saying it, especially in the discussion that's just gone by. As I am
going to try to explain to you the type of reason I've worked out
myself, I propose to make a fresh start from those principles of
mine which are always cropping up; that is, I am assuming the
existence of Beauty in itself and Goodness and Largeness and all
the rest of them. If you grant my assumption and admit that they
exist, I hope with their help to explain causation to you, and to
find a proof that the soul is immortal.'

'Certainly I grant it,' said Cebes; 'you need lose no time in
drawing your conclusion.'

'Then consider the next step, and see whether you share my
opinion. It seems to me that whatever else is beautiful apart from
Beauty itself is beautiful because it partakes of that Beauty, and
for no other reason. Do you accept this kind of reason?'

'Yes, I do.'

'Well, now', said he, 'I cannot understand these other ingenious
theories of causation. If someone tells me that the reason why a
given object is beautiful is that it has a gorgeous colour or shape
or any other such attribute, I disregard all these other explanations
- I find them all confusing - and I cling simply and straightforwardly,
naively perhaps, to the explanation that the one thing that makes
that object beautiful is the presence in it or association with it (in
whatever way the relation comes about) of that other Beauty. I
do not go so far as to insist upon the precise detail; only upon the
fact that it is by Beauty that beautiful things are beautiful. This, I
feel, is the safest answer for me or for anyone else to give, and I
believe that while I hold fast to this I cannot fall; it is safe for me
or for anyone else to answer that it is by Beauty that beautiful
things are beautiful. Don't you agree?'

'Yes, I do.'

'Then is it also by largeness that large things are large and
larger things larger, and by smallness that smaller things are
smaller?'

'Yes.'

'So you too, like myself, wouldn't accept the statement that one
man is taller than another "by a head" and that the shorter man is
shorter by the same; you would protest that the only view which
you yourself can hold is that whatever is taller than something else
is so simply by tallness - that is, because of tallness; and that what
is shorter is so simply by shortness, that is, because of shortness.
You would be afraid, I suppose, that if you said that one man is
taller than another by a head, you would be faced with a counter-
argument: first that the taller should be taller and the shorter
shorter by the same thing, and secondly that the taller person
should be taller by a head, which is a short thing, and that it
would be a miracle that a man should be made tall by something
short. Isn't that so?

Cebes laughed and said, 'Yes, it is.'

'Then you would be afraid to say that ten is more than eight
"by two", or that two is the reason for its excess over eight,
instead of saying that it is more than eight by, or because of, being
a larger number; and you would be afraid to say that a length of
two feet is greater than one foot by a half, instead of saying that it
is greater by its larger size? There's the same danger here too.'

'Quite so.'

'Suppose next that we add one to one; you would surely avoid
saying that the reason for our getting two is the addition; nor, if
we divided a unit, the division. You would loudly proclaim that
you know of no other way in which any given attribute can come
to be except by sharing the essential nature of the thing it has a
share of; and that in the cases which I have mentioned you
recognize no other reason for something coming to be two than its
sharing in duality; and whatever is to become two must share in
this, and whatever is to become one must share in unity. You
would dismiss these divisions and additions and other such ingenuity,
leaving them for persons wiser than yourself to use in their
explanations, while you, being nervous of your own shadow, as
the saying is, and of your inexperience, would hold fast to the
security of your hypothesis and make your answers accordingly. If
anyone should question the hypothesis itself, you would ignore
him and refuse to answer until you could consider whether its
consequences were mutually consistent or not. And when you had to
substantiate the hypothesis itself, you would proceed in the same
way, assuming whatever more basic hypothesis commended
itself most to you, until you reached one which was satisfactory.
You would not mix the two things together by discussing both the
starting-point and its consequences, like one of these masters of
contradictions ' - that is, if you wanted to discover any part of
the truth. They presumably have no thought or concern whatever
for that, because their cleverness enables them to be well satisfied
with the way they muddle everything up; but you, I imagine, if
you are a philosopher, will follow the course which I describe.'

'You are perfectly right,' said Simmias and Cebes together.

ECHECRATES: And with good reason, Phaedo! It seems to me
that Socrates made his meaning extraordinarily clear to even a
limited intelligence.

PHAEDO: That was certainly the feeling of all of us who were
present, Echecrates.

ECHECRATES: No doubt, because it's just the same with us who
were not present and are hearing it now for the first time. But how
did the discussion go on?

PHAEDO: I think that when Socrates had got this accepted, and it
was agreed that the various Forms exist, and that the reason
why other things are called after the Forms is that they share in
them, he next went on to ask: 'If you hold this view, I suppose
that when you say that Simmias is taller than Socrates but shorter
than Phaedo, you mean that at that moment there are in Simmias
both tallness and shortness?'

'Yes, I do.'

'But do you agree that the statement "Simmias is bigger than
Socrates" is not, as expressed, an accurate reflection of the facts?
Surely it's not in Simmjas's own nature to be bigger - it's because
of the height which he incidentally possesses; and conversely the
reason why he is bigger than Socrates is not because Socrates is
Socrates, but because Socrates has the attribute of shortness in
comparison with Simmias's height.'

