PHAEDO
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
INTRODUCTION.
After an interval of some months or years, and at Phlius, a town of
Peloponnesus, the tale of the last hours of Socrates is narrated to Echecrates
and other Phliasians by Phaedo the 'beloved disciple.' The Dialogue necessarily
takes the form of a narrative, because Socrates has to be described acting as
well as speaking. The minutest particulars of the event are interesting to
distant friends, and the narrator has an equal interest in them.
During the voyage of the sacred ship to and from Delos, which has occupied
thirty days, the execution of Socrates has been deferred. (Compare Xen. Mem.)
The time has been passed by him in conversation with a select company of
disciples. But now the holy season is over, and the disciples meet earlier than
usual in order that they may converse with Socrates for the last time. Those who
were present, and those who might have been expected to be present, are
mentioned by name. There are Simmias and Cebes (Crito), two disciples of
Philolaus whom Socrates 'by his enchantments has attracted from Thebes' (Mem.),
Crito the aged friend, the attendant of the prison, who is as good as a
friend—these take part in the conversation. There are present also, Hermogenes,
from whom Xenophon derived his information about the trial of Socrates (Mem.),
the 'madman' Apollodorus (Symp.), Euclid and Terpsion from Megara (compare
Theaet.), Ctesippus, Antisthenes, Menexenus, and some other less-known members
of the Socratic circle, all of whom are silent auditors. Aristippus,
Cleombrotus, and Plato are noted as absent. Almost as soon as the friends of
Socrates enter the prison Xanthippe and her children are sent home in the care
of one of Crito's servants. Socrates himself has just been released from chains,
and is led by this circumstance to make the natural remark that 'pleasure
follows pain.' (Observe that Plato is preparing the way for his doctrine of the
alternation of opposites.) 'Aesop would have represented them in a fable as a
two-headed creature of the gods.' The mention of Aesop reminds Cebes of a
question which had been asked by Evenus the poet (compare Apol.): 'Why Socrates,
who was not a poet, while in prison had been putting Aesop into verse?'—'Because
several times in his life he had been warned in dreams that he should practise
music; and as he was about to die and was not certain of what was meant, he
wished to fulfil the admonition in the letter as well as in the spirit, by
writing verses as well as by cultivating philosophy. Tell this to Evenus; and
say that I would have him follow me in death.' 'He is not at all the sort of man
to comply with your request, Socrates.' 'Why, is he not a philosopher?' 'Yes.'
'Then he will be willing to die, although he will not take his own life, for
that is held to be unlawful.'
Cebes asks why suicide is thought not to be right, if death is to be
accounted a good? Well, (1) according to one explanation, because man is a
prisoner, who must not open the door of his prison and run away—this is the
truth in a 'mystery.' Or (2) rather, because he is not his own property, but a
possession of the gods, and has no right to make away with that which does not
belong to him. But why, asks Cebes, if he is a possession of the gods, should he
wish to die and leave them? For he is under their protection; and surely he
cannot take better care of himself than they take of him. Simmias explains that
Cebes is really referring to Socrates, whom they think too unmoved at the
prospect of leaving the gods and his friends. Socrates answers that he is going
to other gods who are wise and good, and perhaps to better friends; and he
professes that he is ready to defend himself against the charge of Cebes. The
company shall be his judges, and he hopes that he will be more successful in
convincing them than he had been in convincing the court.
The philosopher desires death—which the wicked world will insinuate that he
also deserves: and perhaps he does, but not in any sense which they are capable
of understanding. Enough of them: the real question is, What is the nature of
that death which he desires? Death is the separation of soul and body—and the
philosopher desires such a separation. He would like to be freed from the
dominion of bodily pleasures and of the senses, which are always perturbing his
mental vision. He wants to get rid of eyes and ears, and with the light of the
mind only to behold the light of truth. All the evils and impurities and
necessities of men come from the body. And death separates him from these
corruptions, which in life he cannot wholly lay aside. Why then should he repine
when the hour of separation arrives? Why, if he is dead while he lives, should
he fear that other death, through which alone he can behold wisdom in her
purity?
Besides, the philosopher has notions of good and evil unlike those of other
men. For they are courageous because they are afraid of greater dangers, and
temperate because they desire greater pleasures. But he disdains this balancing
of pleasures and pains, which is the exchange of commerce and not of virtue. All
the virtues, including wisdom, are regarded by him only as purifications of the
soul. And this was the meaning of the founders of the mysteries when they said,
'Many are the wand-bearers but few are the mystics.' (Compare Matt. xxii.: 'Many
are called but few are chosen.') And in the hope that he is one of these
mystics, Socrates is now departing. This is his answer to any one who charges
him with indifference at the prospect of leaving the gods and his friends.
Still, a fear is expressed that the soul upon leaving the body may vanish
away like smoke or air. Socrates in answer appeals first of all to the old
Orphic tradition that the souls of the dead are in the world below, and that the
living come from them. This he attempts to found on a philosophical assumption
that all opposites—e.g. less, greater; weaker, stronger; sleeping, waking; life,
death—are generated out of each other. Nor can the process of generation be only
a passage from living to dying, for then all would end in death. The perpetual
sleeper (Endymion) would be no longer distinguished from the rest of mankind.
The circle of nature is not complete unless the living come from the dead as
well as pass to them.
The Platonic doctrine of reminiscence is then adduced as a confirmation of
the pre-existence of the soul. Some proofs of this doctrine are demanded. One
proof given is the same as that of the Meno, and is derived from the latent
knowledge of mathematics, which may be elicited from an unlearned person when a
diagram is presented to him. Again, there is a power of association, which from
seeing Simmias may remember Cebes, or from seeing a picture of Simmias may
remember Simmias. The lyre may recall the player of the lyre, and equal pieces
of wood or stone may be associated with the higher notion of absolute equality.
But here observe that material equalities fall short of the conception of
absolute equality with which they are compared, and which is the measure of
them. And the measure or standard must be prior to that which is measured, the
idea of equality prior to the visible equals. And if prior to them, then prior
also to the perceptions of the senses which recall them, and therefore either
given before birth or at birth. But all men have not this knowledge, nor have
any without a process of reminiscence; which is a proof that it is not innate or
given at birth, unless indeed it was given and taken away at the same instant.
But if not given to men in birth, it must have been given before birth—this is
the only alternative which remains. And if we had ideas in a former state, then
our souls must have existed and must have had intelligence in a former state.
The pre-existence of the soul stands or falls with the doctrine of ideas.
It is objected by Simmias and Cebes that these arguments only prove a former
and not a future existence. Socrates answers this objection by recalling the
previous argument, in which he had shown that the living come from the dead. But
the fear that the soul at departing may vanish into air (especially if there is
a wind blowing at the time) has not yet been charmed away. He proceeds: When we
fear that the soul will vanish away, let us ask ourselves what is that which we
suppose to be liable to dissolution? Is it the simple or the compound, the
unchanging or the changing, the invisible idea or the visible object of sense?
Clearly the latter and not the former; and therefore not the soul, which in her
own pure thought is unchangeable, and only when using the senses descends into
the region of change. Again, the soul commands, the body serves: in this respect
too the soul is akin to the divine, and the body to the mortal. And in every
point of view the soul is the image of divinity and immortality, and the body of
the human and mortal. And whereas the body is liable to speedy dissolution, the
soul is almost if not quite indissoluble. (Compare Tim.) Yet even the body may
be preserved for ages by the embalmer's art: how unlikely, then, that the soul
will perish and be dissipated into air while on her way to the good and wise
God! She has been gathered into herself, holding aloof from the body, and
practising death all her life long, and she is now finally released from the
errors and follies and passions of men, and for ever dwells in the company of
the gods.
But the soul which is polluted and engrossed by the corporeal, and has no eye
except that of the senses, and is weighed down by the bodily appetites, cannot
attain to this abstraction. In her fear of the world below she lingers about the
sepulchre, loath to leave the body which she loved, a ghostly apparition,
saturated with sense, and therefore visible. At length entering into some animal
of a nature congenial to her former life of sensuality or violence, she takes
the form of an ass, a wolf or a kite. And of these earthly souls the happiest
are those who have practised virtue without philosophy; they are allowed to pass
into gentle and social natures, such as bees and ants. (Compare Republic, Meno.)
But only the philosopher who departs pure is permitted to enter the company of
the gods. (Compare Phaedrus.) This is the reason why he abstains from fleshly
lusts, and not because he fears loss or disgrace, which is the motive of other
men. He too has been a captive, and the willing agent of his own captivity. But
philosophy has spoken to him, and he has heard her voice; she has gently
entreated him, and brought him out of the 'miry clay,' and purged away the mists
of passion and the illusions of sense which envelope him; his soul has escaped
from the influence of pleasures and pains, which are like nails fastening her to
the body. To that prison-house she will not return; and therefore she abstains
from bodily pleasures—not from a desire of having more or greater ones, but
because she knows that only when calm and free from the dominion of the body can
she behold the light of truth.
Simmias and Cebes remain in doubt; but they are unwilling to raise objections
at such a time. Socrates wonders at their reluctance. Let them regard him rather
as the swan, who, having sung the praises of Apollo all his life long, sings at
his death more lustily than ever. Simmias acknowledges that there is cowardice
in not probing truth to the bottom. 'And if truth divine and inspired is not to
be had, then let a man take the best of human notions, and upon this frail bark
let him sail through life.' He proceeds to state his difficulty: It has been
argued that the soul is invisible and incorporeal, and therefore immortal, and
prior to the body. But is not the soul acknowledged to be a harmony, and has she
not the same relation to the body, as the harmony—which like her is
invisible—has to the lyre? And yet the harmony does not survive the lyre. Cebes
has also an objection, which like Simmias he expresses in a figure. He is
willing to admit that the soul is more lasting than the body. But the more
lasting nature of the soul does not prove her immortality; for after having worn
out many bodies in a single life, and many more in successive births and deaths,
she may at last perish, or, as Socrates afterwards restates the objection, the
very act of birth may be the beginning of her death, and her last body may
survive her, just as the coat of an old weaver is left behind him after he is
dead, although a man is more lasting than his coat. And he who would prove the
immortality of the soul, must prove not only that the soul outlives one or many
bodies, but that she outlives them all.
The audience, like the chorus in a play, for a moment interpret the feelings
of the actors; there is a temporary depression, and then the enquiry is resumed.
It is a melancholy reflection that arguments, like men, are apt to be deceivers;
and those who have been often deceived become distrustful both of arguments and
of friends. But this unfortunate experience should not make us either haters of
men or haters of arguments. The want of health and truth is not in the argument,
but in ourselves. Socrates, who is about to die, is sensible of his own
weakness; he desires to be impartial, but he cannot help feeling that he has too
great an interest in the truth of the argument. And therefore he would have his
friends examine and refute him, if they think that he is in error.
At his request Simmias and Cebes repeat their objections. They do not go to
the length of denying the pre-existence of ideas. Simmias is of opinion that the
soul is a harmony of the body. But the admission of the pre-existence of ideas,
and therefore of the soul, is at variance with this. (Compare a parallel
difficulty in Theaet.) For a harmony is an effect, whereas the soul is not an
effect, but a cause; a harmony follows, but the soul leads; a harmony admits of
degrees, and the soul has no degrees. Again, upon the supposition that the soul
is a harmony, why is one soul better than another? Are they more or less
harmonized, or is there one harmony within another? But the soul does not admit
of degrees, and cannot therefore be more or less harmonized. Further, the soul
is often engaged in resisting the affections of the body, as Homer describes
Odysseus 'rebuking his heart.' Could he have written this under the idea that
the soul is a harmony of the body? Nay rather, are we not contradicting Homer
and ourselves in affirming anything of the sort?
The goddess Harmonia, as Socrates playfully terms the argument of Simmias,
has been happily disposed of; and now an answer has to be given to the Theban
Cadmus. Socrates recapitulates the argument of Cebes, which, as he remarks,
involves the whole question of natural growth or causation; about this he
proposes to narrate his own mental experience. When he was young he had puzzled
himself with physics: he had enquired into the growth and decay of animals, and
the origin of thought, until at last he began to doubt the self-evident fact
that growth is the result of eating and drinking; and so he arrived at the
conclusion that he was not meant for such enquiries. Nor was he less perplexed
with notions of comparison and number. At first he had imagined himself to
understand differences of greater and less, and to know that ten is two more
than eight, and the like. But now those very notions appeared to him to contain
a contradiction. For how can one be divided into two? Or two be compounded into
one? These are difficulties which Socrates cannot answer. Of generation and
destruction he knows nothing. But he has a confused notion of another method in
which matters of this sort are to be investigated. (Compare Republic; Charm.)
Then he heard some one reading out of a book of Anaxagoras, that mind is the
cause of all things. And he said to himself: If mind is the cause of all things,
surely mind must dispose them all for the best. The new teacher will show me
this 'order of the best' in man and nature. How great had been his hopes and how
great his disappointment! For he found that his new friend was anything but
consistent in his use of mind as a cause, and that he soon introduced winds,
waters, and other eccentric notions. (Compare Arist. Metaph.) It was as if a
person had said that Socrates is sitting here because he is made up of bones and
muscles, instead of telling the true reason—that he is here because the
Athenians have thought good to sentence him to death, and he has thought good to
await his sentence. Had his bones and muscles been left by him to their own
ideas of right, they would long ago have taken themselves off. But surely there
is a great confusion of the cause and condition in all this. And this confusion
also leads people into all sorts of erroneous theories about the position and
motions of the earth. None of them know how much stronger than any Atlas is the
power of the best. But this 'best' is still undiscovered; and in enquiring after
the cause, we can only hope to attain the second best.
Now there is a danger in the contemplation of the nature of things, as there
is a danger in looking at the sun during an eclipse, unless the precaution is
taken of looking only at the image reflected in the water, or in a glass.
(Compare Laws; Republic.) 'I was afraid,' says Socrates, 'that I might injure
the eye of the soul. I thought that I had better return to the old and safe
method of ideas. Though I do not mean to say that he who contemplates existence
through the medium of ideas sees only through a glass darkly, any more than he
who contemplates actual effects.'
If the existence of ideas is granted to him, Socrates is of opinion that he
will then have no difficulty in proving the immortality of the soul. He will
only ask for a further admission:—that beauty is the cause of the beautiful,
greatness the cause of the great, smallness of the small, and so on of other
things. This is a safe and simple answer, which escapes the contradictions of
greater and less (greater by reason of that which is smaller!), of addition and
subtraction, and the other difficulties of relation. These subtleties he is for
leaving to wiser heads than his own; he prefers to test ideas by the consistency
of their consequences, and, if asked to give an account of them, goes back to
some higher idea or hypothesis which appears to him to be the best, until at
last he arrives at a resting-place. (Republic; Phil.)
The doctrine of ideas, which has long ago received the assent of the Socratic
circle, is now affirmed by the Phliasian auditor to command the assent of any
man of sense. The narrative is continued; Socrates is desirous of explaining how
opposite ideas may appear to co-exist but do not really co-exist in the same
thing or person. For example, Simmias may be said to have greatness and also
smallness, because he is greater than Socrates and less than Phaedo. And yet
Simmias is not really great and also small, but only when compared to Phaedo and
Socrates. I use the illustration, says Socrates, because I want to show you not
only that ideal opposites exclude one another, but also the opposites in us. I,
for example, having the attribute of smallness remain small, and cannot become
great: the smallness which is in me drives out greatness.
One of the company here remarked that this was inconsistent with the old
assertion that opposites generated opposites. But that, replies Socrates, was
affirmed, not of opposite ideas either in us or in nature, but of opposition in
the concrete—not of life and death, but of individuals living and dying. When
this objection has been removed, Socrates proceeds: This doctrine of the mutual
exclusion of opposites is not only true of the opposites themselves, but of
things which are inseparable from them. For example, cold and heat are opposed;
and fire, which is inseparable from heat, cannot co-exist with cold, or snow,
which is inseparable from cold, with heat. Again, the number three excludes the
number four, because three is an odd number and four is an even number, and the
odd is opposed to the even. Thus we are able to proceed a step beyond 'the safe
and simple answer.' We may say, not only that the odd excludes the even, but
that the number three, which participates in oddness, excludes the even. And in
like manner, not only does life exclude death, but the soul, of which life is
the inseparable attribute, also excludes death. And that of which life is the
inseparable attribute is by the force of the terms imperishable. If the odd
principle were imperishable, then the number three would not perish but remove,
on the approach of the even principle. But the immortal is imperishable; and
therefore the soul on the approach of death does not perish but removes.
Thus all objections appear to be finally silenced. And now the application
has to be made: If the soul is immortal, 'what manner of persons ought we to
be?' having regard not only to time but to eternity. For death is not the end of
all, and the wicked is not released from his evil by death; but every one
carries with him into the world below that which he is or has become, and that
only.