'True.'

'And again, Simmias's being smaller than Phaedo is due not to
the fact that Phaedo is Phaedo, but to the fact that Phaedo has the
attribute of tallness in comparison with Simmias's shortness.'

'Quite so.'

'So that is how Simmias comes to be described as both short
and tall, because he's intermediate between the two of them, and
lets his shortness be surpassed by the tallness of the one while he
displays a tallness that surpasses the shortness of the other.' And
with a smile he added, 'I seem to be talking like a technical
treatise; but all the same, surely, the situation is as I say?'

Simmias agreed.

Section O: Socrates begins by making a distinction akin to that
between the accidental and essential properties of an entity -
between those properties which it can lose without ceasing to be
the thing that it is, and others which are essential for it to remain
what it is. After this he establishes that certain things necessarily
imply the participation in one of a pair of opposite qualities, and
cannot take on the opposing quality. Anything which has, as an
essential quality, the property P which has an opposite Q, cannot
take on Q-ness but must be destroyed or retire rather than become
Q. The passage is a tantalizing one for those studying Plato's
metaphysics because it is difficult to understand without postulating
immanent form as something distinct from both Ideas and par-
ticulars, and yet no terminology peculiar to immanent form has
been established.

'I am saying all this because I'd like you to share my own point of
view. It seems to me not only that tallness itself absolutely declines
to be short as well as tall, but also that the tallness in us never
admits smallness and declines to be surpassed. It does one of two
things: either it gives way and withdraws as its opposite shortness
approaches, or it has already ceased to exist by the time that the
other arrives. It cannot stand its ground and receive the quality of
shortness in the same way as I myself have done. If it did, it would
become different from what it was before, whereas I have not lost
my identity by acquiring the quality of shortness; I am the same
man, only short; but my tallness could not endure to be short
instead of tall. In the same way the shortness that is "in" us declines
ever to become or be tall; nor will any other quality, while still
remaining what it was, at the same time become or be the opposite
quality; in such a situation it either withdraws or ceases to exist.'

'I agree with you entirely,' said Cebes.

At this point one of the company - I can't remember distinctly
who it was - said 'Look here! Didn't we agree, earlier in the
discussion, on the exact opposite of what you are saying now:
that the bigger comes from the smaller and the smaller from the
bigger, and that it is precisely from their opposites that opposites
come? Now the view seems to be that this is impossible.'

Socrates had listened with his head turned towards the speaker.
'How brave of you to refresh my memory,' he said, 'but you don't
realize the difference between what we are saying now and what
we said then. Then we were saying that opposite things come from
opposite things; now we are saying that the opposite itself can
never become opposite to itself - neither the opposite which is in
us nor that which is in Nature. Then, my friend, we were
speaking about objects which possess opposite qualities, and calling
them by the names of the latter, but now we are speaking about
the qualities themselves, from whose presence in them the objects
which are called after them derive their names. We maintain
that the opposites themselves would absolutely refuse to tolerate
coming into being from one another.' As he spoke he looked at
Cebes. 'I suppose that nothing in what he said worried you too,
Cebes?'

'No, not this time,' said Cebes, 'though I don't deny that a good
many other things do.'

'So we are agreed upon this as a general principle: that an
opposite can never be opposite to itself.'

'Absolutely.'

'Then consider this point too, and see whether you agree about
it too. Do you admit that there are such things as heat and cold?'

'Yes, I do.'

'Do you think they are the same as snow and fire?

'Certainly not.'

'Heat is quite distinct from fire, and cold from snow?'

'Yes.'

'But I suppose you agree, in the light of what we said before,
that snow, being what it is, can never admit heat and still remain
snow, just as it was before, only with the addition of heat. It must
either withdraw at the approach of heat, or cease to exist.'

'Quite so.'

'Again, fire must either retire or cease to exist at the approach
of cold. It will never have the courage to admit cold and still
remain fire, just as it was, only with the addition of cold.'

'That is true.'

'So we find, in certain cases like these, that the name of the
Form is eternally applicable not only to the Form itself, but also to
something else, which is not the Form but invariably possesses its
distinguishing characteristic. But perhaps another example will
make my meaning clearer. Oddness must always be entitled to this
name "odd" by which I am now calling it; isn't that so?'

'Certainly.'

'This is the question: is it unique in this respect, or is there
something else, not identical with oddness, to which we are bound
always to apply not only its own name but that of odd as well,
because by its very nature it never loses its oddness? What I mean
applies to the number three; there are plenty of other examples,
but take the case of three. Don't you think that it must always be
described not only by its own name but by that of odd, although
odd and three are not the same thing? It is the very nature of three
and five and all the alternate integers that every one of them is
invariably odd, although it is not identical with oddness. Similarly
two and four and all the rest of the other series are not identical
with even, but each one of them always is even. Do you go along
with this, or not?'

'Of course I do.'

'Then pay careful attention to the point which I want to make,
which is this. It seems clear that the opposites themselves do not
admit one another; but it also looks as though any things which,
though not themselves opposites, always possess an opposite quality,
similarly do not take on the opposite Idea to that which is in
them, but on its approach either cease to exist or retire before it.
Surely we must assert that three will sooner cease to exist or suffer
any other fate than submit to become even while it is still three?''

'Certainly,' said Cebes.

'And yet Two and Three are not opposites.'

'So it is not only the opposite Forms that cannot face one
another's approach; there are other things too which cannot
face the approach of opposites.'

'That is quite true.'

'Shall we try, if we can, to specify what sort of things these are?'

'By all means.'

'Well, then, Cebes, would this describe them - that they are
things which compel whatever they get a hold on to assume not
only their own Idea, but invariably also some other Idea which is
an opposite?'

'What do you mean?'

'Just what we were saying a minute ago. You realize, I suppose,
that when the Idea of Three gets a hold on any group of objects, it
compels them to be odd as well as three.'

'Certainly.'

'Then I maintain that into such a group the opposite Idea to the
character which has this effect can never enter.'

'No, it cannot.'

'And it was the Form of Odd that had this effect?'

'Yes.'

'And the opposite of this is the Form of Even?'

'Yes.'

'So the Form of Even will never enter into three.'

'No, never.'

'In other words, three is incompatible with evenness.'

'Quite.'

'So the number three is uneven.'

'Yes.'

'I proposed just now to describe what sort of things they are
which, although they are not themselves directly opposed to a
given opposite, nevertheless do not admit it; as in the present
example, three, although not the opposite of even, nevertheless
does not admit it, because three is always accompanied by the
opposite of even; and similarly with two and odd, or fire and cold,
and hosts of others. Well, see whether you accept this definition:
Not only does an opposite not admit its opposite, but if anything
is accompanied by a Form which has an opposite, and meets that
opposite, then the thing which is accompanied never admits the
opposite of the Form by which it is accompanied. Let me refresh
your memory; there is no harm in hearing a thing several times.
Five will not admit the Form of Even, nor will ten, which is double
five, admit the Form of Odd. Twin has an opposite of its own, but
at the same time it will not admit the Form of Odd. Nor will one
and a half, or other fractions such as a half or three-quarters and
so on, admit the form of Whole, assuming that you follow me and
agree.'

'I follow and agree perfectly,' said Cebes.

'Then run over the same ground with me from the beginning;
and don't answer in the exact terms of the question, but follow my
example. I say this because besides the "safe answer" that I
described at first, as the result of this discussion I now see another
means of safety. Suppose, for instance, that you ask me what must
become present in a body to make it hot, I shall not return the safe
but simplistic answer that it is heat, but a more sophisticated one,
based on the results of our disussion - namely that it is fire. And if
you ask what must become present in a body to make it diseased, I
shall say not disease but fever. Similarly if you ask what must
become present in a number to make it odd, I shall say not
oddness but unity; and so on. See whether you have a sufficient
grasp now of what I want from you.'

'Quite sufficient.'

Section P: Socrates argues that the soul is such a thing which
always brings a quality to that which it occupies, and cannot itself
be coupled with the opposite quality. It must retire or perish.

'Then tell me, what must be present in a body to make it alive?'

'Soul.'

'Is this always so?'

'Of course.'

'So whenever soul takes possession of a body, it always brings
living with it?'

'Yes, it does.'

'Is there an opposite to living, or not?'

'Yes, there is,'

'What?'

'Dying.'

'Does it follow, then, from our earlier agreement, that soul will
never admit the opposite of that which accompanies it?'

'Most definitely,' said Cebes.

'Well, now, what name did we apply just now to that which
does not admit the Form of even?'

'Uneven.'

'And what do we call that which does not admit justice, or culture?'

'Uncultured; and the other unjust.'

'Very good. And what do we call that which does not admit
dying?'

'Un-dying."

'And soul does not admit death?'

'No.'

'So soul is un-dying.'

'Yes, it is un-dying.'

'Well,' said Socrates, 'can we say that that has been proved?
What do you think?'

'Most completely, Socrates.'

Section Q: The argument is concluded. What is 'un-dying' cannot
surely perish; therefore it must withdraw.

'Here is another question for you, Cebes. If the uneven were
necessarily imperishable, would not three be imperishable?'

'Of course.'

'Then again, if what is un-hot were necessarily imperishable,
when you applied heat to snow, would not the snow withdraw
still intact and unmelted? It could not cease to exist, nor on the
other hand could it remain where it was and admit the heat.'

'That is true.'

'In the same way I assume that if what is un-cold were
imperishable, when anything cold approached fire, it could never
go out or cease to exist; it would depart and be gone unharmed.'

'That must be so.'