For after death the soul is carried away to judgment, and when she has
received her punishment returns to earth in the course of ages. The wise soul is
conscious of her situation, and follows the attendant angel who guides her
through the windings of the world below; but the impure soul wanders hither and
thither without companion or guide, and is carried at last to her own place, as
the pure soul is also carried away to hers. 'In order that you may understand
this, I must first describe to you the nature and conformation of the earth.'
Now the whole earth is a globe placed in the centre of the heavens, and is
maintained there by the perfection of balance. That which we call the earth is
only one of many small hollows, wherein collect the mists and waters and the
thick lower air; but the true earth is above, and is in a finer and subtler
element. And if, like birds, we could fly to the surface of the air, in the same
manner that fishes come to the top of the sea, then we should behold the true
earth and the true heaven and the true stars. Our earth is everywhere corrupted
and corroded; and even the land which is fairer than the sea, for that is a mere
chaos or waste of water and mud and sand, has nothing to show in comparison of
the other world. But the heavenly earth is of divers colours, sparkling with
jewels brighter than gold and whiter than any snow, having flowers and fruits
innumerable. And the inhabitants dwell some on the shore of the sea of air,
others in 'islets of the blest,' and they hold converse with the gods, and
behold the sun, moon and stars as they truly are, and their other blessedness is
of a piece with this.
The hollows on the surface of the globe vary in size and shape from that
which we inhabit: but all are connected by passages and perforations in the
interior of the earth. And there is one huge chasm or opening called Tartarus,
into which streams of fire and water and liquid mud are ever flowing; of these
small portions find their way to the surface and form seas and rivers and
volcanoes. There is a perpetual inhalation and exhalation of the air rising and
falling as the waters pass into the depths of the earth and return again, in
their course forming lakes and rivers, but never descending below the centre of
the earth; for on either side the rivers flowing either way are stopped by a
precipice. These rivers are many and mighty, and there are four principal ones,
Oceanus, Acheron, Pyriphlegethon, and Cocytus. Oceanus is the river which
encircles the earth; Acheron takes an opposite direction, and after flowing
under the earth through desert places, at last reaches the Acherusian lake,—this
is the river at which the souls of the dead await their return to earth.
Pyriphlegethon is a stream of fire, which coils round the earth and flows into
the depths of Tartarus. The fourth river, Cocytus, is that which is called by
the poets the Stygian river, and passes into and forms the lake Styx, from the
waters of which it gains new and strange powers. This river, too, falls into
Tartarus.
The dead are first of all judged according to their deeds, and those who are
incurable are thrust into Tartarus, from which they never come out. Those who
have only committed venial sins are first purified of them, and then rewarded
for the good which they have done. Those who have committed crimes, great
indeed, but not unpardonable, are thrust into Tartarus, but are cast forth at
the end of a year by way of Pyriphlegethon or Cocytus, and these carry them as
far as the Acherusian lake, where they call upon their victims to let them come
out of the rivers into the lake. And if they prevail, then they are let out and
their sufferings cease: if not, they are borne unceasingly into Tartarus and
back again, until they at last obtain mercy. The pure souls also receive their
reward, and have their abode in the upper earth, and a select few in still
fairer 'mansions.'
Socrates is not prepared to insist on the literal accuracy of this
description, but he is confident that something of the kind is true. He who has
sought after the pleasures of knowledge and rejected the pleasures of the body,
has reason to be of good hope at the approach of death; whose voice is already
speaking to him, and who will one day be heard calling all men.
The hour has come at which he must drink the poison, and not much remains to
be done. How shall they bury him? That is a question which he refuses to
entertain, for they are burying, not him, but his dead body. His friends had
once been sureties that he would remain, and they shall now be sureties that he
has run away. Yet he would not die without the customary ceremonies of washing
and burial. Shall he make a libation of the poison? In the spirit he will, but
not in the letter. One request he utters in the very act of death, which has
been a puzzle to after ages. With a sort of irony he remembers that a trifling
religious duty is still unfulfilled, just as above he desires before he departs
to compose a few verses in order to satisfy a scruple about a dream—unless,
indeed, we suppose him to mean, that he was now restored to health, and made the
customary offering to Asclepius in token of his recovery.
1. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul has sunk deep into the heart
of the human race; and men are apt to rebel against any examination of the
nature or grounds of their belief. They do not like to acknowledge that this, as
well as the other 'eternal ideas; of man, has a history in time, which may be
traced in Greek poetry or philosophy, and also in the Hebrew Scriptures. They
convert feeling into reasoning, and throw a network of dialectics over that
which is really a deeply-rooted instinct. In the same temper which Socrates
reproves in himself they are disposed to think that even fallacies will do no
harm, for they will die with them, and while they live they will gain by the
delusion. And when they consider the numberless bad arguments which have been
pressed into the service of theology, they say, like the companions of Socrates,
'What argument can we ever trust again?' But there is a better and higher spirit
to be gathered from the Phaedo, as well as from the other writings of Plato,
which says that first principles should be most constantly reviewed (Phaedo and
Crat.), and that the highest subjects demand of us the greatest accuracy
(Republic); also that we must not become misologists because arguments are apt
to be deceivers.
2. In former ages there was a customary rather than a reasoned belief in the
immortality of the soul. It was based on the authority of the Church, on the
necessity of such a belief to morality and the order of society, on the evidence
of an historical fact, and also on analogies and figures of speech which filled
up the void or gave an expression in words to a cherished instinct. The mass of
mankind went on their way busy with the affairs of this life, hardly stopping to
think about another. But in our own day the question has been reopened, and it
is doubtful whether the belief which in the first ages of Christianity was the
strongest motive of action can survive the conflict with a scientific age in
which the rules of evidence are stricter and the mind has become more sensitive
to criticism. It has faded into the distance by a natural process as it was
removed further and further from the historical fact on which it has been
supposed to rest. Arguments derived from material things such as the seed and
the ear of corn or transitions in the life of animals from one state of being to
another (the chrysalis and the butterfly) are not 'in pari materia' with
arguments from the visible to the invisible, and are therefore felt to be no
longer applicable. The evidence to the historical fact seems to be weaker than
was once supposed: it is not consistent with itself, and is based upon documents
which are of unknown origin. The immortality of man must be proved by other
arguments than these if it is again to become a living belief. We must ask
ourselves afresh why we still maintain it, and seek to discover a foundation for
it in the nature of God and in the first principles of morality.
3. At the outset of the discussion we may clear away a confusion. We
certainly do not mean by the immortality of the soul the immortality of fame,
which whether worth having or not can only be ascribed to a very select class of
the whole race of mankind, and even the interest in these few is comparatively
short-lived. To have been a benefactor to the world, whether in a higher or a
lower sphere of life and thought, is a great thing: to have the reputation of
being one, when men have passed out of the sphere of earthly praise or blame, is
hardly worthy of consideration. The memory of a great man, so far from being
immortal, is really limited to his own generation:—so long as his friends or his
disciples are alive, so long as his books continue to be read, so long as his
political or military successes fill a page in the history of his country. The
praises which are bestowed upon him at his death hardly last longer than the
flowers which are strewed upon his coffin or the 'immortelles' which are laid
upon his tomb. Literature makes the most of its heroes, but the true man is well
aware that far from enjoying an immortality of fame, in a generation or two, or
even in a much shorter time, he will be forgotten and the world will get on
without him.
4. Modern philosophy is perplexed at this whole question, which is sometimes
fairly given up and handed over to the realm of faith. The perplexity should not
be forgotten by us when we attempt to submit the Phaedo of Plato to the
requirements of logic. For what idea can we form of the soul when separated from
the body? Or how can the soul be united with the body and still be independent?
Is the soul related to the body as the ideal to the real, or as the whole to the
parts, or as the subject to the object, or as the cause to the effect, or as the
end to the means? Shall we say with Aristotle, that the soul is the entelechy or
form of an organized living body? or with Plato, that she has a life of her own?
Is the Pythagorean image of the harmony, or that of the monad, the truer
expression? Is the soul related to the body as sight to the eye, or as the
boatman to his boat? (Arist. de Anim.) And in another state of being is the soul
to be conceived of as vanishing into infinity, hardly possessing an existence
which she can call her own, as in the pantheistic system of Spinoza: or as an
individual informing another body and entering into new relations, but retaining
her own character? (Compare Gorgias.) Or is the opposition of soul and body a
mere illusion, and the true self neither soul nor body, but the union of the two
in the 'I' which is above them? And is death the assertion of this individuality
in the higher nature, and the falling away into nothingness of the lower? Or are
we vainly attempting to pass the boundaries of human thought? The body and the
soul seem to be inseparable, not only in fact, but in our conceptions of them;
and any philosophy which too closely unites them, or too widely separates them,
either in this life or in another, disturbs the balance of human nature. No
thinker has perfectly adjusted them, or been entirely consistent with himself in
describing their relation to one another. Nor can we wonder that Plato in the
infancy of human thought should have confused mythology and philosophy, or have
mistaken verbal arguments for real ones.
5. Again, believing in the immortality of the soul, we must still ask the
question of Socrates, 'What is that which we suppose to be immortal?' Is it the
personal and individual element in us, or the spiritual and universal? Is it the
principle of knowledge or of goodness, or the union of the two? Is it the mere
force of life which is determined to be, or the consciousness of self which
cannot be got rid of, or the fire of genius which refuses to be extinguished? Or
is there a hidden being which is allied to the Author of all existence, who is
because he is perfect, and to whom our ideas of perfection give us a title to
belong? Whatever answer is given by us to these questions, there still remains
the necessity of allowing the permanence of evil, if not for ever, at any rate
for a time, in order that the wicked 'may not have too good a bargain.' For the
annihilation of evil at death, or the eternal duration of it, seem to involve
equal difficulties in the moral government of the universe. Sometimes we are led
by our feelings, rather than by our reason, to think of the good and wise only
as existing in another life. Why should the mean, the weak, the idiot, the
infant, the herd of men who have never in any proper sense the use of reason,
reappear with blinking eyes in the light of another world? But our second
thought is that the hope of humanity is a common one, and that all or none will
be partakers of immortality. Reason does not allow us to suppose that we have
any greater claims than others, and experience may often reveal to us unexpected
flashes of the higher nature in those whom we had despised. Why should the
wicked suffer any more than ourselves? had we been placed in their circumstances
should we have been any better than they? The worst of men are objects of pity
rather than of anger to the philanthropist; must they not be equally such to
divine benevolence? Even more than the good they have need of another life; not
that they may be punished, but that they may be educated. These are a few of the
reflections which arise in our minds when we attempt to assign any form to our
conceptions of a future state.
There are some other questions which are disturbing to us because we have no
answer to them. What is to become of the animals in a future state? Have we not
seen dogs more faithful and intelligent than men, and men who are more stupid
and brutal than any animals? Does their life cease at death, or is there some
'better thing reserved' also for them? They may be said to have a shadow or
imitation of morality, and imperfect moral claims upon the benevolence of man
and upon the justice of God. We cannot think of the least or lowest of them, the
insect, the bird, the inhabitants of the sea or the desert, as having any place
in a future world, and if not all, why should those who are specially attached
to man be deemed worthy of any exceptional privilege? When we reason about such
a subject, almost at once we degenerate into nonsense. It is a passing thought
which has no real hold on the mind. We may argue for the existence of animals in
a future state from the attributes of God, or from texts of Scripture ('Are not
two sparrows sold for one farthing?' etc.), but the truth is that we are only
filling up the void of another world with our own fancies. Again, we often talk
about the origin of evil, that great bugbear of theologians, by which they
frighten us into believing any superstition. What answer can be made to the old
commonplace, 'Is not God the author of evil, if he knowingly permitted, but
could have prevented it?' Even if we assume that the inequalities of this life
are rectified by some transposition of human beings in another, still the
existence of the very least evil if it could have been avoided, seems to be at
variance with the love and justice of God. And so we arrive at the conclusion
that we are carrying logic too far, and that the attempt to frame the world
according to a rule of divine perfection is opposed to experience and had better
be given up. The case of the animals is our own. We must admit that the Divine
Being, although perfect himself, has placed us in a state of life in which we
may work together with him for good, but we are very far from having attained to
it.
6. Again, ideas must be given through something; and we are always prone to
argue about the soul from analogies of outward things which may serve to embody
our thoughts, but are also partly delusive. For we cannot reason from the
natural to the spiritual, or from the outward to the inward. The progress of
physiological science, without bringing us nearer to the great secret, has
tended to remove some erroneous notions respecting the relations of body and
mind, and in this we have the advantage of the ancients. But no one imagines
that any seed of immortality is to be discerned in our mortal frames. Most
people have been content to rest their belief in another life on the agreement
of the more enlightened part of mankind, and on the inseparable connection of
such a doctrine with the existence of a God—also in a less degree on the
impossibility of doubting about the continued existence of those whom we love
and reverence in this world. And after all has been said, the figure, the
analogy, the argument, are felt to be only approximations in different forms to
an expression of the common sentiment of the human heart. That we shall live
again is far more certain than that we shall take any particular form of life.
7. When we speak of the immortality of the soul, we must ask further what we
mean by the word immortality. For of the duration of a living being in countless
ages we can form no conception; far less than a three years' old child of the
whole of life. The naked eye might as well try to see the furthest star in the
infinity of heaven. Whether time and space really exist when we take away the
limits of them may be doubted; at any rate the thought of them when unlimited us
so overwhelming to us as to lose all distinctness. Philosophers have spoken of
them as forms of the human mind, but what is the mind without them? As then
infinite time, or an existence out of time, which are the only possible
explanations of eternal duration, are equally inconceivable to us, let us
substitute for them a hundred or a thousand years after death, and ask not what
will be our employment in eternity, but what will happen to us in that definite
portion of time; or what is now happening to those who passed out of life a
hundred or a thousand years ago. Do we imagine that the wicked are suffering
torments, or that the good are singing the praises of God, during a period
longer than that of a whole life, or of ten lives of men? Is the suffering
physical or mental? And does the worship of God consist only of praise, or of
many forms of service? Who are the wicked, and who are the good, whom we venture
to divide by a hard and fast line; and in which of the two classes should we
place ourselves and our friends? May we not suspect that we are making
differences of kind, because we are unable to imagine differences of
degree?—putting the whole human race into heaven or hell for the greater
convenience of logical division? Are we not at the same time describing them
both in superlatives, only that we may satisfy the demands of rhetoric? What is
that pain which does not become deadened after a thousand years? or what is the
nature of that pleasure or happiness which never wearies by monotony? Earthly
pleasures and pains are short in proportion as they are keen; of any others
which are both intense and lasting we have no experience, and can form no idea.
The words or figures of speech which we use are not consistent with themselves.
For are we not imagining Heaven under the similitude of a church, and Hell as a
prison, or perhaps a madhouse or chamber of horrors? And yet to beings
constituted as we are, the monotony of singing psalms would be as great an
infliction as the pains of hell, and might be even pleasantly interrupted by
them. Where are the actions worthy of rewards greater than those which are
conferred on the greatest benefactors of mankind? And where are the crimes which
according to Plato's merciful reckoning,—more merciful, at any rate, than the
eternal damnation of so-called Christian teachers,—for every ten years in this
life deserve a hundred of punishment in the life to come? We should be ready to
die of pity if we could see the least of the sufferings which the writers of
Infernos and Purgatorios have attributed to the damned. Yet these joys and
terrors seem hardly to exercise an appreciable influence over the lives of men.
The wicked man when old, is not, as Plato supposes (Republic), more agitated by
the terrors of another world when he is nearer to them, nor the good in an
ecstasy at the joys of which he is soon to be the partaker. Age numbs the sense
of both worlds; and the habit of life is strongest in death. Even the dying
mother is dreaming of her lost children as they were forty or fifty years
before, 'pattering over the boards,' not of reunion with them in another state
of being. Most persons when the last hour comes are resigned to the order of
nature and the will of God. They are not thinking of Dante's Inferno or
Paradiso, or of the Pilgrim's Progress. Heaven and hell are not realities to
them, but words or ideas; the outward symbols of some great mystery, they hardly
know what. Many noble poems and pictures have been suggested by the traditional
representations of them, which have been fixed in forms of art and can no longer
be altered. Many sermons have been filled with descriptions of celestial or
infernal mansions. But hardly even in childhood did the thought of heaven and
hell supply the motives of our actions, or at any time seriously affect the
substance of our belief.
8. Another life must be described, if at all, in forms of thought and not of
sense. To draw pictures of heaven and hell, whether in the language of Scripture
or any other, adds nothing to our real knowledge, but may perhaps disguise our
ignorance. The truest conception which we can form of a future life is a state
of progress or education—a progress from evil to good, from ignorance to
knowledge. To this we are led by the analogy of the present life, in which we
see different races and nations of men, and different men and women of the same
nation, in various states or stages of cultivation; some more and some less
developed, and all of them capable of improvement under favourable
circumstances. There are punishments too of children when they are growing up
inflicted by their parents, of elder offenders which are imposed by the law of
the land, of all men at all times of life, which are attached by the laws of
nature to the performance of certain actions. All these punishments are really
educational; that is to say, they are not intended to retaliate on the offender,
but to teach him a lesson. Also there is an element of chance in them, which is
another name for our ignorance of the laws of nature. There is evil too
inseparable from good (compare Lysis); not always punished here, as good is not
always rewarded. It is capable of being indefinitely diminished; and as
knowledge increases, the element of chance may more and more disappear.