'Are we not bound to say the same of the un-dying? If what is
un-dying is also imperishable, it is impossible that at the approach
of death soul should cease to be. It follows from what we have
already said that it cannot admit death, or be dead; just as we said
that three cannot be even, nor can odd; nor can fire be cold, nor
can the heat which is in the fire. "But," it may be objected,
"granting (as has been agreed) that odd does not become even at
the approach of even, why should it not cease to exist, and
something even take its place?" In reply to this we could not insist
that the odd does not cease to exist - because what is un-even is
not imperishable; but if this were conceded, we could easily insist
that, at the approach of even, odd and three retire and depart.
And we could be equally insistent about fire and heat and all the
rest of them, could we not?'

'Certainly.'

'So now in the case of the un-dying, if it is conceded that this is
also imperishable, soul will be imperishable as well as un-dying.

Otherwise we shall need another argument.'

'There is no need on that account,' said Cebes. 'If what is undying
and eternal cannot avoid destruction, it is hard to see how
anything else can.'

'And I imagine that it would be admitted by everyone,' said
Socrates, 'that God at any rate, and the Form of Life, and
anything else that is un-dying, can never cease to exist.'

'Yes indeed; by all men certainly, and even more, I suppose, by
the gods.'

'Then since what is un-dying is also indestructible, if soul is
really un-dying, surely it must be imperishable too.'

'Quite inevitably.'

'So it appears that when death comes to a man, the mortal part
of him dies, but the un-dying part retires at the approach of death
and escapes unharmed and indestructible.'

'Evidently.'

'Then it is as certain as anything can be, Cebes, that soul is undying
and imperishable, and that our souls will really exist in the next
world.'

'Well, Socrates,' said Cebes, 'for my part I have no criticisms,
and no doubt about the truth of your argument. But if Simmias
here or anyone else has any criticism to make, he had better not
keep it to himself; because if anyone wants to say or hear any
more about this subject, I don't see to what other occasion he is to
defer it.'

Section R: Socrates gives his view of the nature of the universe
and of the soul's fate after death. The material is myth-like, and
comparable with 'myths' of the after-life with which the Gorgias
and Republic conclude. It makes no profession of ascertainable
literal truth. It has clearly been composed specifically for the
Phaedo, in such a way as to reflect the gulf between the hazy
world of sensation and the clear world of the intellect that the rest
of the work has already pointed to. It also suggests an enormous
gap between the painful or at least unattractive environment
which awaits the common man after death and the bright visions
of a higher world which await the philosopher. It therefore performs
a protreptic purpose, encouraging Socrates' followers to go
on with their mission after his death so that they may look
forward to the day when they may follow him.

'As a matter of fact,' said Simmias, 'I have no doubts myself
either now, in view of what you have just been saying. All the
same, the subject is so vast, and I have such a poor opinion of our
weak human nature, that I can't help still feeling some misgivings.'

'Quite right, Simmias,' said Socrates, 'and what is more, even if
you find our original assumptions convincing, they still need more
accurate consideration. If you and your friends examine them
closely enough, I believe that you will arrive at the truth of the
matter, in so far as it is possible for the human mind to attain it;
and if you are sure that you have done this, you will not need to
inquire further.'

'That is true,' said Simmias.

'But there is a further point, gentlemen,' said Socrates, 'which
deserves your attention. If the soul is immortal, it demands our
care not only for that part of time which we call life, but for all
time; and indeed it would seem now that it will be extremely
dangerous to neglect it. If death were a release from everything, it
would be a boon for the wicked, because by dying they would be
released not only from the body but also from their own wickedness
together with the soul; but as it is, since the soul has emerged
as something immortal, it can have no escape or security from evil
except by becoming as good and wise as it possibly can. For it
takes nothing with it to the next world except its education and
training; and these, we are told, are of supreme importance in
helping or harming those who have died at the very beginning of
their journey to the other world.

'This is how the story goes. When any man dies, his own
guardian spirit, which was given charge over him in his life, tries
to bring him to a certain place where all must assemble, and from
which, when they have been sorted out by a process of judgement,
they must set out for the next world, under the guidance of one
who has the office of escorting souls from this world to the
other. When they have there undergone the necessary experiences
and remained as long as is required, another guide brings them
back again after many vast periods of time.

'Of course this journey is not as Aeschylus makes Telephus
describe it. He says that the path to Hades is straightforward, but
it seems clear to me that it is neither straightforward nor single. If
it were, there would be no need for a guide, because surely nobody
could lose his way anywhere if there were only one road. In fact, it
seems likely that it contains many forks and crossroads, to judge
from the ceremonies and observances of this world.