For we do not argue merely from the analogy of the present state of this
world to another, but from the analogy of a probable future to which we are
tending. The greatest changes of which we have had experience as yet are due to
our increasing knowledge of history and of nature. They have been produced by a
few minds appearing in three or four favoured nations, in a comparatively short
period of time. May we be allowed to imagine the minds of men everywhere working
together during many ages for the completion of our knowledge? May not the
science of physiology transform the world? Again, the majority of mankind have
really experienced some moral improvement; almost every one feels that he has
tendencies to good, and is capable of becoming better. And these germs of good
are often found to be developed by new circumstances, like stunted trees when
transplanted to a better soil. The differences between the savage and the
civilized man, or between the civilized man in old and new countries, may be
indefinitely increased. The first difference is the effect of a few thousand,
the second of a few hundred years. We congratulate ourselves that slavery has
become industry; that law and constitutional government have superseded
despotism and violence; that an ethical religion has taken the place of
Fetichism. There may yet come a time when the many may be as well off as the
few; when no one will be weighed down by excessive toil; when the necessity of
providing for the body will not interfere with mental improvement; when the
physical frame may be strengthened and developed; and the religion of all men
may become a reasonable service.
Nothing therefore, either in the present state of man or in the tendencies of
the future, as far as we can entertain conjecture of them, would lead us to
suppose that God governs us vindictively in this world, and therefore we have no
reason to infer that he will govern us vindictively in another. The true
argument from analogy is not, 'This life is a mixed state of justice and
injustice, of great waste, of sudden casualties, of disproportionate
punishments, and therefore the like inconsistencies, irregularities, injustices
are to be expected in another;' but 'This life is subject to law, and is in a
state of progress, and therefore law and progress may be believed to be the
governing principles of another.' All the analogies of this world would be
against unmeaning punishments inflicted a hundred or a thousand years after an
offence had been committed. Suffering there might be as a part of education, but
not hopeless or protracted; as there might be a retrogression of individuals or
of bodies of men, yet not such as to interfere with a plan for the improvement
of the whole (compare Laws.)
9. But some one will say: That we cannot reason from the seen to the unseen,
and that we are creating another world after the image of this, just as men in
former ages have created gods in their own likeness. And we, like the companions
of Socrates, may feel discouraged at hearing our favourite 'argument from
analogy' thus summarily disposed of. Like himself, too, we may adduce other
arguments in which he seems to have anticipated us, though he expresses them in
different language. For we feel that the soul partakes of the ideal and
invisible; and can never fall into the error of confusing the external
circumstances of man with his higher self; or his origin with his nature. It is
as repugnant to us as it was to him to imagine that our moral ideas are to be
attributed only to cerebral forces. The value of a human soul, like the value of
a man's life to himself, is inestimable, and cannot be reckoned in earthly or
material things. The human being alone has the consciousness of truth and
justice and love, which is the consciousness of God. And the soul becoming more
conscious of these, becomes more conscious of her own immortality.
10. The last ground of our belief in immortality, and the strongest, is the
perfection of the divine nature. The mere fact of the existence of God does not
tend to show the continued existence of man. An evil God or an indifferent God
might have had the power, but not the will, to preserve us. He might have
regarded us as fitted to minister to his service by a succession of
existences,—like the animals, without attributing to each soul an incomparable
value. But if he is perfect, he must will that all rational beings should
partake of that perfection which he himself is. In the words of the Timaeus, he
is good, and therefore he desires that all other things should be as like
himself as possible. And the manner in which he accomplishes this is by
permitting evil, or rather degrees of good, which are otherwise called evil. For
all progress is good relatively to the past, and yet may be comparatively evil
when regarded in the light of the future. Good and evil are relative terms, and
degrees of evil are merely the negative aspect of degrees of good. Of the
absolute goodness of any finite nature we can form no conception; we are all of
us in process of transition from one degree of good or evil to another. The
difficulties which are urged about the origin or existence of evil are mere
dialectical puzzles, standing in the same relation to Christian philosophy as
the puzzles of the Cynics and Megarians to the philosophy of Plato. They arise
out of the tendency of the human mind to regard good and evil both as relative
and absolute; just as the riddles about motion are to be explained by the double
conception of space or matter, which the human mind has the power of regarding
either as continuous or discrete.
In speaking of divine perfection, we mean to say that God is just and true
and loving, the author of order and not of disorder, of good and not of evil. Or
rather, that he is justice, that he is truth, that he is love, that he is order,
that he is the very progress of which we were speaking; and that wherever these
qualities are present, whether in the human soul or in the order of nature,
there is God. We might still see him everywhere, if we had not been mistakenly
seeking for him apart from us, instead of in us; away from the laws of nature,
instead of in them. And we become united to him not by mystical absorption, but
by partaking, whether consciously or unconsciously, of that truth and justice
and love which he himself is.
Thus the belief in the immortality of the soul rests at last on the belief in
God. If there is a good and wise God, then there is a progress of mankind
towards perfection; and if there is no progress of men towards perfection, then
there is no good and wise God. We cannot suppose that the moral government of
God of which we see the beginnings in the world and in ourselves will cease when
we pass out of life.
11. Considering the 'feebleness of the human faculties and the uncertainty of
the subject,' we are inclined to believe that the fewer our words the better. At
the approach of death there is not much said; good men are too honest to go out
of the world professing more than they know. There is perhaps no important
subject about which, at any time, even religious people speak so little to one
another. In the fulness of life the thought of death is mostly awakened by the
sight or recollection of the death of others rather than by the prospect of our
own. We must also acknowledge that there are degrees of the belief in
immortality, and many forms in which it presents itself to the mind. Some
persons will say no more than that they trust in God, and that they leave all to
Him. It is a great part of true religion not to pretend to know more than we do.
Others when they quit this world are comforted with the hope 'That they will see
and know their friends in heaven.' But it is better to leave them in the hands
of God and to be assured that 'no evil shall touch them.' There are others again
to whom the belief in a divine personality has ceased to have any longer a
meaning; yet they are satisfied that the end of all is not here, but that
something still remains to us, 'and some better thing for the good than for the
evil.' They are persuaded, in spite of their theological nihilism, that the
ideas of justice and truth and holiness and love are realities. They cherish an
enthusiastic devotion to the first principles of morality. Through these they
see, or seem to see, darkly, and in a figure, that the soul is immortal.
But besides differences of theological opinion which must ever prevail about
things unseen, the hope of immortality is weaker or stronger in men at one time
of life than at another; it even varies from day to day. It comes and goes; the
mind, like the sky, is apt to be overclouded. Other generations of men may have
sometimes lived under an 'eclipse of faith,' to us the total disappearance of it
might be compared to the 'sun falling from heaven.' And we may sometimes have to
begin again and acquire the belief for ourselves; or to win it back again when
it is lost. It is really weakest in the hour of death. For Nature, like a kind
mother or nurse, lays us to sleep without frightening us; physicians, who are
the witnesses of such scenes, say that under ordinary circumstances there is no
fear of the future. Often, as Plato tells us, death is accompanied 'with
pleasure.' (Tim.) When the end is still uncertain, the cry of many a one has
been, 'Pray, that I may be taken.' The last thoughts even of the best men depend
chiefly on the accidents of their bodily state. Pain soon overpowers the desire
of life; old age, like the child, is laid to sleep almost in a moment. The long
experience of life will often destroy the interest which mankind have in it. So
various are the feelings with which different persons draw near to death; and
still more various the forms in which imagination clothes it. For this
alternation of feeling compare the Old Testament,—Psalm vi.; Isaiah; Eccles.
12. When we think of God and of man in his relation to God; of the
imperfection of our present state and yet of the progress which is observable in
the history of the world and of the human mind; of the depth and power of our
moral ideas which seem to partake of the very nature of God Himself; when we
consider the contrast between the physical laws to which we are subject and the
higher law which raises us above them and is yet a part of them; when we reflect
on our capacity of becoming the 'spectators of all time and all existence,' and
of framing in our own minds the ideal of a perfect Being; when we see how the
human mind in all the higher religions of the world, including Buddhism,
notwithstanding some aberrations, has tended towards such a belief—we have
reason to think that our destiny is different from that of animals; and though
we cannot altogether shut out the childish fear that the soul upon leaving the
body may 'vanish into thin air,' we have still, so far as the nature of the
subject admits, a hope of immortality with which we comfort ourselves on
sufficient grounds. The denial of the belief takes the heart out of human life;
it lowers men to the level of the material. As Goethe also says, 'He is dead
even in this world who has no belief in another.'
13. It is well also that we should sometimes think of the forms of thought
under which the idea of immortality is most naturally presented to us. It is
clear that to our minds the risen soul can no longer be described, as in a
picture, by the symbol of a creature half-bird, half-human, nor in any other
form of sense. The multitude of angels, as in Milton, singing the Almighty's
praises, are a noble image, and may furnish a theme for the poet or the painter,
but they are no longer an adequate expression of the kingdom of God which is
within us. Neither is there any mansion, in this world or another, in which the
departed can be imagined to dwell and carry on their occupations. When this
earthly tabernacle is dissolved, no other habitation or building can take them
in: it is in the language of ideas only that we speak of them.
First of all there is the thought of rest and freedom from pain; they have
gone home, as the common saying is, and the cares of this world touch them no
more. Secondly, we may imagine them as they were at their best and brightest,
humbly fulfilling their daily round of duties—selfless, childlike, unaffected by
the world; when the eye was single and the whole body seemed to be full of
light; when the mind was clear and saw into the purposes of God. Thirdly, we may
think of them as possessed by a great love of God and man, working out His will
at a further stage in the heavenly pilgrimage. And yet we acknowledge that these
are the things which eye hath not seen nor ear heard and therefore it hath not
entered into the heart of man in any sensible manner to conceive them. Fourthly,
there may have been some moments in our own lives when we have risen above
ourselves, or been conscious of our truer selves, in which the will of God has
superseded our wills, and we have entered into communion with Him, and been
partakers for a brief season of the Divine truth and love, in which like Christ
we have been inspired to utter the prayer, 'I in them, and thou in me, that we
may be all made perfect in one.' These precious moments, if we have ever known
them, are the nearest approach which we can make to the idea of immortality.
14. Returning now to the earlier stage of human thought which is represented
by the writings of Plato, we find that many of the same questions have already
arisen: there is the same tendency to materialism; the same inconsistency in the
application of the idea of mind; the same doubt whether the soul is to be
regarded as a cause or as an effect; the same falling back on moral convictions.
In the Phaedo the soul is conscious of her divine nature, and the separation
from the body which has been commenced in this life is perfected in another.
Beginning in mystery, Socrates, in the intermediate part of the Dialogue,
attempts to bring the doctrine of a future life into connection with his theory
of knowledge. In proportion as he succeeds in this, the individual seems to
disappear in a more general notion of the soul; the contemplation of ideas
'under the form of eternity' takes the place of past and future states of
existence. His language may be compared to that of some modern philosophers, who
speak of eternity, not in the sense of perpetual duration of time, but as an
ever-present quality of the soul. Yet at the conclusion of the Dialogue, having
'arrived at the end of the intellectual world' (Republic), he replaces the veil
of mythology, and describes the soul and her attendant genius in the language of
the mysteries or of a disciple of Zoroaster. Nor can we fairly demand of Plato a
consistency which is wanting among ourselves, who acknowledge that another world
is beyond the range of human thought, and yet are always seeking to represent
the mansions of heaven or hell in the colours of the painter, or in the
descriptions of the poet or rhetorician.
15. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul was not new to the Greeks in
the age of Socrates, but, like the unity of God, had a foundation in the popular
belief. The old Homeric notion of a gibbering ghost flitting away to Hades; or
of a few illustrious heroes enjoying the isles of the blest; or of an existence
divided between the two; or the Hesiodic, of righteous spirits, who become
guardian angels,—had given place in the mysteries and the Orphic poets to
representations, partly fanciful, of a future state of rewards and punishments.
(Laws.) The reticence of the Greeks on public occasions and in some part of
their literature respecting this 'underground' religion, is not to be taken as a
measure of the diffusion of such beliefs. If Pericles in the funeral oration is
silent on the consolations of immortality, the poet Pindar and the tragedians on
the other hand constantly assume the continued existence of the dead in an upper
or under world. Darius and Laius are still alive; Antigone will be dear to her
brethren after death; the way to the palace of Cronos is found by those who
'have thrice departed from evil.' The tragedy of the Greeks is not 'rounded' by
this life, but is deeply set in decrees of fate and mysterious workings of
powers beneath the earth. In the caricature of Aristophanes there is also a
witness to the common sentiment. The Ionian and Pythagorean philosophies arose,
and some new elements were added to the popular belief. The individual must find
an expression as well as the world. Either the soul was supposed to exist in the
form of a magnet, or of a particle of fire, or of light, or air, or water; or of
a number or of a harmony of number; or to be or have, like the stars, a
principle of motion (Arist. de Anim.). At length Anaxagoras, hardly
distinguishing between life and mind, or between mind human and divine, attained
the pure abstraction; and this, like the other abstractions of Greek philosophy,
sank deep into the human intelligence. The opposition of the intelligible and
the sensible, and of God to the world, supplied an analogy which assisted in the
separation of soul and body. If ideas were separable from phenomena, mind was
also separable from matter; if the ideas were eternal, the mind that conceived
them was eternal too. As the unity of God was more distinctly acknowledged, the
conception of the human soul became more developed. The succession, or
alternation of life and death, had occurred to Heracleitus. The Eleatic
Parmenides had stumbled upon the modern thesis, that 'thought and being are the
same.' The Eastern belief in transmigration defined the sense of individuality;
and some, like Empedocles, fancied that the blood which they had shed in another
state of being was crying against them, and that for thirty thousand years they
were to be 'fugitives and vagabonds upon the earth.' The desire of recognizing a
lost mother or love or friend in the world below (Phaedo) was a natural feeling
which, in that age as well as in every other, has given distinctness to the hope
of immortality. Nor were ethical considerations wanting, partly derived from the
necessity of punishing the greater sort of criminals, whom no avenging power of
this world could reach. The voice of conscience, too, was heard reminding the
good man that he was not altogether innocent. (Republic.) To these indistinct
longings and fears an expression was given in the mysteries and Orphic poets: a
'heap of books' (Republic), passing under the names of Musaeus and Orpheus in
Plato's time, were filled with notions of an under-world.
16. Yet after all the belief in the individuality of the soul after death had
but a feeble hold on the Greek mind. Like the personality of God, the
personality of man in a future state was not inseparably bound up with the
reality of his existence. For the distinction between the personal and
impersonal, and also between the divine and human, was far less marked to the
Greek than to ourselves. And as Plato readily passes from the notion of the good
to that of God, he also passes almost imperceptibly to himself and his reader
from the future life of the individual soul to the eternal being of the absolute
soul. There has been a clearer statement and a clearer denial of the belief in
modern times than is found in early Greek philosophy, and hence the comparative
silence on the whole subject which is often remarked in ancient writers, and
particularly in Aristotle. For Plato and Aristotle are not further removed in
their teaching about the immortality of the soul than they are in their theory
of knowledge.
17. Living in an age when logic was beginning to mould human thought, Plato
naturally cast his belief in immortality into a logical form. And when we
consider how much the doctrine of ideas was also one of words, it is not
surprising that he should have fallen into verbal fallacies: early logic is
always mistaking the truth of the form for the truth of the matter. It is easy
to see that the alternation of opposites is not the same as the generation of
them out of each other; and that the generation of them out of each other, which
is the first argument in the Phaedo, is at variance with their mutual exclusion
of each other, whether in themselves or in us, which is the last. For even if we
admit the distinction which he draws between the opposites and the things which
have the opposites, still individuals fall under the latter class; and we have
to pass out of the region of human hopes and fears to a conception of an
abstract soul which is the impersonation of the ideas. Such a conception, which
in Plato himself is but half expressed, is unmeaning to us, and relative only to
a particular stage in the history of thought. The doctrine of reminiscence is
also a fragment of a former world, which has no place in the philosophy of
modern times. But Plato had the wonders of psychology just opening to him, and
he had not the explanation of them which is supplied by the analysis of language
and the history of the human mind. The question, 'Whence come our abstract
ideas?' he could only answer by an imaginary hypothesis. Nor is it difficult to
see that his crowning argument is purely verbal, and is but the expression of an
instinctive confidence put into a logical form:—'The soul is immortal because it
contains a principle of imperishableness.' Nor does he himself seem at all to be
aware that nothing is added to human knowledge by his 'safe and simple answer,'
that beauty is the cause of the beautiful; and that he is merely reasserting the
Eleatic being 'divided by the Pythagorean numbers,' against the Heracleitean
doctrine of perpetual generation. The answer to the 'very serious question' of
generation and destruction is really the denial of them. For this he would
substitute, as in the Republic, a system of ideas, tested, not by experience,
but by their consequences, and not explained by actual causes, but by a higher,
that is, a more general notion. Consistency with themselves is the only test
which is to be applied to them. (Republic, and Phaedo.)
18. To deal fairly with such arguments, they should be translated as far as
possible into their modern equivalents. 'If the ideas of men are eternal, their
souls are eternal, and if not the ideas, then not the souls.' Such an argument
stands nearly in the same relation to Plato and his age, as the argument from
the existence of God to immortality among ourselves. 'If God exists, then the
soul exists after death; and if there is no God, there is no existence of the
soul after death.' For the ideas are to his mind the reality, the truth, the
principle of permanence, as well as of intelligence and order in the world. When
Simmias and Cebes say that they are more strongly persuaded of the existence of
ideas than they are of the immortality of the soul, they represent fairly enough
the order of thought in Greek philosophy. And we might say in the same way that
we are more certain of the existence of God than we are of the immortality of
the soul, and are led by the belief in the one to a belief in the other. The
parallel, as Socrates would say, is not perfect, but agrees in as far as the
mind in either case is regarded as dependent on something above and beyond
herself. The analogy may even be pressed a step further: 'We are more certain of
our ideas of truth and right than we are of the existence of God, and are led on
in the order of thought from one to the other.' Or more correctly: 'The
existence of right and truth is the existence of God, and can never for a moment
be separated from Him.'
19. The main argument of the Phaedo is derived from the existence of eternal
ideas of which the soul is a partaker; the other argument of the alternation of
opposites is replaced by this. And there have not been wanting philosophers of
the idealist school who have imagined that the doctrine of the immortality of
the soul is a theory of knowledge, and that in what has preceded Plato is
accommodating himself to the popular belief. Such a view can only be elicited
from the Phaedo by what may be termed the transcendental method of
interpretation, and is obviously inconsistent with the Gorgias and the Republic.
Those who maintain it are immediately compelled to renounce the shadow which
they have grasped, as a play of words only. But the truth is, that Plato in his
argument for the immortality of the soul has collected many elements of proof or
persuasion, ethical and mythological as well as dialectical, which are not
easily to be reconciled with one another; and he is as much in earnest about his
doctrine of retribution, which is repeated in all his more ethical writings, as
about his theory of knowledge. And while we may fairly translate the dialectical
into the language of Hegel, and the religious and mythological into the language
of Dante or Bunyan, the ethical speaks to us still in the same voice, and
appeals to a common feeling.
20. Two arguments of this ethical character occur in the Phaedo. The first
may be described as the aspiration of the soul after another state of being.
Like the Oriental or Christian mystic, the philosopher is seeking to withdraw
from impurities of sense, to leave the world and the things of the world, and to
find his higher self. Plato recognizes in these aspirations the foretaste of
immortality; as Butler and Addison in modern times have argued, the one from the
moral tendencies of mankind, the other from the progress of the soul towards
perfection. In using this argument Plato has certainly confused the soul which
has left the body, with the soul of the good and wise. (Compare Republic.) Such
a confusion was natural, and arose partly out of the antithesis of soul and
body. The soul in her own essence, and the soul 'clothed upon' with virtues and
graces, were easily interchanged with one another, because on a subject which
passes expression the distinctions of language can hardly be maintained.
21. The ethical proof of the immortality of the soul is derived from the
necessity of retribution. The wicked would be too well off if their evil deeds
came to an end. It is not to be supposed that an Ardiaeus, an Archelaus, an
Ismenias could ever have suffered the penalty of their crimes in this world. The
manner in which this retribution is accomplished Plato represents under the
figures of mythology. Doubtless he felt that it was easier to improve than to
invent, and that in religion especially the traditional form was required in
order to give verisimilitude to the myth. The myth too is far more probable to
that age than to ours, and may fairly be regarded as 'one guess among many'
about the nature of the earth, which he cleverly supports by the indications of
geology. Not that he insists on the absolute truth of his own particular
notions: 'no man of sense will be confident in such matters; but he will be
confident that something of the kind is true.' As in other passages (Gorg.,
Tim., compare Crito), he wins belief for his fictions by the moderation of his
statements; he does not, like Dante or Swedenborg, allow himself to be deceived
by his own creations.
The Dialogue must be read in the light of the situation. And first of all we
are struck by the calmness of the scene. Like the spectators at the time, we
cannot pity Socrates; his mien and his language are so noble and fearless. He is
the same that he ever was, but milder and gentler, and he has in no degree lost
his interest in dialectics; he will not forego the delight of an argument in
compliance with the jailer's intimation that he should not heat himself with
talking. At such a time he naturally expresses the hope of his life, that he has
been a true mystic and not a mere retainer or wand-bearer: and he refers to
passages of his personal history. To his old enemies the Comic poets, and to the
proceedings on the trial, he alludes playfully; but he vividly remembers the
disappointment which he felt in reading the books of Anaxagoras. The return of
Xanthippe and his children indicates that the philosopher is not 'made of oak or
rock.' Some other traits of his character may be noted; for example, the
courteous manner in which he inclines his head to the last objector, or the
ironical touch, 'Me already, as the tragic poet would say, the voice of fate
calls;' or the depreciation of the arguments with which 'he comforted himself
and them;' or his fear of 'misology;' or his references to Homer; or the playful
smile with which he 'talks like a book' about greater and less; or the allusion
to the possibility of finding another teacher among barbarous races (compare
Polit.); or the mysterious reference to another science (mathematics?) of
generation and destruction for which he is vainly feeling. There is no change in
him; only now he is invested with a sort of sacred character, as the prophet or
priest of Apollo the God of the festival, in whose honour he first of all
composes a hymn, and then like the swan pours forth his dying lay. Perhaps the
extreme elevation of Socrates above his own situation, and the ordinary
interests of life (compare his jeu d'esprit about his burial, in which for a
moment he puts on the 'Silenus mask'), create in the mind of the reader an
impression stronger than could be derived from arguments that such a one has in
him 'a principle which does not admit of death.'
The other persons of the Dialogue may be considered under two heads: (1)
private friends; (2) the respondents in the argument.
First there is Crito, who has been already introduced to us in the Euthydemus
and the Crito; he is the equal in years of Socrates, and stands in quite a
different relation to him from his younger disciples. He is a man of the world
who is rich and prosperous (compare the jest in the Euthydemus), the best friend
of Socrates, who wants to know his commands, in whose presence he talks to his
family, and who performs the last duty of closing his eyes. It is observable too
that, as in the Euthydemus, Crito shows no aptitude for philosophical
discussions. Nor among the friends of Socrates must the jailer be forgotten, who
seems to have been introduced by Plato in order to show the impression made by
the extraordinary man on the common. The gentle nature of the man is indicated
by his weeping at the announcement of his errand and then turning away, and also
by the words of Socrates to his disciples: 'How charming the man is! since I
have been in prison he has been always coming to me, and is as good as could be
to me.' We are reminded too that he has retained this gentle nature amid scenes
of death and violence by the contrasts which he draws between the behaviour of
Socrates and of others when about to die.
Another person who takes no part in the philosophical discussion is the
excitable Apollodorus, the same who, in the Symposium, of which he is the
narrator, is called 'the madman,' and who testifies his grief by the most
violent emotions. Phaedo is also present, the 'beloved disciple' as he may be
termed, who is described, if not 'leaning on his bosom,' as seated next to
Socrates, who is playing with his hair. He too, like Apollodorus, takes no part
in the discussion, but he loves above all things to hear and speak of Socrates
after his death. The calmness of his behaviour, veiling his face when he can no
longer restrain his tears, contrasts with the passionate outcries of the other.
At a particular point the argument is described as falling before the attack of
Simmias. A sort of despair is introduced in the minds of the company. The effect
of this is heightened by the description of Phaedo, who has been the eye-witness
of the scene, and by the sympathy of his Phliasian auditors who are beginning to
think 'that they too can never trust an argument again.' And the intense
interest of the company is communicated not only to the first auditors, but to
us who in a distant country read the narrative of their emotions after more than
two thousand years have passed away.
The two principal interlocutors are Simmias and Cebes, the disciples of
Philolaus the Pythagorean philosopher of Thebes. Simmias is described in the
Phaedrus as fonder of an argument than any man living; and Cebes, although
finally persuaded by Socrates, is said to be the most incredulous of human
beings. It is Cebes who at the commencement of the Dialogue asks why 'suicide is
held to be unlawful,' and who first supplies the doctrine of recollection in
confirmation of the pre-existence of the soul. It is Cebes who urges that the
pre-existence does not necessarily involve the future existence of the soul, as
is shown by the illustration of the weaver and his coat. Simmias, on the other
hand, raises the question about harmony and the lyre, which is naturally put
into the mouth of a Pythagorean disciple. It is Simmias, too, who first remarks
on the uncertainty of human knowledge, and only at last concedes to the argument
such a qualified approval as is consistent with the feebleness of the human
faculties. Cebes is the deeper and more consecutive thinker, Simmias more
superficial and rhetorical; they are distinguished in much the same manner as
Adeimantus and Glaucon in the Republic.
Other persons, Menexenus, Ctesippus, Lysis, are old friends; Evenus has been
already satirized in the Apology; Aeschines and Epigenes were present at the
trial; Euclid and Terpsion will reappear in the Introduction to the Theaetetus,
Hermogenes has already appeared in the Cratylus. No inference can fairly be
drawn from the absence of Aristippus, nor from the omission of Xenophon, who at
the time of Socrates' death was in Asia. The mention of Plato's own absence
seems like an expression of sorrow, and may, perhaps, be an indication that the
report of the conversation is not to be taken literally.
The place of the Dialogue in the series is doubtful. The doctrine of ideas is
certainly carried beyond the Socratic point of view; in no other of the writings
of Plato is the theory of them so completely developed. Whether the belief in
immortality can be attributed to Socrates or not is uncertain; the silence of
the Memorabilia, and of the earlier Dialogues of Plato, is an argument to the
contrary. Yet in the Cyropaedia Xenophon has put language into the mouth of the
dying Cyrus which recalls the Phaedo, and may have been derived from the
teaching of Socrates. It may be fairly urged that the greatest religious
interest of mankind could not have been wholly ignored by one who passed his
life in fulfilling the commands of an oracle, and who recognized a Divine plan
in man and nature. (Xen. Mem.) And the language of the Apology and of the Crito
confirms this view.
The Phaedo is not one of the Socratic Dialogues of Plato; nor, on the other
hand, can it be assigned to that later stage of the Platonic writings at which
the doctrine of ideas appears to be forgotten. It belongs rather to the
intermediate period of the Platonic philosophy, which roughly corresponds to the
Phaedrus, Gorgias, Republic, Theaetetus. Without pretending to determine the
real time of their composition, the Symposium, Meno, Euthyphro, Apology, Phaedo
may be conveniently read by us in this order as illustrative of the life of
Socrates. Another chain may be formed of the Meno, Phaedrus, Phaedo, in which
the immortality of the soul is connected with the doctrine of ideas. In the Meno
the theory of ideas is based on the ancient belief in transmigration, which
reappears again in the Phaedrus as well as in the Republic and Timaeus, and in
all of them is connected with a doctrine of retribution. In the Phaedrus the
immortality of the soul is supposed to rest on the conception of the soul as a
principle of motion, whereas in the Republic the argument turns on the natural
continuance of the soul, which, if not destroyed by her own proper evil, can
hardly be destroyed by any other. The soul of man in the Timaeus is derived from
the Supreme Creator, and either returns after death to her kindred star, or
descends into the lower life of an animal. The Apology expresses the same view
as the Phaedo, but with less confidence; there the probability of death being a
long sleep is not excluded. The Theaetetus also describes, in a digression, the
desire of the soul to fly away and be with God—'and to fly to him is to be like
him.' The Symposium may be observed to resemble as well as to differ from the
Phaedo. While the first notion of immortality is only in the way of natural
procreation or of posthumous fame and glory, the higher revelation of beauty,
like the good in the Republic, is the vision of the eternal idea. So deeply
rooted in Plato's mind is the belief in immortality; so various are the forms of
expression which he employs.
As in several other Dialogues, there is more of system in the Phaedo than
appears at first sight. The succession of arguments is based on previous
philosophies; beginning with the mysteries and the Heracleitean alternation of
opposites, and proceeding to the Pythagorean harmony and transmigration; making
a step by the aid of Platonic reminiscence, and a further step by the help of
the nous of Anaxagoras; until at last we rest in the conviction that the soul is
inseparable from the ideas, and belongs to the world of the invisible and
unknown. Then, as in the Gorgias or Republic, the curtain falls, and the veil of
mythology descends upon the argument. After the confession of Socrates that he
is an interested party, and the acknowledgment that no man of sense will think
the details of his narrative true, but that something of the kind is true, we
return from speculation to practice. He is himself more confident of immortality
than he is of his own arguments; and the confidence which he expresses is less
strong than that which his cheerfulness and composure in death inspire in us.
Difficulties of two kinds occur in the Phaedo—one kind to be explained out of
contemporary philosophy, the other not admitting of an entire solution. (1) The
difficulty which Socrates says that he experienced in explaining generation and
corruption; the assumption of hypotheses which proceed from the less general to
the more general, and are tested by their consequences; the puzzle about greater
and less; the resort to the method of ideas, which to us appear only abstract
terms,—these are to be explained out of the position of Socrates and Plato in
the history of philosophy. They were living in a twilight between the sensible
and the intellectual world, and saw no way of connecting them. They could
neither explain the relation of ideas to phenomena, nor their correlation to one
another. The very idea of relation or comparison was embarrassing to them. Yet
in this intellectual uncertainty they had a conception of a proof from results,
and of a moral truth, which remained unshaken amid the questionings of
philosophy. (2) The other is a difficulty which is touched upon in the Republic
as well as in the Phaedo, and is common to modern and ancient philosophy. Plato
is not altogether satisfied with his safe and simple method of ideas. He wants
to have proved to him by facts that all things are for the best, and that there
is one mind or design which pervades them all. But this 'power of the best' he
is unable to explain; and therefore takes refuge in universal ideas. And are not
we at this day seeking to discover that which Socrates in a glass darkly
foresaw?
Some resemblances to the Greek drama may be noted in all the Dialogues of
Plato. The Phaedo is the tragedy of which Socrates is the protagonist and
Simmias and Cebes the secondary performers, standing to them in the same
relation as to Glaucon and Adeimantus in the Republic. No Dialogue has a greater
unity of subject and feeling. Plato has certainly fulfilled the condition of
Greek, or rather of all art, which requires that scenes of death and suffering
should be clothed in beauty. The gathering of the friends at the commencement of
the Dialogue, the dismissal of Xanthippe, whose presence would have been out of
place at a philosophical discussion, but who returns again with her children to
take a final farewell, the dejection of the audience at the temporary overthrow
of the argument, the picture of Socrates playing with the hair of Phaedo, the
final scene in which Socrates alone retains his composure—are masterpieces of
art. And the chorus at the end might have interpreted the feeling of the play:
'There can no evil happen to a good man in life or death.'
'The art of concealing art' is nowhere more perfect than in those writings of
Plato which describe the trial and death of Socrates. Their charm is their
simplicity, which gives them verisimilitude; and yet they touch, as if
incidentally, and because they were suitable to the occasion, on some of the
deepest truths of philosophy. There is nothing in any tragedy, ancient or
modern, nothing in poetry or history (with one exception), like the last hours
of Socrates in Plato. The master could not be more fitly occupied at such a time
than in discoursing of immortality; nor the disciples more divinely consoled.
The arguments, taken in the spirit and not in the letter, are our arguments; and
Socrates by anticipation may be even thought to refute some 'eccentric notions;
current in our own age. For there are philosophers among ourselves who do not
seem to understand how much stronger is the power of intelligence, or of the
best, than of Atlas, or mechanical force. How far the words attributed to
Socrates were actually uttered by him we forbear to ask; for no answer can be
given to this question. And it is better to resign ourselves to the feeling of a
great work, than to linger among critical uncertainties.
PHAEDO
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE:
Phaedo, who is the narrator of the dialogue to Echecrates of Phlius.
Socrates, Apollodorus, Simmias, Cebes, Crito and an Attendant of the Prison.
SCENE: The Prison of Socrates.
PLACE OF THE NARRATION: Phlius.
ECHECRATES: Were you yourself, Phaedo, in the prison with Socrates on the day
when he drank the poison?
PHAEDO: Yes, Echecrates, I was.
ECHECRATES: I should so like to hear about his death. What did he say in his
last hours? We were informed that he died by taking poison, but no one knew
anything more; for no Phliasian ever goes to Athens now, and it is a long time
since any stranger from Athens has found his way hither; so that we had no clear
account.