'Well, the wise and disciplined soul follows its guide and is not
ignorant of its surroundings; but as for the soul which is deeply
attached to the body - after a long infatuation with it and with the
visible world, as I said before - it is only after much resistance and
suffering that it is at last forcibly led away by its appointed
guardian spirit. And when it reaches the same place as the rest,
the soul which is impure through having done some impure deed,
either by setting its hand to lawless bloodshed or by committing
other kindred crimes which are the work of kindred souls, this
soul is shunned and avoided by all; none will company with it or
guide it; and it wanders alone in utter desolation until certain
times have passed, whereupon it is borne away of necessity to its
proper habitation. But every soul that has lived throughout its life
in purity and soberness enjoys divine company and guidance, and
each inhabits the place which is proper to it. There are many
wonderful regions in the earth; and the earth itself is neither of the
kind nor of the size that the experts suppose it to be; or so I'm led
to believe.

'How can you say that, Socrates?' said Simmias. 'I myself have
heard a great many theories about the earth, but not this belief of
yours. I should very much like to hear it.'

'Why, really, Simmias, I don't think that it calls for the skill of a
Glaucus to explain what my belief is; but to prove that it is true
seems to me to be too difficult even for a Glaucus. In the first
place I should probably be unable to do it; and in the second, even
if I knew how, it seems to me, Simmias, that my life is too short
for an explanation of the required length. However, there is no
reason why I should not tell you what I believe about the appear-
ance of the earth and the regions in it.'

'Well,' said Simmias, 'even that will do.'

'This is what I believe, then,' said Socrates. 'In the first place, if
the earth is spherical and in the middle of the heavens, it needs
neither air nor any other such force to keep it from falling; the
uniformity of the heavens and the equihbrium of the earth itself
are sufficient to support it. Any body in equilibrium, if it is set
in the middle of a uniform medium, will have no tendency to sink
or rise in any direction more than another, and having equal
impulses will remain suspended. This is the first article of my
behef.'

'And quite right too,' said Simmias.

'Next,' said Socrates, 'I believe that it is vast in size, and that we
who dwell between the river Phasis and the pillars of Hercules
inhabit only a minute portion of it; we live round the sea like ants
or frogs round a swamp; and there are many other peoples
inhabiting similar regions. There are many hollow places all round
the earth, places of every shape and size, into which the water and
mist and air have collected. But the earth's true surface is as pure
as the starry heaven in which it lies, and which is called 'ether' by
most of our authorities. The water, mist and air are the dregs of
this ether, and they are continually draining into the hollow places
in the earth. We do not realize that we are living in its hollows,
but assume that we are living up on top of the earth. Imagine
someone living in the depths of the sea. He might think that he
was living on the surface, and seeing the sun and the other
heavenly bodies through the water, he might think that the sea
was the sky. He might be so sluggish and feeble that he had never
reached the top of the sea, never emerged and raised his head from
the sea into this world of ours, and seen for himself - or even
heard from someone who had seen it - how much purer and more
beautiful it really is than the one in which his people live. Now we
are in just the same position. Although we live in a hollow of the
earth, we assume that we are living on the surface, and we call the
air heaven, as though this were the heaven through which the stars
move. But the truth of the matter is the same, that we are too
feeble and sluggish to make our way out to the upper limit of the
air. If someone could reach to the summit, or grow wings and fly
aloft, when he put up his head he would see the world above, just
as fishes see our world when they put up their heads out of the
sea; and if his nature were strong enough to keep looking, he
would recognize that that is the true heaven and the true light and
the true earth. For this earth and its stones and all the regions in
which we live are marred and corroded, just as in the sea everything
is corroded by the brine, and there is nothing worth mentioning
that grows there and scarcely any degree of perfect formation,
but only eroded rocks and sand and measureless mud, and messy
swamps wherever there is earth as well; and nothing is in the least
worthy to be judged beautiful by our standards. But the things
above excel those of our world to a degree far greater still. If this
is the right moment for a story,' Simmias, it will be worth your
while to hear what it is really like upon the earth which lies
beneath the heavens.'

'Yes, indeed, Socrates,' said Simmias, 'it would be a great
pleasure to us, at any rate, to hear this tale.'

'Well, my friend,' said Socrates, 'the earth's true surface, viewed
from above, is supposed to look like one of those balls made of
twelve pieces of skin, variegated and marked out in different
colours, of which the colours we know - the ones which artists use
- can give only a hint; but there the whole earth is made up of
such colours, and others far brighter and purer still. One section is
a marvellously beautiful purple, and another is golden; all that is
white of it is whiter than chalk or snow; and the rest is similarly
made up of the other colours, still more and lovelier than those
which we have seen. Even these very hollows in the earth, full of
water and air, assume a kind of colour as they give off reflections
amid the different hues around them, so that there appears to be
one continuous patchwork of colours. The trees and flowers and
fruits which grow upon this beauteous earth are proportionately
beautiful. The mountains too and the stones have a matching
degree of smoothness and transparency and their colours are
lovelier. The pebbles which are so highly prized in our world - the
jaspers and rubies and emeralds and the rest - are fragments of
these stones; but there everything is as beautiful as they are, or
finer still. This is because the stones there are in their natural
state, not damaged by decay and corroded by salt water as ours
are by the sediment which has collected here, and which causes
disfigurement or disease to stones and earth, and likewise to
animals and plants. The earth's true surface is adorned not only
with all these stones but also with gold and silver and the other
metals, for many rich veins of them occur in plain view in all parts
of the earth, so that to see them is a sight for the eyes of the
blessed.

'There are many kinds of animals upon it, and also human
beings, some of whom live inland, others round the air, as we live
round the sea, and others in islands surrounded by air but close
to the mainland. In a word, as water and the sea are to us for our
purposes, so is air to them; and as air is to us, so the ether is to
them. Their climate is so temperate that they are free from disease
and live much longer than people do here; and in sight and hearing
and understanding and all other faculties they are as far superior
to us as air is to water or ether to air in clarity.

'They also have sanctuaries and temples which are truly inhabited
by gods; and oracles and prophecies and visions and all other
kinds of communion with the gods occur there face to face.
They see the sun and moon and stars as they really are; and the
rest of their happiness matches this too.

'Such is the nature of the earth as a whole and of the things that
are round about it. But there are many places within the earth
itself, all around it wherever there are hollow regions; some of
these are deeper and more extensive than that in which we live,
others deeper than our region but with a smaller expanse, some
both shallower than ours and broader. All these are joined together
underground by many connecting channels, some narrower, some
wider, through which, from one basin to another, there flows a
great volume of water, monstrous unceasing subterranean rivers of
waters both hot and cold; and of fire too, great rivers of fire; and
many of liquid mud, some clearer, some murkier, like the rivers in
Sicily that flow mud before the lava comes, and the lava stream
itself. By these the several regions are filled in turn as the flood
reaches them.

'All this movement to and fro is caused by an oscillation inside
the earth, and this oscillation is brought about by natural means,
as follows.

'One of the cavities in the earth is not only larger than the rest,
but pierces right through from one side to the other. It is of this
that Homer speaks when he says

Far, far away, where lies earth's deepest chasm;

while elsewhere both he and many other poets refer to it as
Tartarus. Into this gulf all the rivers flow together, and from it
they flow forth again; and each acquires the nature of that part of
the earth through which it flows. The cause of the flowing in and
out of all these streams is that the mass of liquid has no bottom or
foundation; so it oscillates and surges to and fro, and the air or
breath that belongs to it does the same; for it accompanies the
liquid both as it rushes to the further side of the earth and as it
returns to this. And just as when we breathe we exhale and inhale
the breath in a continuous stream, so in this case too the breath,
oscillating with the liquid, causes terrible and monstrous winds as
it passes in and out. So when the water retires to the so-called
"lower" region the streams in the earth flow into those parts and
irrigate them fully; and when in turn it ebbs from there and rushes
back this way, it fills our streams again, and when they are filled
they flow through their channels and through the earth; and
arriving in those regions to which their ways have been severally
prepared, they make seas and lakes and rivers and springs. Then
sinking again beneath the ground, some by way of more and
further regions, others by fewer and nearer, they empty themselves
once more into Tartarus, some much lower, some only a little
lower than the point at which they were drawn off; but they all
flow in at a level deeper than their rise. Some flow in on the
opposite side to that on which they came out, and others on the
same side; while some make a complete circle and, winding like a
snake one or even more times round the earth, descend as far as
possible before they again discharge their waters. It is possible to
descend in either direction as far as the centre, but no further; for
either direction from the centre is uphill, whichever way the
streams are flowing.

'Among these many various mighty streams there are four in
particular. The greatest of these, and the one which describes the
outermost circle, is that which is called Oceanus. Directly opposite
this and with a contrary course is Acheron, which not only
flows through other desolate regions but passes underground and
arrives at the Acherusian Lake, where the souls of the dead for the
most part come, and after staying there for certain fixed periods,
longer or shorter, are sent forth again to be born as living
creatures. Halfway between the two a third river tumbles forth,
and near its source emerges into a great place burning with sheets
of fire, where it forms a boiling lake of muddy water greater than
our sea. From there it follows a circular course, flowing turbid
and muddy, and as it winds round inside the earth it comes at last
to the margin of the Acherusian Lake, but does not mingle with
the waters; and after many windings underground, it plunges into
Tartarus at a lower point. This is the river called Pyriphlegethon,
whose fiery stream belches forth jets of lava here and there in all
parts of the world. Directly opposite to this in its turn the fourth
river breaks out, first, they say, into a wild and dreadful place, all
leaden grey, which is called the Stygian region, and the lake which
the in-flowing river forms is called Styx. After falling into this, and
acquiring mysterious powers in its waters, the river passes under-
ground and follows a spiral course contrary to that of Pyriphlege-
thon, which it meets from the opposite direction at the Acherusian
Lake. This river too mingles its stream with no other waters, but
circling round falls into Tartarus opposite Pyriphlegethon; and its
name, the poets say, is Cocytus.