PHAEDO: Did you not hear of the proceedings at the trial?
ECHECRATES: Yes; some one told us about the trial, and we could not
understand why, having been condemned, he should have been put to death, not at
the time, but long afterwards. What was the reason of this?
PHAEDO: An accident, Echecrates: the stern of the ship which the Athenians
send to Delos happened to have been crowned on the day before he was tried.
ECHECRATES: What is this ship?
PHAEDO: It is the ship in which, according to Athenian tradition, Theseus
went to Crete when he took with him the fourteen youths, and was the saviour of
them and of himself. And they were said to have vowed to Apollo at the time,
that if they were saved they would send a yearly mission to Delos. Now this
custom still continues, and the whole period of the voyage to and from Delos,
beginning when the priest of Apollo crowns the stern of the ship, is a holy
season, during which the city is not allowed to be polluted by public
executions; and when the vessel is detained by contrary winds, the time spent in
going and returning is very considerable. As I was saying, the ship was crowned
on the day before the trial, and this was the reason why Socrates lay in prison
and was not put to death until long after he was condemned.
ECHECRATES: What was the manner of his death, Phaedo? What was said or done?
And which of his friends were with him? Or did the authorities forbid them to be
present—so that he had no friends near him when he died?
PHAEDO: No; there were several of them with him.
ECHECRATES: If you have nothing to do, I wish that you would tell me what
passed, as exactly as you can.
PHAEDO: I have nothing at all to do, and will try to gratify your wish. To be
reminded of Socrates is always the greatest delight to me, whether I speak
myself or hear another speak of him.
ECHECRATES: You will have listeners who are of the same mind with you, and I
hope that you will be as exact as you can.
PHAEDO: I had a singular feeling at being in his company. For I could hardly
believe that I was present at the death of a friend, and therefore I did not
pity him, Echecrates; he died so fearlessly, and his words and bearing were so
noble and gracious, that to me he appeared blessed. I thought that in going to
the other world he could not be without a divine call, and that he would be
happy, if any man ever was, when he arrived there, and therefore I did not pity
him as might have seemed natural at such an hour. But I had not the pleasure
which I usually feel in philosophical discourse (for philosophy was the theme of
which we spoke). I was pleased, but in the pleasure there was also a strange
admixture of pain; for I reflected that he was soon to die, and this double
feeling was shared by us all; we were laughing and weeping by turns, especially
the excitable Apollodorus—you know the sort of man?
ECHECRATES: Yes.
PHAEDO: He was quite beside himself; and I and all of us were greatly moved.
ECHECRATES: Who were present?
PHAEDO: Of native Athenians there were, besides Apollodorus, Critobulus and
his father Crito, Hermogenes, Epigenes, Aeschines, Antisthenes; likewise
Ctesippus of the deme of Paeania, Menexenus, and some others; Plato, if I am not
mistaken, was ill.
ECHECRATES: Were there any strangers?
PHAEDO: Yes, there were; Simmias the Theban, and Cebes, and Phaedondes;
Euclid and Terpison, who came from Megara.
ECHECRATES: And was Aristippus there, and Cleombrotus?
PHAEDO: No, they were said to be in Aegina.
ECHECRATES: Any one else?
PHAEDO: I think that these were nearly all.
ECHECRATES: Well, and what did you talk about?
PHAEDO: I will begin at the beginning, and endeavour to repeat the entire
conversation. On the previous days we had been in the habit of assembling early
in the morning at the court in which the trial took place, and which is not far
from the prison. There we used to wait talking with one another until the
opening of the doors (for they were not opened very early); then we went in and
generally passed the day with Socrates. On the last morning we assembled sooner
than usual, having heard on the day before when we quitted the prison in the
evening that the sacred ship had come from Delos, and so we arranged to meet
very early at the accustomed place. On our arrival the jailer who answered the
door, instead of admitting us, came out and told us to stay until he called us.
'For the Eleven,' he said, 'are now with Socrates; they are taking off his
chains, and giving orders that he is to die to-day.' He soon returned and said
that we might come in. On entering we found Socrates just released from chains,
and Xanthippe, whom you know, sitting by him, and holding his child in her arms.
When she saw us she uttered a cry and said, as women will: 'O Socrates, this is
the last time that either you will converse with your friends, or they with
you.' Socrates turned to Crito and said: 'Crito, let some one take her home.'
Some of Crito's people accordingly led her away, crying out and beating herself.
And when she was gone, Socrates, sitting up on the couch, bent and rubbed his
leg, saying, as he was rubbing: How singular is the thing called pleasure, and
how curiously related to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it;
for they are never present to a man at the same instant, and yet he who pursues
either is generally compelled to take the other; their bodies are two, but they
are joined by a single head. And I cannot help thinking that if Aesop had
remembered them, he would have made a fable about God trying to reconcile their
strife, and how, when he could not, he fastened their heads together; and this
is the reason why when one comes the other follows, as I know by my own
experience now, when after the pain in my leg which was caused by the chain
pleasure appears to succeed.
Upon this Cebes said: I am glad, Socrates, that you have mentioned the name
of Aesop. For it reminds me of a question which has been asked by many, and was
asked of me only the day before yesterday by Evenus the poet—he will be sure to
ask it again, and therefore if you would like me to have an answer ready for
him, you may as well tell me what I should say to him:—he wanted to know why
you, who never before wrote a line of poetry, now that you are in prison are
turning Aesop's fables into verse, and also composing that hymn in honour of
Apollo.
Tell him, Cebes, he replied, what is the truth—that I had no idea of
rivalling him or his poems; to do so, as I knew, would be no easy task. But I
wanted to see whether I could purge away a scruple which I felt about the
meaning of certain dreams. In the course of my life I have often had intimations
in dreams 'that I should compose music.' The same dream came to me sometimes in
one form, and sometimes in another, but always saying the same or nearly the
same words: 'Cultivate and make music,' said the dream. And hitherto I had
imagined that this was only intended to exhort and encourage me in the study of
philosophy, which has been the pursuit of my life, and is the noblest and best
of music. The dream was bidding me do what I was already doing, in the same way
that the competitor in a race is bidden by the spectators to run when he is
already running. But I was not certain of this, for the dream might have meant
music in the popular sense of the word, and being under sentence of death, and
the festival giving me a respite, I thought that it would be safer for me to
satisfy the scruple, and, in obedience to the dream, to compose a few verses
before I departed. And first I made a hymn in honour of the god of the festival,
and then considering that a poet, if he is really to be a poet, should not only
put together words, but should invent stories, and that I have no invention, I
took some fables of Aesop, which I had ready at hand and which I knew—they were
the first I came upon—and turned them into verse. Tell this to Evenus, Cebes,
and bid him be of good cheer; say that I would have him come after me if he be a
wise man, and not tarry; and that to-day I am likely to be going, for the
Athenians say that I must.
Simmias said: What a message for such a man! having been a frequent companion
of his I should say that, as far as I know him, he will never take your advice
unless he is obliged.
Why, said Socrates,—is not Evenus a philosopher?
I think that he is, said Simmias.
Then he, or any man who has the spirit of philosophy, will be willing to die,
but he will not take his own life, for that is held to be unlawful.
Here he changed his position, and put his legs off the couch on to the
ground, and during the rest of the conversation he remained sitting.
Why do you say, enquired Cebes, that a man ought not to take his own life,
but that the philosopher will be ready to follow the dying?
Socrates replied: And have you, Cebes and Simmias, who are the disciples of
Philolaus, never heard him speak of this?
Yes, but his language was obscure, Socrates.
My words, too, are only an echo; but there is no reason why I should not
repeat what I have heard: and indeed, as I am going to another place, it is very
meet for me to be thinking and talking of the nature of the pilgrimage which I
am about to make. What can I do better in the interval between this and the
setting of the sun?
Then tell me, Socrates, why is suicide held to be unlawful? as I have
certainly heard Philolaus, about whom you were just now asking, affirm when he
was staying with us at Thebes: and there are others who say the same, although I
have never understood what was meant by any of them.
Do not lose heart, replied Socrates, and the day may come when you will
understand. I suppose that you wonder why, when other things which are evil may
be good at certain times and to certain persons, death is to be the only
exception, and why, when a man is better dead, he is not permitted to be his own
benefactor, but must wait for the hand of another.
Very true, said Cebes, laughing gently and speaking in his native Boeotian.
I admit the appearance of inconsistency in what I am saying; but there may
not be any real inconsistency after all. There is a doctrine whispered in secret
that man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door and run away; this is a
great mystery which I do not quite understand. Yet I too believe that the gods
are our guardians, and that we are a possession of theirs. Do you not agree?
Yes, I quite agree, said Cebes.
And if one of your own possessions, an ox or an ass, for example, took the
liberty of putting himself out of the way when you had given no intimation of
your wish that he should die, would you not be angry with him, and would you not
punish him if you could?
Certainly, replied Cebes.
Then, if we look at the matter thus, there may be reason in saying that a man
should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him, as he is now
summoning me.
Yes, Socrates, said Cebes, there seems to be truth in what you say. And yet
how can you reconcile this seemingly true belief that God is our guardian and we
his possessions, with the willingness to die which we were just now attributing
to the philosopher? That the wisest of men should be willing to leave a service
in which they are ruled by the gods who are the best of rulers, is not
reasonable; for surely no wise man thinks that when set at liberty he can take
better care of himself than the gods take of him. A fool may perhaps think so—he
may argue that he had better run away from his master, not considering that his
duty is to remain to the end, and not to run away from the good, and that there
would be no sense in his running away. The wise man will want to be ever with
him who is better than himself. Now this, Socrates, is the reverse of what was
just now said; for upon this view the wise man should sorrow and the fool
rejoice at passing out of life.
The earnestness of Cebes seemed to please Socrates. Here, said he, turning to
us, is a man who is always inquiring, and is not so easily convinced by the
first thing which he hears.
And certainly, added Simmias, the objection which he is now making does
appear to me to have some force. For what can be the meaning of a truly wise man
wanting to fly away and lightly leave a master who is better than himself? And I
rather imagine that Cebes is referring to you; he thinks that you are too ready
to leave us, and too ready to leave the gods whom you acknowledge to be our good
masters.
Yes, replied Socrates; there is reason in what you say. And so you think that
I ought to answer your indictment as if I were in a court?
We should like you to do so, said Simmias.
Then I must try to make a more successful defence before you than I did when
before the judges. For I am quite ready to admit, Simmias and Cebes, that I
ought to be grieved at death, if I were not persuaded in the first place that I
am going to other gods who are wise and good (of which I am as certain as I can
be of any such matters), and secondly (though I am not so sure of this last) to
men departed, better than those whom I leave behind; and therefore I do not
grieve as I might have done, for I have good hope that there is yet something
remaining for the dead, and as has been said of old, some far better thing for
the good than for the evil.
But do you mean to take away your thoughts with you, Socrates? said Simmias.
Will you not impart them to us?—for they are a benefit in which we too are
entitled to share. Moreover, if you succeed in convincing us, that will be an
answer to the charge against yourself.
I will do my best, replied Socrates. But you must first let me hear what
Crito wants; he has long been wishing to say something to me.
Only this, Socrates, replied Crito:—the attendant who is to give you the
poison has been telling me, and he wants me to tell you, that you are not to
talk much, talking, he says, increases heat, and this is apt to interfere with
the action of the poison; persons who excite themselves are sometimes obliged to
take a second or even a third dose.
Then, said Socrates, let him mind his business and be prepared to give the
poison twice or even thrice if necessary; that is all.
I knew quite well what you would say, replied Crito; but I was obliged to
satisfy him.
Never mind him, he said.
And now, O my judges, I desire to prove to you that the real philosopher has
reason to be of good cheer when he is about to die, and that after death he may
hope to obtain the greatest good in the other world. And how this may be,
Simmias and Cebes, I will endeavour to explain. For I deem that the true votary
of philosophy is likely to be misunderstood by other men; they do not perceive
that he is always pursuing death and dying; and if this be so, and he has had
the desire of death all his life long, why when his time comes should he repine
at that which he has been always pursuing and desiring?
Simmias said laughingly: Though not in a laughing humour, you have made me
laugh, Socrates; for I cannot help thinking that the many when they hear your
words will say how truly you have described philosophers, and our people at home
will likewise say that the life which philosophers desire is in reality death,
and that they have found them out to be deserving of the death which they
desire.
And they are right, Simmias, in thinking so, with the exception of the words
'they have found them out'; for they have not found out either what is the
nature of that death which the true philosopher deserves, or how he deserves or
desires death. But enough of them:—let us discuss the matter among ourselves: Do
we believe that there is such a thing as death?
To be sure, replied Simmias.
Is it not the separation of soul and body? And to be dead is the completion
of this; when the soul exists in herself, and is released from the body and the
body is released from the soul, what is this but death?
Just so, he replied.
There is another question, which will probably throw light on our present
inquiry if you and I can agree about it:—Ought the philosopher to care about the
pleasures—if they are to be called pleasures—of eating and drinking?
Certainly not, answered Simmias.
And what about the pleasures of love—should he care for them?
By no means.
And will he think much of the other ways of indulging the body, for example,
the acquisition of costly raiment, or sandals, or other adornments of the body?
Instead of caring about them, does he not rather despise anything more than
nature needs? What do you say?
I should say that the true philosopher would despise them.
Would you not say that he is entirely concerned with the soul and not with
the body? He would like, as far as he can, to get away from the body and to turn
to the soul.
Quite true.
In matters of this sort philosophers, above all other men, may be observed in
every sort of way to dissever the soul from the communion of the body.
Very true.
Whereas, Simmias, the rest of the world are of opinion that to him who has no
sense of pleasure and no part in bodily pleasure, life is not worth having; and
that he who is indifferent about them is as good as dead.
That is also true.
What again shall we say of the actual acquirement of knowledge?—is the body,
if invited to share in the enquiry, a hinderer or a helper? I mean to say, have
sight and hearing any truth in them? Are they not, as the poets are always
telling us, inaccurate witnesses? and yet, if even they are inaccurate and
indistinct, what is to be said of the other senses?—for you will allow that they
are the best of them?
Certainly, he replied.
Then when does the soul attain truth?—for in attempting to consider anything
in company with the body she is obviously deceived.
True.
Then must not true existence be revealed to her in thought, if at all?
Yes.
And thought is best when the mind is gathered into herself and none of these
things trouble her—neither sounds nor sights nor pain nor any pleasure,—when she
takes leave of the body, and has as little as possible to do with it, when she
has no bodily sense or desire, but is aspiring after true being?
Certainly.
And in this the philosopher dishonours the body; his soul runs away from his
body and desires to be alone and by herself?
That is true.
Well, but there is another thing, Simmias: Is there or is there not an
absolute justice?
Assuredly there is.
And an absolute beauty and absolute good?
Of course.
But did you ever behold any of them with your eyes?
Certainly not.
Or did you ever reach them with any other bodily sense?—and I speak not of
these alone, but of absolute greatness, and health, and strength, and of the
essence or true nature of everything. Has the reality of them ever been
perceived by you through the bodily organs? or rather, is not the nearest
approach to the knowledge of their several natures made by him who so orders his
intellectual vision as to have the most exact conception of the essence of each
thing which he considers?
Certainly.
And he attains to the purest knowledge of them who goes to each with the mind
alone, not introducing or intruding in the act of thought sight or any other
sense together with reason, but with the very light of the mind in her own
clearness searches into the very truth of each; he who has got rid, as far as he
can, of eyes and ears and, so to speak, of the whole body, these being in his
opinion distracting elements which when they infect the soul hinder her from
acquiring truth and knowledge—who, if not he, is likely to attain the knowledge
of true being?
What you say has a wonderful truth in it, Socrates, replied Simmias.
And when real philosophers consider all these things, will they not be led to
make a reflection which they will express in words something like the following?
'Have we not found,' they will say, 'a path of thought which seems to bring us
and our argument to the conclusion, that while we are in the body, and while the
soul is infected with the evils of the body, our desire will not be satisfied?
and our desire is of the truth. For the body is a source of endless trouble to
us by reason of the mere requirement of food; and is liable also to diseases
which overtake and impede us in the search after true being: it fills us full of
loves, and lusts, and fears, and fancies of all kinds, and endless foolery, and
in fact, as men say, takes away from us the power of thinking at all. Whence
come wars, and fightings, and factions? whence but from the body and the lusts
of the body? wars are occasioned by the love of money, and money has to be
acquired for the sake and in the service of the body; and by reason of all these
impediments we have no time to give to philosophy; and, last and worst of all,
even if we are at leisure and betake ourselves to some speculation, the body is
always breaking in upon us, causing turmoil and confusion in our enquiries, and
so amazing us that we are prevented from seeing the truth. It has been proved to
us by experience that if we would have pure knowledge of anything we must be
quit of the body—the soul in herself must behold things in themselves: and then
we shall attain the wisdom which we desire, and of which we say that we are
lovers, not while we live, but after death; for if while in company with the
body, the soul cannot have pure knowledge, one of two things follows—either
knowledge is not to be attained at all, or, if at all, after death. For then,
and not till then, the soul will be parted from the body and exist in herself
alone. In this present life, I reckon that we make the nearest approach to
knowledge when we have the least possible intercourse or communion with the
body, and are not surfeited with the bodily nature, but keep ourselves pure
until the hour when God himself is pleased to release us. And thus having got
rid of the foolishness of the body we shall be pure and hold converse with the
pure, and know of ourselves the clear light everywhere, which is no other than
the light of truth.' For the impure are not permitted to approach the pure.
These are the sort of words, Simmias, which the true lovers of knowledge cannot
help saying to one another, and thinking. You would agree; would you not?
Undoubtedly, Socrates.
But, O my friend, if this is true, there is great reason to hope that, going
whither I go, when I have come to the end of my journey, I shall attain that
which has been the pursuit of my life. And therefore I go on my way rejoicing,
and not I only, but every other man who believes that his mind has been made
ready and that he is in a manner purified.
Certainly, replied Simmias.
And what is purification but the separation of the soul from the body, as I
was saying before; the habit of the soul gathering and collecting herself into
herself from all sides out of the body; the dwelling in her own place alone, as
in another life, so also in this, as far as she can;—the release of the soul
from the chains of the body?
Very true, he said.
And this separation and release of the soul from the body is termed death?
To be sure, he said.
And the true philosophers, and they only, are ever seeking to release the
soul. Is not the separation and release of the soul from the body their especial
study?
That is true.
And, as I was saying at first, there would be a ridiculous contradiction in
men studying to live as nearly as they can in a state of death, and yet repining
when it comes upon them.
Clearly.
And the true philosophers, Simmias, are always occupied in the practice of
dying, wherefore also to them least of all men is death terrible. Look at the
matter thus:—if they have been in every way the enemies of the body, and are
wanting to be alone with the soul, when this desire of theirs is granted, how
inconsistent would they be if they trembled and repined, instead of rejoicing at
their departure to that place where, when they arrive, they hope to gain that
which in life they desired—and this was wisdom—and at the same time to be rid of
the company of their enemy. Many a man has been willing to go to the world below
animated by the hope of seeing there an earthly love, or wife, or son, and
conversing with them. And will he who is a true lover of wisdom, and is strongly
persuaded in like manner that only in the world below he can worthily enjoy her,
still repine at death? Will he not depart with joy? Surely he will, O my friend,
if he be a true philosopher. For he will have a firm conviction that there and
there only, he can find wisdom in her purity. And if this be true, he would be
very absurd, as I was saying, if he were afraid of death.
He would, indeed, replied Simmias.
And when you see a man who is repining at the approach of death, is not his
reluctance a sufficient proof that he is not a lover of wisdom, but a lover of
the body, and probably at the same time a lover of either money or power, or
both?
Quite so, he replied.
And is not courage, Simmias, a quality which is specially characteristic of
the philosopher?
Certainly.
There is temperance again, which even by the vulgar is supposed to consist in
the control and regulation of the passions, and in the sense of superiority to
them—is not temperance a virtue belonging to those only who despise the body,
and who pass their lives in philosophy?
Most assuredly.
For the courage and temperance of other men, if you will consider them, are
really a contradiction.
How so?
Well, he said, you are aware that death is regarded by men in general as a
great evil.
Very true, he said.
And do not courageous men face death because they are afraid of yet greater
evils?
That is quite true.
Then all but the philosophers are courageous only from fear, and because they
are afraid; and yet that a man should be courageous from fear, and because he is
a coward, is surely a strange thing.
Very true.
And are not the temperate exactly in the same case? They are temperate
because they are intemperate—which might seem to be a contradiction, but is
nevertheless the sort of thing which happens with this foolish temperance. For
there are pleasures which they are afraid of losing; and in their desire to keep
them, they abstain from some pleasures, because they are overcome by others; and
although to be conquered by pleasure is called by men intemperance, to them the
conquest of pleasure consists in being conquered by pleasure. And that is what I
mean by saying that, in a sense, they are made temperate through intemperance.
Such appears to be the case.
Yet the exchange of one fear or pleasure or pain for another fear or pleasure
or pain, and of the greater for the less, as if they were coins, is not the
exchange of virtue. O my blessed Simmias, is there not one true coin for which
all things ought to be exchanged?—and that is wisdom; and only in exchange for
this, and in company with this, is anything truly bought or sold, whether
courage or temperance or justice. And is not all true virtue the companion of
wisdom, no matter what fears or pleasures or other similar goods or evils may or
may not attend her? But the virtue which is made up of these goods, when they
are severed from wisdom and exchanged with one another, is a shadow of virtue
only, nor is there any freedom or health or truth in her; but in the true
exchange there is a purging away of all these things, and temperance, and
justice, and courage, and wisdom herself are the purgation of them. The founders
of the mysteries would appear to have had a real meaning, and were not talking
nonsense when they intimated in a figure long ago that he who passes
unsanctified and uninitiated into the world below will lie in a slough, but that
he who arrives there after initiation and purification will dwell with the gods.
For 'many,' as they say in the mysteries, 'are the thyrsus-bearers, but few are
the mystics,'—meaning, as I interpret the words, 'the true philosophers.' In the
number of whom, during my whole life, I have been seeking, according to my
ability, to find a place;—whether I have sought in a right way or not, and
whether I have succeeded or not, I shall truly know in a little while, if God
will, when I myself arrive in the other world—such is my belief. And therefore I
maintain that I am right, Simmias and Cebes, in not grieving or repining at
parting from you and my masters in this world, for I believe that I shall
equally find good masters and friends in another world. But most men do not
believe this saying; if then I succeed in convincing you by my defence better
than I did the Athenian judges, it will be well.
Cebes answered: I agree, Socrates, in the greater part of what you say. But
in what concerns the soul, men are apt to be incredulous; they fear that when
she has left the body her place may be nowhere, and that on the very day of
death she may perish and come to an end—immediately on her release from the
body, issuing forth dispersed like smoke or air and in her flight vanishing away
into nothingness. If she could only be collected into herself after she has
obtained release from the evils of which you are speaking, there would be good
reason to hope, Socrates, that what you say is true. But surely it requires a
great deal of argument and many proofs to show that when the man is dead his
soul yet exists, and has any force or intelligence.
True, Cebes, said Socrates; and shall I suggest that we converse a little of
the probabilities of these things?
I am sure, said Cebes, that I should greatly like to know your opinion about
them.
I reckon, said Socrates, that no one who heard me now, not even if he were
one of my old enemies, the Comic poets, could accuse me of idle talking about
matters in which I have no concern:—If you please, then, we will proceed with
the inquiry.
Suppose we consider the question whether the souls of men after death are or
are not in the world below. There comes into my mind an ancient doctrine which
affirms that they go from hence into the other world, and returning hither, are
born again from the dead. Now if it be true that the living come from the dead,
then our souls must exist in the other world, for if not, how could they have
been born again? And this would be conclusive, if there were any real evidence
that the living are only born from the dead; but if this is not so, then other
arguments will have to be adduced.
Very true, replied Cebes.
Then let us consider the whole question, not in relation to man only, but in
relation to animals generally, and to plants, and to everything of which there
is generation, and the proof will be easier. Are not all things which have
opposites generated out of their opposites? I mean such things as good and evil,
just and unjust—and there are innumerable other opposites which are generated
out of opposites. And I want to show that in all opposites there is of necessity
a similar alternation; I mean to say, for example, that anything which becomes
greater must become greater after being less.
True.
And that which becomes less must have been once greater and then have become
less.
Yes.
And the weaker is generated from the stronger, and the swifter from the
slower.
Very true.
And the worse is from the better, and the more just is from the more unjust.
Of course.
And is this true of all opposites? and are we convinced that all of them are
generated out of opposites?
Yes.
And in this universal opposition of all things, are there not also two
intermediate processes which are ever going on, from one to the other opposite,
and back again; where there is a greater and a less there is also an
intermediate process of increase and diminution, and that which grows is said to
wax, and that which decays to wane?
Yes, he said.
And there are many other processes, such as division and composition, cooling
and heating, which equally involve a passage into and out of one another. And
this necessarily holds of all opposites, even though not always expressed in
words—they are really generated out of one another, and there is a passing or
process from one to the other of them?
Very true, he replied.
Well, and is there not an opposite of life, as sleep is the opposite of
waking?
True, he said.
And what is it?
Death, he answered.
And these, if they are opposites, are generated the one from the other, and
have there their two intermediate processes also?
Of course.
Now, said Socrates, I will analyze one of the two pairs of opposites which I
have mentioned to you, and also its intermediate processes, and you shall
analyze the other to me. One of them I term sleep, the other waking. The state
of sleep is opposed to the state of waking, and out of sleeping waking is
generated, and out of waking, sleeping; and the process of generation is in the
one case falling asleep, and in the other waking up. Do you agree?
I entirely agree.
Then, suppose that you analyze life and death to me in the same manner. Is
not death opposed to life?
Yes.
And they are generated one from the other?
Yes.
What is generated from the living?
The dead.
And what from the dead?
I can only say in answer—the living.
Then the living, whether things or persons, Cebes, are generated from the
dead?
That is clear, he replied.
Then the inference is that our souls exist in the world below?
That is true.
And one of the two processes or generations is visible—for surely the act of
dying is visible?
Surely, he said.
What then is to be the result? Shall we exclude the opposite process? And
shall we suppose nature to walk on one leg only? Must we not rather assign to
death some corresponding process of generation?
Certainly, he replied.
And what is that process?
Return to life.
And return to life, if there be such a thing, is the birth of the dead into
the world of the living?
Quite true.
Then here is a new way by which we arrive at the conclusion that the living
come from the dead, just as the dead come from the living; and this, if true,
affords a most certain proof that the souls of the dead exist in some place out
of which they come again.
Yes, Socrates, he said; the conclusion seems to flow necessarily out of our
previous admissions.
And that these admissions were not unfair, Cebes, he said, may be shown, I
think, as follows: If generation were in a straight line only, and there were no
compensation or circle in nature, no turn or return of elements into their
opposites, then you know that all things would at last have the same form and
pass into the same state, and there would be no more generation of them.
What do you mean? he said.
A simple thing enough, which I will illustrate by the case of sleep, he
replied. You know that if there were no alternation of sleeping and waking, the
tale of the sleeping Endymion would in the end have no meaning, because all
other things would be asleep, too, and he would not be distinguishable from the
rest. Or if there were composition only, and no division of substances, then the
chaos of Anaxagoras would come again. And in like manner, my dear Cebes, if all
things which partook of life were to die, and after they were dead remained in
the form of death, and did not come to life again, all would at last die, and
nothing would be alive—what other result could there be? For if the living
spring from any other things, and they too die, must not all things at last be
swallowed up in death? (But compare Republic.)
There is no escape, Socrates, said Cebes; and to me your argument seems to be
absolutely true.
Yes, he said, Cebes, it is and must be so, in my opinion; and we have not
been deluded in making these admissions; but I am confident that there truly is
such a thing as living again, and that the living spring from the dead, and that
the souls of the dead are in existence, and that the good souls have a better
portion than the evil.
Cebes added: Your favorite doctrine, Socrates, that knowledge is simply
recollection, if true, also necessarily implies a previous time in which we have
learned that which we now recollect. But this would be impossible unless our
soul had been in some place before existing in the form of man; here then is
another proof of the soul's immortality.
But tell me, Cebes, said Simmias, interposing, what arguments are urged in
favour of this doctrine of recollection. I am not very sure at the moment that I
remember them.
One excellent proof, said Cebes, is afforded by questions. If you put a
question to a person in a right way, he will give a true answer of himself, but
how could he do this unless there were knowledge and right reason already in
him? And this is most clearly shown when he is taken to a diagram or to anything
of that sort. (Compare Meno.)
But if, said Socrates, you are still incredulous, Simmias, I would ask you
whether you may not agree with me when you look at the matter in another way;—I
mean, if you are still incredulous as to whether knowledge is recollection.
Incredulous, I am not, said Simmias; but I want to have this doctrine of
recollection brought to my own recollection, and, from what Cebes has said, I am
beginning to recollect and be convinced; but I should still like to hear what
you were going to say.
This is what I would say, he replied:—We should agree, if I am not mistaken,
that what a man recollects he must have known at some previous time.
Very true.
And what is the nature of this knowledge or recollection? I mean to ask,
Whether a person who, having seen or heard or in any way perceived anything,
knows not only that, but has a conception of something else which is the
subject, not of the same but of some other kind of knowledge, may not be fairly
said to recollect that of which he has the conception?
What do you mean?
I mean what I may illustrate by the following instance:—The knowledge of a
lyre is not the same as the knowledge of a man?
True.
And yet what is the feeling of lovers when they recognize a lyre, or a
garment, or anything else which the beloved has been in the habit of using? Do
not they, from knowing the lyre, form in the mind's eye an image of the youth to
whom the lyre belongs? And this is recollection. In like manner any one who sees
Simmias may remember Cebes; and there are endless examples of the same thing.
Endless, indeed, replied Simmias.
And recollection is most commonly a process of recovering that which has been
already forgotten through time and inattention.
Very true, he said.
Well; and may you not also from seeing the picture of a horse or a lyre
remember a man? and from the picture of Simmias, you may be led to remember
Cebes?
True.
Or you may also be led to the recollection of Simmias himself?
Quite so.
And in all these cases, the recollection may be derived from things either
like or unlike?
It may be.
And when the recollection is derived from like things, then another
consideration is sure to arise, which is—whether the likeness in any degree
falls short or not of that which is recollected?
Very true, he said.
And shall we proceed a step further, and affirm that there is such a thing as
equality, not of one piece of wood or stone with another, but that, over and
above this, there is absolute equality? Shall we say so?
Say so, yes, replied Simmias, and swear to it, with all the confidence in
life.
And do we know the nature of this absolute essence?
To be sure, he said.
And whence did we obtain our knowledge? Did we not see equalities of material
things, such as pieces of wood and stones, and gather from them the idea of an
equality which is different from them? For you will acknowledge that there is a
difference. Or look at the matter in another way:—Do not the same pieces of wood
or stone appear at one time equal, and at another time unequal?
That is certain.
But are real equals ever unequal? or is the idea of equality the same as of
inequality?
Impossible, Socrates.
Then these (so-called) equals are not the same with the idea of equality?
I should say, clearly not, Socrates.
And yet from these equals, although differing from the idea of equality, you
conceived and attained that idea?
Very true, he said.
Which might be like, or might be unlike them?
Yes.
But that makes no difference; whenever from seeing one thing you conceived
another, whether like or unlike, there must surely have been an act of
recollection?
Very true.
But what would you say of equal portions of wood and stone, or other material
equals? and what is the impression produced by them? Are they equals in the same
sense in which absolute equality is equal? or do they fall short of this perfect
equality in a measure?
Yes, he said, in a very great measure too.
And must we not allow, that when I or any one, looking at any object,
observes that the thing which he sees aims at being some other thing, but falls
short of, and cannot be, that other thing, but is inferior, he who makes this
observation must have had a previous knowledge of that to which the other,
although similar, was inferior?
Certainly.
And has not this been our own case in the matter of equals and of absolute
equality?
Precisely.
Then we must have known equality previously to the time when we first saw the
material equals, and reflected that all these apparent equals strive to attain
absolute equality, but fall short of it?
Very true.
And we recognize also that this absolute equality has only been known, and
can only be known, through the medium of sight or touch, or of some other of the
senses, which are all alike in this respect?
Yes, Socrates, as far as the argument is concerned, one of them is the same
as the other.
From the senses then is derived the knowledge that all sensible things aim at
an absolute equality of which they fall short?
Yes.
Then before we began to see or hear or perceive in any way, we must have had
a knowledge of absolute equality, or we could not have referred to that standard
the equals which are derived from the senses?—for to that they all aspire, and
of that they fall short.
No other inference can be drawn from the previous statements.
And did we not see and hear and have the use of our other senses as soon as
we were born?
Certainly.
Then we must have acquired the knowledge of equality at some previous time?
Yes.
That is to say, before we were born, I suppose?
True.
And if we acquired this knowledge before we were born, and were born having
the use of it, then we also knew before we were born and at the instant of birth
not only the equal or the greater or the less, but all other ideas; for we are
not speaking only of equality, but of beauty, goodness, justice, holiness, and
of all which we stamp with the name of essence in the dialectical process, both
when we ask and when we answer questions. Of all this we may certainly affirm
that we acquired the knowledge before birth?
We may.
But if, after having acquired, we have not forgotten what in each case we
acquired, then we must always have come into life having knowledge, and shall
always continue to know as long as life lasts—for knowing is the acquiring and
retaining knowledge and not forgetting. Is not forgetting, Simmias, just the
losing of knowledge?
Quite true, Socrates.