'Such is the nature of these things. And when the newly dead
reach the place to which each is conducted by his guardian spirit,
first they undergo judgement to determine those who have lived
well and holily, and those who have not. Those who are judged to
have lived a neutral life set out for Acheron, and embarking in
those vessels which await them, are conveyed in them to the lake;
and there they dwell, and undergoing purification are both absolved
by punishment from any sins that they have committed, and
rewarded for their good deeds, according to each man's deserts.
Those who on account of the greatness of their sins are judged
to be incurable - people who have committed many gross acts
of sacrilege or many wicked and lawless murders or any other
such crimes - these are hurled by their appropriate destiny into
Tartarus, from whence they emerge no more.

'Others are judged to have been guilty of sins which, though,
great, are curable; if, for example, they have offered violence to
father or mother in a fit of passion, but have spent the rest of
their lives in penitence, or if they have committed manslaughter after
the same fashion. These too must be cast into Tartarus; but when
this has been done and they have remained there for a year, the
surge casts them out - the manslayers down Cocytus and the
offenders against their parents down Pyriphlegethon. And when,
as they are swept along, they come past the Acherusian Lake,
there they cry aloud and call upon those whom they have killed or
violently abused, and calling, beg and entreat for leave to pass b
from the stream into the lake, and be received by them. If they
prevail, they come out and there is an end of their distress; but if
not, they are swept away once more into Tartarus and from there
back into the rivers, and find no release from their sufferings until
they prevail upon those whom they have wronged; for this is the
punishment which their judge has appointed for them.

'But those who are judged to have lived a life of surpassing
holiness--these are they who are released and set free from
imprisonment in these regions of the earth, and passing upward to
their pure abode, make their dwelling upon the earth's surface.
And of these such as have purified themselves sufficiently by
philosophy live thereafter altogether without bodies, and reach
habitations even more beautiful, which it is not easy to portray -
nor is there time to do so now. But the reasons which we have
already described provide ground enough, as you can see, Simmias,
for leaving nothing undone to attain during life some measure of
goodness and wisdom; for the prize is glorious and the hope great.

'Of course, no reasonable man ought to insist that the facts are
exactly as I have described them. But that either this or something
very like it is a true account of our souls and their future habitations
- since there is certainly evidence that the soul is deathless -
this, I think, is both a fitting contention and a belief worth risking;
for the risk is a noble one. We should use such accounts to
enchant ourselves with; and that is why I have already drawn
out my tale so long.

'These are the reasons, then, for which a man can be confident
about the fate of his soul - as long as in life he has abandoned those
other pleasures and adornments, the bodily ones, as foreign to his
purpose and likely to do more harm than good, and has devoted
himself to the pleasures of acquiring knowledge, and so by adorning
his soul not with a borrowed beauty but with its own - with self-control,
and goodness, and courage, and liberality, and truth - has also
settled down to await his journey to the next world. You, Simmias
and Cebes and the rest, will each make this journey some day in the
future; but "for me the fated hour" (as a tragic character might
say) "calls even now". In other words, it is about time that I took
my bath. I prefer to have a bath before drinking the poison, rather
than give the women the trouble of washing me when I am dead.'

Section S: Socrates' last moments, and the release of his soul.

When he had finished speaking, Crito said, 'Very well, Socrates.
But have you no directions for the others or myself about your
children or anything else? What can we do to please you best?'

'Nothing new, Crito,' said Socrates; 'just what I am always
telling you. If you look after your own selves, whatever you do
will please me and mine and you too, even if you don't agree with
me now. On the other hand, if you neglect yourselves and fail in
life to follow the track that we have spoken of both now and in
the past, however fervently you agree with me now, it will do no
good at all.'

'We shall be keen to do as you say,' said Crito. 'But how shall
we bury you?'

'Any way you like,' replied Socrates, 'that is, if you can catch
me and I don't slip through your fingers.' He laughed gently as he
spoke, and turning to us went on: 'I can't persuade Crito that I am
this Socrates here who is talking to you now and marshalling all
the arguments; he thinks that I am the corpse whom he will see
presently lying dead; and he asks how he is to bury me! As for my
long and elaborate explanation that when I have drunk the poison
I shall remain with you no longer, but depart to a world of
happiness that belongs to the blessed, my words seem to be wasted
on him though I console both you and myself. You must give an
assurance to Crito for me - the opposite of the one which he gave
to the court which tried me. He undertook that I should stay; but
you must assure him that when I am dead I shall not stay, but
e depart and be gone. That will help Crito to bear it more easily,
and keep him from being distressed on my account when he sees
my body being burned or buried, as if something dreadful were
happening to me, or from saying at the funeral that it is Socrates
whom he is laying out or carrying to the grave or burying. Believe
me, my dear friend Crito: misstatements are not merely jarring in
their immediate context; they also have a bad effect upon the soul.
No, you must keep up your spirits and say that it is only my body
that you are burying; and you can bury it as you please, in
whatever way you think is most proper.'

With these words he got up and went into another room to
bathe; and Crito went after him, but told us to wait. So we
waited, discussing and reviewing what had been said, or else
dwelling upon the greatness of the calamity which had befallen us;
for we felt just as though we were losing a father and should be
orphans for the rest of our lives. Meanwhile, when Socrates had
taken his bath, his children were brought to see him - he had two
little sons and one big boy - and the women of his household -
you know - arrived. He talked to them in Crito's presence and
gave them directions about carrying out his wishes; then he told
the women and children to go away, and came back himself to
join us.

It was now nearly sunset, because he had spent a long time
inside. He came and sat down, fresh from the bath, and he had
only been talking for a few minutes when the prison officer came
in, and walked up to him. 'Socrates,' he said, 'at any rate I shall
not have to find fault with you, as I do with others, for getting
angry with me and cursing when I tell them to drink the poison -
carrying out the magistrates' orders. I have come to know
during this time that you are the noblest and the gentlest and the
bravest of all the men that have ever come here, and now especially
I am sure that you are not angry with me, but with them; because
you know who are responsible. So now - you know what I have
come to say - goodbye, and try to bear what must be as easily as
you can.' As he spoke he burst into tears, and turning round,
began to go away.

Socrates looked up at him and said, 'Goodbye to you, too; we
will do as you say.' Then addressing us he went on, 'What a
charming person! All the time I have been here he has visited me,
and sometimes had discussions with me, and shown me the greatest
kindness; and how generous of him now to shed tears at my
departure! But come, Crito, let us do as he says. Someone had
better bring in the poison, if it is ready prepared; if not, tell the
man to prepare it.'

'But surely, Socrates,' said Crito, 'the sun is still upon the
mountains; it has not yet gone down. Besides, I know that in other
cases people have dinner and enjoy their wine, and sometimes the
company of those whom they love, long after they receive the
warning; and only drink the poison quite late at night. Please
don't hurry; there is still plenty of time.'

'It is natural that these people whom you speak of should act in
that way, Crito,' said Socrates, 'because they think that they gain
by it. And it is also natural that I should not; because I believe that
I should gain nothing by drinking the poison a little later - I
should only make myself ridiculous in my own eyes if I clung to
life and hugged it when it has no more to offer. Come, do as I say
and don't make difficulties.'

At this Crito made a sign to his slave, who was standing nearby.
The slave went out and after spending a considerable time returned
with the man who was to administer the poison; he was carrying it
ready prepared in a cup. When Socrates saw him he said, 'Well,
my good fellow, you understand these things; what ought I to do?'

'Just drink it,' he said, 'and then walk about until you feel a weight
in your legs, and then lie down. Then it will act of its own accord.'

As he spoke he handed the cup to Socrates, who received it
quite cheerfully, Echecrates, without a tremor, without any change
of colour or expression, and said, looking up bull-like from
under his brows with his usual steady gaze, 'What do you say
about pouring a libation from this drink? Is it permitted, or not?'

'We only prepare what we regard as the normal dose, Socrates,'
he replied,

'I see,' said Socrates. 'But I suppose I am allowed, or rather
bound, to pray the gods that my removal from this world to the
other may be prosperous. This is my prayer, then; and I hope that
it may be granted.' With these words, quite calmly and with no
sign of distaste, he drained the cup in one draught.

Up till this time most of us had been fairly successful in keeping
back our tears; but when we saw that he was drinking, that he had
actually drunk it, we could do so no longer; in spite of myself the
tears came pouring out, so that I covered my face and wept
broken-heartedly - not for him, but for my own calamity in losing
such a friend. Crito had given up even before me, and had gone
out when he could not restrain his tears. But Apollodorus,"' who
had never stopped crying even before, now broke out into such a
storm of passionate weeping that he made everyone in the room
break down, except Socrates himself, who said: 'Really, my friends,
what a way to behave! Why, that was my main reason for sending
away the women, to prevent this sort of discordant behaviour;
because I am told that one should make one's end in a reverent
silence. Calm yourselves and be brave.'

This made us feel ashamed, and we controlled our tears. Socrates
walked about, and presently, saying that his legs were heavy, lay
down on his back - that was what the man recommended. The
man (he was the same one who had administered the poison) kept
his hand upon Socrates, and after a little while examined his feet
and legs; then pinched his foot hard and asked if he felt it.
Socrates said no. Then he did the same to his legs; and moving
gradually upwards in this way let us see that he was getting cold
and numb. Presently he felt him again and said that when it
reached the heart, Socrates would be gone.

The coldness was spreading about as far as his waist when
Socrates uncovered his face - for he had covered it up - and said
(they were his last words): 'Crito, we ought to offer a cock to
Asclepius." See to it, and don't forget.'

'No, it shall be done,' said Crito. 'Are you sure that there is
nothing else?'

Socrates made no reply to this question, but after a little while
he stirred; and when the man uncovered him, his eyes were fixed.
When Crito saw this, he closed the mouth and eyes.

This, Echecrates, was the end of our comrade, who was, we
may fairly say, of all those whom we knew in our time the bravest
and also the wisest and the most just.