But if the knowledge which we acquired before birth was lost by us at birth,
and if afterwards by the use of the senses we recovered what we previously knew,
will not the process which we call learning be a recovering of the knowledge
which is natural to us, and may not this be rightly termed recollection?
Very true.
So much is clear—that when we perceive something, either by the help of
sight, or hearing, or some other sense, from that perception we are able to
obtain a notion of some other thing like or unlike which is associated with it
but has been forgotten. Whence, as I was saying, one of two alternatives
follows:—either we had this knowledge at birth, and continued to know through
life; or, after birth, those who are said to learn only remember, and learning
is simply recollection.
Yes, that is quite true, Socrates.
And which alternative, Simmias, do you prefer? Had we the knowledge at our
birth, or did we recollect the things which we knew previously to our birth?
I cannot decide at the moment.
At any rate you can decide whether he who has knowledge will or will not be
able to render an account of his knowledge? What do you say?
Certainly, he will.
But do you think that every man is able to give an account of these very
matters about which we are speaking?
Would that they could, Socrates, but I rather fear that to-morrow, at this
time, there will no longer be any one alive who is able to give an account of
them such as ought to be given.
Then you are not of opinion, Simmias, that all men know these things?
Certainly not.
They are in process of recollecting that which they learned before?
Certainly.
But when did our souls acquire this knowledge?—not since we were born as men?
Certainly not.
And therefore, previously?
Yes.
Then, Simmias, our souls must also have existed without bodies before they
were in the form of man, and must have had intelligence.
Unless indeed you suppose, Socrates, that these notions are given us at the
very moment of birth; for this is the only time which remains.
Yes, my friend, but if so, when do we lose them? for they are not in us when
we are born—that is admitted. Do we lose them at the moment of receiving them,
or if not at what other time?
No, Socrates, I perceive that I was unconsciously talking nonsense.
Then may we not say, Simmias, that if, as we are always repeating, there is
an absolute beauty, and goodness, and an absolute essence of all things; and if
to this, which is now discovered to have existed in our former state, we refer
all our sensations, and with this compare them, finding these ideas to be
pre-existent and our inborn possession—then our souls must have had a prior
existence, but if not, there would be no force in the argument? There is the
same proof that these ideas must have existed before we were born, as that our
souls existed before we were born; and if not the ideas, then not the souls.
Yes, Socrates; I am convinced that there is precisely the same necessity for
the one as for the other; and the argument retreats successfully to the position
that the existence of the soul before birth cannot be separated from the
existence of the essence of which you speak. For there is nothing which to my
mind is so patent as that beauty, goodness, and the other notions of which you
were just now speaking, have a most real and absolute existence; and I am
satisfied with the proof.
Well, but is Cebes equally satisfied? for I must convince him too.
I think, said Simmias, that Cebes is satisfied: although he is the most
incredulous of mortals, yet I believe that he is sufficiently convinced of the
existence of the soul before birth. But that after death the soul will continue
to exist is not yet proven even to my own satisfaction. I cannot get rid of the
feeling of the many to which Cebes was referring—the feeling that when the man
dies the soul will be dispersed, and that this may be the extinction of her. For
admitting that she may have been born elsewhere, and framed out of other
elements, and was in existence before entering the human body, why after having
entered in and gone out again may she not herself be destroyed and come to an
end?
Very true, Simmias, said Cebes; about half of what was required has been
proven; to wit, that our souls existed before we were born:—that the soul will
exist after death as well as before birth is the other half of which the proof
is still wanting, and has to be supplied; when that is given the demonstration
will be complete.
But that proof, Simmias and Cebes, has been already given, said Socrates, if
you put the two arguments together—I mean this and the former one, in which we
admitted that everything living is born of the dead. For if the soul exists
before birth, and in coming to life and being born can be born only from death
and dying, must she not after death continue to exist, since she has to be born
again?—Surely the proof which you desire has been already furnished. Still I
suspect that you and Simmias would be glad to probe the argument further. Like
children, you are haunted with a fear that when the soul leaves the body, the
wind may really blow her away and scatter her; especially if a man should happen
to die in a great storm and not when the sky is calm.
Cebes answered with a smile: Then, Socrates, you must argue us out of our
fears—and yet, strictly speaking, they are not our fears, but there is a child
within us to whom death is a sort of hobgoblin; him too we must persuade not to
be afraid when he is alone in the dark.
Socrates said: Let the voice of the charmer be applied daily until you have
charmed away the fear.
And where shall we find a good charmer of our fears, Socrates, when you are
gone?
Hellas, he replied, is a large place, Cebes, and has many good men, and there
are barbarous races not a few: seek for him among them all, far and wide,
sparing neither pains nor money; for there is no better way of spending your
money. And you must seek among yourselves too; for you will not find others
better able to make the search.
The search, replied Cebes, shall certainly be made. And now, if you please,
let us return to the point of the argument at which we digressed.
By all means, replied Socrates; what else should I please?
Very good.
Must we not, said Socrates, ask ourselves what that is which, as we imagine,
is liable to be scattered, and about which we fear? and what again is that about
which we have no fear? And then we may proceed further to enquire whether that
which suffers dispersion is or is not of the nature of soul—our hopes and fears
as to our own souls will turn upon the answers to these questions.
Very true, he said.
Now the compound or composite may be supposed to be naturally capable, as of
being compounded, so also of being dissolved; but that which is uncompounded,
and that only, must be, if anything is, indissoluble.
Yes; I should imagine so, said Cebes.
And the uncompounded may be assumed to be the same and unchanging, whereas
the compound is always changing and never the same.
I agree, he said.
Then now let us return to the previous discussion. Is that idea or essence,
which in the dialectical process we define as essence or true existence—whether
essence of equality, beauty, or anything else—are these essences, I say, liable
at times to some degree of change? or are they each of them always what they
are, having the same simple self-existent and unchanging forms, not admitting of
variation at all, or in any way, or at any time?
They must be always the same, Socrates, replied Cebes.
And what would you say of the many beautiful—whether men or horses or
garments or any other things which are named by the same names and may be called
equal or beautiful,—are they all unchanging and the same always, or quite the
reverse? May they not rather be described as almost always changing and hardly
ever the same, either with themselves or with one another?
The latter, replied Cebes; they are always in a state of change.
And these you can touch and see and perceive with the senses, but the
unchanging things you can only perceive with the mind—they are invisible and are
not seen?
That is very true, he said.
Well, then, added Socrates, let us suppose that there are two sorts of
existences—one seen, the other unseen.
Let us suppose them.
The seen is the changing, and the unseen is the unchanging?
That may be also supposed.
And, further, is not one part of us body, another part soul?
To be sure.
And to which class is the body more alike and akin?
Clearly to the seen—no one can doubt that.
And is the soul seen or not seen?
Not by man, Socrates.
And what we mean by 'seen' and 'not seen' is that which is or is not visible
to the eye of man?
Yes, to the eye of man.
And is the soul seen or not seen?
Not seen.
Unseen then?
Yes.
Then the soul is more like to the unseen, and the body to the seen?
That follows necessarily, Socrates.
And were we not saying long ago that the soul when using the body as an
instrument of perception, that is to say, when using the sense of sight or
hearing or some other sense (for the meaning of perceiving through the body is
perceiving through the senses)—were we not saying that the soul too is then
dragged by the body into the region of the changeable, and wanders and is
confused; the world spins round her, and she is like a drunkard, when she
touches change?
Very true.
But when returning into herself she reflects, then she passes into the other
world, the region of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and
unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives, when she
is by herself and is not let or hindered; then she ceases from her erring ways,
and being in communion with the unchanging is unchanging. And this state of the
soul is called wisdom?
That is well and truly said, Socrates, he replied.
And to which class is the soul more nearly alike and akin, as far as may be
inferred from this argument, as well as from the preceding one?
I think, Socrates, that, in the opinion of every one who follows the
argument, the soul will be infinitely more like the unchangeable—even the most
stupid person will not deny that.
And the body is more like the changing?
Yes.
Yet once more consider the matter in another light: When the soul and the
body are united, then nature orders the soul to rule and govern, and the body to
obey and serve. Now which of these two functions is akin to the divine? and
which to the mortal? Does not the divine appear to you to be that which
naturally orders and rules, and the mortal to be that which is subject and
servant?
True.
And which does the soul resemble?
The soul resembles the divine, and the body the mortal—there can be no doubt
of that, Socrates.
Then reflect, Cebes: of all which has been said is not this the
conclusion?—that the soul is in the very likeness of the divine, and immortal,
and intellectual, and uniform, and indissoluble, and unchangeable; and that the
body is in the very likeness of the human, and mortal, and unintellectual, and
multiform, and dissoluble, and changeable. Can this, my dear Cebes, be denied?
It cannot.
But if it be true, then is not the body liable to speedy dissolution? and is
not the soul almost or altogether indissoluble?
Certainly.
And do you further observe, that after a man is dead, the body, or visible
part of him, which is lying in the visible world, and is called a corpse, and
would naturally be dissolved and decomposed and dissipated, is not dissolved or
decomposed at once, but may remain for a for some time, nay even for a long
time, if the constitution be sound at the time of death, and the season of the
year favourable? For the body when shrunk and embalmed, as the manner is in
Egypt, may remain almost entire through infinite ages; and even in decay, there
are still some portions, such as the bones and ligaments, which are practically
indestructible:—Do you agree?
Yes.
And is it likely that the soul, which is invisible, in passing to the place
of the true Hades, which like her is invisible, and pure, and noble, and on her
way to the good and wise God, whither, if God will, my soul is also soon to
go,—that the soul, I repeat, if this be her nature and origin, will be blown
away and destroyed immediately on quitting the body, as the many say? That can
never be, my dear Simmias and Cebes. The truth rather is, that the soul which is
pure at departing and draws after her no bodily taint, having never voluntarily
during life had connection with the body, which she is ever avoiding, herself
gathered into herself;—and making such abstraction her perpetual study—which
means that she has been a true disciple of philosophy; and therefore has in fact
been always engaged in the practice of dying? For is not philosophy the practice
of death?—
Certainly—
That soul, I say, herself invisible, departs to the invisible world—to the
divine and immortal and rational: thither arriving, she is secure of bliss and
is released from the error and folly of men, their fears and wild passions and
all other human ills, and for ever dwells, as they say of the initiated, in
company with the gods (compare Apol.). Is not this true, Cebes?
Yes, said Cebes, beyond a doubt.
But the soul which has been polluted, and is impure at the time of her
departure, and is the companion and servant of the body always, and is in love
with and fascinated by the body and by the desires and pleasures of the body,
until she is led to believe that the truth only exists in a bodily form, which a
man may touch and see and taste, and use for the purposes of his lusts,—the
soul, I mean, accustomed to hate and fear and avoid the intellectual principle,
which to the bodily eye is dark and invisible, and can be attained only by
philosophy;—do you suppose that such a soul will depart pure and unalloyed?
Impossible, he replied.
She is held fast by the corporeal, which the continual association and
constant care of the body have wrought into her nature.
Very true.
And this corporeal element, my friend, is heavy and weighty and earthy, and
is that element of sight by which a soul is depressed and dragged down again
into the visible world, because she is afraid of the invisible and of the world
below—prowling about tombs and sepulchres, near which, as they tell us, are seen
certain ghostly apparitions of souls which have not departed pure, but are
cloyed with sight and therefore visible.
(Compare Milton, Comus:—
'But when lust,
By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
But most by lewd and lavish act of sin,
Lets in defilement to the inward parts,
The soul grows clotted by contagion,
Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite lose,
The divine property of her first being.
Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp
Oft seen in charnel vaults and sepulchres,
Lingering, and sitting by a new made grave,
As loath to leave the body that it lov'd,
And linked itself by carnal sensuality
To a degenerate and degraded state.')
That is very likely, Socrates.
Yes, that is very likely, Cebes; and these must be the souls, not of the
good, but of the evil, which are compelled to wander about such places in
payment of the penalty of their former evil way of life; and they continue to
wander until through the craving after the corporeal which never leaves them,
they are imprisoned finally in another body. And they may be supposed to find
their prisons in the same natures which they have had in their former lives.
What natures do you mean, Socrates?
What I mean is that men who have followed after gluttony, and wantonness, and
drunkenness, and have had no thought of avoiding them, would pass into asses and
animals of that sort. What do you think?
I think such an opinion to be exceedingly probable.
And those who have chosen the portion of injustice, and tyranny, and
violence, will pass into wolves, or into hawks and kites;—whither else can we
suppose them to go?
Yes, said Cebes; with such natures, beyond question.
And there is no difficulty, he said, in assigning to all of them places
answering to their several natures and propensities?
There is not, he said.
Some are happier than others; and the happiest both in themselves and in the
place to which they go are those who have practised the civil and social virtues
which are called temperance and justice, and are acquired by habit and attention
without philosophy and mind. (Compare Republic.)
Why are they the happiest?
Because they may be expected to pass into some gentle and social kind which
is like their own, such as bees or wasps or ants, or back again into the form of
man, and just and moderate men may be supposed to spring from them.
Very likely.
No one who has not studied philosophy and who is not entirely pure at the
time of his departure is allowed to enter the company of the Gods, but the lover
of knowledge only. And this is the reason, Simmias and Cebes, why the true
votaries of philosophy abstain from all fleshly lusts, and hold out against them
and refuse to give themselves up to them,—not because they fear poverty or the
ruin of their families, like the lovers of money, and the world in general; nor
like the lovers of power and honour, because they dread the dishonour or
disgrace of evil deeds.
No, Socrates, that would not become them, said Cebes.
No indeed, he replied; and therefore they who have any care of their own
souls, and do not merely live moulding and fashioning the body, say farewell to
all this; they will not walk in the ways of the blind: and when philosophy
offers them purification and release from evil, they feel that they ought not to
resist her influence, and whither she leads they turn and follow.
What do you mean, Socrates?
I will tell you, he said. The lovers of knowledge are conscious that the soul
was simply fastened and glued to the body—until philosophy received her, she
could only view real existence through the bars of a prison, not in and through
herself; she was wallowing in the mire of every sort of ignorance; and by reason
of lust had become the principal accomplice in her own captivity. This was her
original state; and then, as I was saying, and as the lovers of knowledge are
well aware, philosophy, seeing how terrible was her confinement, of which she
was to herself the cause, received and gently comforted her and sought to
release her, pointing out that the eye and the ear and the other senses are full
of deception, and persuading her to retire from them, and abstain from all but
the necessary use of them, and be gathered up and collected into herself,
bidding her trust in herself and her own pure apprehension of pure existence,
and to mistrust whatever comes to her through other channels and is subject to
variation; for such things are visible and tangible, but what she sees in her
own nature is intelligible and invisible. And the soul of the true philosopher
thinks that she ought not to resist this deliverance, and therefore abstains
from pleasures and desires and pains and fears, as far as she is able;
reflecting that when a man has great joys or sorrows or fears or desires, he
suffers from them, not merely the sort of evil which might be anticipated—as for
example, the loss of his health or property which he has sacrificed to his
lusts—but an evil greater far, which is the greatest and worst of all evils, and
one of which he never thinks.
What is it, Socrates? said Cebes.
The evil is that when the feeling of pleasure or pain is most intense, every
soul of man imagines the objects of this intense feeling to be then plainest and
truest: but this is not so, they are really the things of sight.
Very true.
And is not this the state in which the soul is most enthralled by the body?
How so?
Why, because each pleasure and pain is a sort of nail which nails and rivets
the soul to the body, until she becomes like the body, and believes that to be
true which the body affirms to be true; and from agreeing with the body and
having the same delights she is obliged to have the same habits and haunts, and
is not likely ever to be pure at her departure to the world below, but is always
infected by the body; and so she sinks into another body and there germinates
and grows, and has therefore no part in the communion of the divine and pure and
simple.
Most true, Socrates, answered Cebes.
And this, Cebes, is the reason why the true lovers of knowledge are temperate
and brave; and not for the reason which the world gives.
Certainly not.
Certainly not! The soul of a philosopher will reason in quite another way;
she will not ask philosophy to release her in order that when released she may
deliver herself up again to the thraldom of pleasures and pains, doing a work
only to be undone again, weaving instead of unweaving her Penelope's web. But
she will calm passion, and follow reason, and dwell in the contemplation of her,
beholding the true and divine (which is not matter of opinion), and thence
deriving nourishment. Thus she seeks to live while she lives, and after death
she hopes to go to her own kindred and to that which is like her, and to be
freed from human ills. Never fear, Simmias and Cebes, that a soul which has been
thus nurtured and has had these pursuits, will at her departure from the body be
scattered and blown away by the winds and be nowhere and nothing.
When Socrates had done speaking, for a considerable time there was silence;
he himself appeared to be meditating, as most of us were, on what had been said;
only Cebes and Simmias spoke a few words to one another. And Socrates observing
them asked what they thought of the argument, and whether there was anything
wanting? For, said he, there are many points still open to suspicion and attack,
if any one were disposed to sift the matter thoroughly. Should you be
considering some other matter I say no more, but if you are still in doubt do
not hesitate to say exactly what you think, and let us have anything better
which you can suggest; and if you think that I can be of any use, allow me to
help you.
Simmias said: I must confess, Socrates, that doubts did arise in our minds,
and each of us was urging and inciting the other to put the question which we
wanted to have answered and which neither of us liked to ask, fearing that our
importunity might be troublesome under present at such a time.
Socrates replied with a smile: O Simmias, what are you saying? I am not very
likely to persuade other men that I do not regard my present situation as a
misfortune, if I cannot even persuade you that I am no worse off now than at any
other time in my life. Will you not allow that I have as much of the spirit of
prophecy in me as the swans? For they, when they perceive that they must die,
having sung all their life long, do then sing more lustily than ever, rejoicing
in the thought that they are about to go away to the god whose ministers they
are. But men, because they are themselves afraid of death, slanderously affirm
of the swans that they sing a lament at the last, not considering that no bird
sings when cold, or hungry, or in pain, not even the nightingale, nor the
swallow, nor yet the hoopoe; which are said indeed to tune a lay of sorrow,
although I do not believe this to be true of them any more than of the swans.
But because they are sacred to Apollo, they have the gift of prophecy, and
anticipate the good things of another world, wherefore they sing and rejoice in
that day more than they ever did before. And I too, believing myself to be the
consecrated servant of the same God, and the fellow-servant of the swans, and
thinking that I have received from my master gifts of prophecy which are not
inferior to theirs, would not go out of life less merrily than the swans. Never
mind then, if this be your only objection, but speak and ask anything which you
like, while the eleven magistrates of Athens allow.
Very good, Socrates, said Simmias; then I will tell you my difficulty, and
Cebes will tell you his. I feel myself, (and I daresay that you have the same
feeling), how hard or rather impossible is the attainment of any certainty about
questions such as these in the present life. And yet I should deem him a coward
who did not prove what is said about them to the uttermost, or whose heart
failed him before he had examined them on every side. For he should persevere
until he has achieved one of two things: either he should discover, or be taught
the truth about them; or, if this be impossible, I would have him take the best
and most irrefragable of human theories, and let this be the raft upon which he
sails through life—not without risk, as I admit, if he cannot find some word of
God which will more surely and safely carry him. And now, as you bid me, I will
venture to question you, and then I shall not have to reproach myself hereafter
with not having said at the time what I think. For when I consider the matter,
either alone or with Cebes, the argument does certainly appear to me, Socrates,
to be not sufficient.
Socrates answered: I dare say, my friend, that you may be right, but I should
like to know in what respect the argument is insufficient.
In this respect, replied Simmias:—Suppose a person to use the same argument
about harmony and the lyre—might he not say that harmony is a thing invisible,
incorporeal, perfect, divine, existing in the lyre which is harmonized, but that
the lyre and the strings are matter and material, composite, earthy, and akin to
mortality? And when some one breaks the lyre, or cuts and rends the strings,
then he who takes this view would argue as you do, and on the same analogy, that
the harmony survives and has not perished—you cannot imagine, he would say, that
the lyre without the strings, and the broken strings themselves which are mortal
remain, and yet that the harmony, which is of heavenly and immortal nature and
kindred, has perished—perished before the mortal. The harmony must still be
somewhere, and the wood and strings will decay before anything can happen to
that. The thought, Socrates, must have occurred to your own mind that such is
our conception of the soul; and that when the body is in a manner strung and
held together by the elements of hot and cold, wet and dry, then the soul is the
harmony or due proportionate admixture of them. But if so, whenever the strings
of the body are unduly loosened or overstrained through disease or other injury,
then the soul, though most divine, like other harmonies of music or of works of
art, of course perishes at once, although the material remains of the body may
last for a considerable time, until they are either decayed or burnt. And if any
one maintains that the soul, being the harmony of the elements of the body, is
first to perish in that which is called death, how shall we answer him?
Socrates looked fixedly at us as his manner was, and said with a smile:
Simmias has reason on his side; and why does not some one of you who is better
able than myself answer him? for there is force in his attack upon me. But
perhaps, before we answer him, we had better also hear what Cebes has to say
that we may gain time for reflection, and when they have both spoken, we may
either assent to them, if there is truth in what they say, or if not, we will
maintain our position. Please to tell me then, Cebes, he said, what was the
difficulty which troubled you?
Cebes said: I will tell you. My feeling is that the argument is where it was,
and open to the same objections which were urged before; for I am ready to admit
that the existence of the soul before entering into the bodily form has been
very ingeniously, and, if I may say so, quite sufficiently proven; but the
existence of the soul after death is still, in my judgment, unproven. Now my
objection is not the same as that of Simmias; for I am not disposed to deny that
the soul is stronger and more lasting than the body, being of opinion that in
all such respects the soul very far excels the body. Well, then, says the
argument to me, why do you remain unconvinced?—When you see that the weaker
continues in existence after the man is dead, will you not admit that the more
lasting must also survive during the same period of time? Now I will ask you to
consider whether the objection, which, like Simmias, I will express in a figure,
is of any weight. The analogy which I will adduce is that of an old weaver, who
dies, and after his death somebody says:—He is not dead, he must be alive;—see,
there is the coat which he himself wove and wore, and which remains whole and
undecayed. And then he proceeds to ask of some one who is incredulous, whether a
man lasts longer, or the coat which is in use and wear; and when he is answered
that a man lasts far longer, thinks that he has thus certainly demonstrated the
survival of the man, who is the more lasting, because the less lasting remains.
But that, Simmias, as I would beg you to remark, is a mistake; any one can see
that he who talks thus is talking nonsense. For the truth is, that the weaver
aforesaid, having woven and worn many such coats, outlived several of them, and
was outlived by the last; but a man is not therefore proved to be slighter and
weaker than a coat. Now the relation of the body to the soul may be expressed in
a similar figure; and any one may very fairly say in like manner that the soul
is lasting, and the body weak and shortlived in comparison. He may argue in like
manner that every soul wears out many bodies, especially if a man live many
years. While he is alive the body deliquesces and decays, and the soul always
weaves another garment and repairs the waste. But of course, whenever the soul
perishes, she must have on her last garment, and this will survive her; and then
at length, when the soul is dead, the body will show its native weakness, and
quickly decompose and pass away. I would therefore rather not rely on the
argument from superior strength to prove the continued existence of the soul
after death. For granting even more than you affirm to be possible, and
acknowledging not only that the soul existed before birth, but also that the
souls of some exist, and will continue to exist after death, and will be born
and die again and again, and that there is a natural strength in the soul which
will hold out and be born many times—nevertheless, we may be still inclined to
think that she will weary in the labours of successive births, and may at last
succumb in one of her deaths and utterly perish; and this death and dissolution
of the body which brings destruction to the soul may be unknown to any of us,
for no one of us can have had any experience of it: and if so, then I maintain
that he who is confident about death has but a foolish confidence, unless he is
able to prove that the soul is altogether immortal and imperishable. But if he
cannot prove the soul's immortality, he who is about to die will always have
reason to fear that when the body is disunited, the soul also may utterly
perish.
All of us, as we afterwards remarked to one another, had an unpleasant
feeling at hearing what they said. When we had been so firmly convinced before,
now to have our faith shaken seemed to introduce a confusion and uncertainty,
not only into the previous argument, but into any future one; either we were
incapable of forming a judgment, or there were no grounds of belief.
ECHECRATES: There I feel with you—by heaven I do, Phaedo, and when you were
speaking, I was beginning to ask myself the same question: What argument can I
ever trust again? For what could be more convincing than the argument of
Socrates, which has now fallen into discredit? That the soul is a harmony is a
doctrine which has always had a wonderful attraction for me, and, when
mentioned, came back to me at once, as my own original conviction. And now I
must begin again and find another argument which will assure me that when the
man is dead the soul survives. Tell me, I implore you, how did Socrates proceed?
Did he appear to share the unpleasant feeling which you mention? or did he
calmly meet the attack? And did he answer forcibly or feebly? Narrate what
passed as exactly as you can.
PHAEDO: Often, Echecrates, I have wondered at Socrates, but never more than
on that occasion. That he should be able to answer was nothing, but what
astonished me was, first, the gentle and pleasant and approving manner in which
he received the words of the young men, and then his quick sense of the wound
which had been inflicted by the argument, and the readiness with which he healed
it. He might be compared to a general rallying his defeated and broken army,
urging them to accompany him and return to the field of argument.
ECHECRATES: What followed?
PHAEDO: You shall hear, for I was close to him on his right hand, seated on a
sort of stool, and he on a couch which was a good deal higher. He stroked my
head, and pressed the hair upon my neck—he had a way of playing with my hair;
and then he said: To-morrow, Phaedo, I suppose that these fair locks of yours
will be severed.
Yes, Socrates, I suppose that they will, I replied.
Not so, if you will take my advice.
What shall I do with them? I said.
To-day, he replied, and not to-morrow, if this argument dies and we cannot
bring it to life again, you and I will both shave our locks; and if I were you,
and the argument got away from me, and I could not hold my ground against
Simmias and Cebes, I would myself take an oath, like the Argives, not to wear
hair any more until I had renewed the conflict and defeated them.
Yes, I said, but Heracles himself is said not to be a match for two.
Summon me then, he said, and I will be your Iolaus until the sun goes down.
I summon you rather, I rejoined, not as Heracles summoning Iolaus, but as
Iolaus might summon Heracles.
That will do as well, he said. But first let us take care that we avoid a
danger.
Of what nature? I said.
Lest we become misologists, he replied, no worse thing can happen to a man
than this. For as there are misanthropists or haters of men, there are also
misologists or haters of ideas, and both spring from the same cause, which is
ignorance of the world. Misanthropy arises out of the too great confidence of
inexperience;—you trust a man and think him altogether true and sound and
faithful, and then in a little while he turns out to be false and knavish; and
then another and another, and when this has happened several times to a man,
especially when it happens among those whom he deems to be his own most trusted
and familiar friends, and he has often quarreled with them, he at last hates all
men, and believes that no one has any good in him at all. You must have observed
this trait of character?
I have.
And is not the feeling discreditable? Is it not obvious that such an one
having to deal with other men, was clearly without any experience of human
nature; for experience would have taught him the true state of the case, that
few are the good and few the evil, and that the great majority are in the
interval between them.
What do you mean? I said.
I mean, he replied, as you might say of the very large and very small, that
nothing is more uncommon than a very large or very small man; and this applies
generally to all extremes, whether of great and small, or swift and slow, or
fair and foul, or black and white: and whether the instances you select be men
or dogs or anything else, few are the extremes, but many are in the mean between
them. Did you never observe this?
Yes, I said, I have.
And do you not imagine, he said, that if there were a competition in evil,
the worst would be found to be very few?
Yes, that is very likely, I said.
Yes, that is very likely, he replied; although in this respect arguments are
unlike men—there I was led on by you to say more than I had intended; but the
point of comparison was, that when a simple man who has no skill in dialectics
believes an argument to be true which he afterwards imagines to be false,
whether really false or not, and then another and another, he has no longer any
faith left, and great disputers, as you know, come to think at last that they
have grown to be the wisest of mankind; for they alone perceive the utter
unsoundness and instability of all arguments, or indeed, of all things, which,
like the currents in the Euripus, are going up and down in never-ceasing ebb and
flow.
That is quite true, I said.
Yes, Phaedo, he replied, and how melancholy, if there be such a thing as
truth or certainty or possibility of knowledge—that a man should have lighted
upon some argument or other which at first seemed true and then turned out to be
false, and instead of blaming himself and his own want of wit, because he is
annoyed, should at last be too glad to transfer the blame from himself to
arguments in general: and for ever afterwards should hate and revile them, and
lose truth and the knowledge of realities.
Yes, indeed, I said; that is very melancholy.
Let us then, in the first place, he said, be careful of allowing or of
admitting into our souls the notion that there is no health or soundness in any
arguments at all. Rather say that we have not yet attained to soundness in
ourselves, and that we must struggle manfully and do our best to gain health of
mind—you and all other men having regard to the whole of your future life, and I
myself in the prospect of death. For at this moment I am sensible that I have
not the temper of a philosopher; like the vulgar, I am only a partisan. Now the
partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the
question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions. And
the difference between him and me at the present moment is merely this—that
whereas he seeks to convince his hearers that what he says is true, I am rather
seeking to convince myself; to convince my hearers is a secondary matter with
me. And do but see how much I gain by the argument. For if what I say is true,
then I do well to be persuaded of the truth, but if there be nothing after
death, still, during the short time that remains, I shall not distress my
friends with lamentations, and my ignorance will not last, but will die with me,
and therefore no harm will be done. This is the state of mind, Simmias and
Cebes, in which I approach the argument. And I would ask you to be thinking of
the truth and not of Socrates: agree with me, if I seem to you to be speaking
the truth; or if not, withstand me might and main, that I may not deceive you as
well as myself in my enthusiasm, and like the bee, leave my sting in you before
I die.
And now let us proceed, he said. And first of all let me be sure that I have
in my mind what you were saying. Simmias, if I remember rightly, has fears and
misgivings whether the soul, although a fairer and diviner thing than the body,
being as she is in the form of harmony, may not perish first. On the other hand,
Cebes appeared to grant that the soul was more lasting than the body, but he
said that no one could know whether the soul, after having worn out many bodies,
might not perish herself and leave her last body behind her; and that this is
death, which is the destruction not of the body but of the soul, for in the body
the work of destruction is ever going on. Are not these, Simmias and Cebes, the
points which we have to consider?
They both agreed to this statement of them.
He proceeded: And did you deny the force of the whole preceding argument, or
of a part only?
Of a part only, they replied.
And what did you think, he said, of that part of the argument in which we
said that knowledge was recollection, and hence inferred that the soul must have
previously existed somewhere else before she was enclosed in the body?
Cebes said that he had been wonderfully impressed by that part of the
argument, and that his conviction remained absolutely unshaken. Simmias agreed,
and added that he himself could hardly imagine the possibility of his ever
thinking differently.
But, rejoined Socrates, you will have to think differently, my Theban friend,
if you still maintain that harmony is a compound, and that the soul is a harmony
which is made out of strings set in the frame of the body; for you will surely
never allow yourself to say that a harmony is prior to the elements which
compose it.
Never, Socrates.
But do you not see that this is what you imply when you say that the soul
existed before she took the form and body of man, and was made up of elements
which as yet had no existence? For harmony is not like the soul, as you suppose;
but first the lyre, and the strings, and the sounds exist in a state of discord,
and then harmony is made last of all, and perishes first. And how can such a
notion of the soul as this agree with the other?
Not at all, replied Simmias.
And yet, he said, there surely ought to be harmony in a discourse of which
harmony is the theme.
There ought, replied Simmias.
But there is no harmony, he said, in the two propositions that knowledge is
recollection, and that the soul is a harmony. Which of them will you retain?
I think, he replied, that I have a much stronger faith, Socrates, in the
first of the two, which has been fully demonstrated to me, than in the latter,
which has not been demonstrated at all, but rests only on probable and plausible
grounds; and is therefore believed by the many. I know too well that these
arguments from probabilities are impostors, and unless great caution is observed
in the use of them, they are apt to be deceptive—in geometry, and in other
things too. But the doctrine of knowledge and recollection has been proven to me
on trustworthy grounds; and the proof was that the soul must have existed before
she came into the body, because to her belongs the essence of which the very
name implies existence. Having, as I am convinced, rightly accepted this
conclusion, and on sufficient grounds, I must, as I suppose, cease to argue or
allow others to argue that the soul is a harmony.
Let me put the matter, Simmias, he said, in another point of view: Do you
imagine that a harmony or any other composition can be in a state other than
that of the elements, out of which it is compounded?
Certainly not.
Or do or suffer anything other than they do or suffer?
He agreed.
Then a harmony does not, properly speaking, lead the parts or elements which
make up the harmony, but only follows them.
He assented.
For harmony cannot possibly have any motion, or sound, or other quality which
is opposed to its parts.
That would be impossible, he replied.
And does not the nature of every harmony depend upon the manner in which the
elements are harmonized?
I do not understand you, he said.
I mean to say that a harmony admits of degrees, and is more of a harmony, and
more completely a harmony, when more truly and fully harmonized, to any extent
which is possible; and less of a harmony, and less completely a harmony, when
less truly and fully harmonized.
True.
But does the soul admit of degrees? or is one soul in the very least degree
more or less, or more or less completely, a soul than another?
Not in the least.
Yet surely of two souls, one is said to have intelligence and virtue, and to
be good, and the other to have folly and vice, and to be an evil soul: and this
is said truly?
Yes, truly.
But what will those who maintain the soul to be a harmony say of this
presence of virtue and vice in the soul?—will they say that here is another
harmony, and another discord, and that the virtuous soul is harmonized, and
herself being a harmony has another harmony within her, and that the vicious
soul is inharmonical and has no harmony within her?
I cannot tell, replied Simmias; but I suppose that something of the sort
would be asserted by those who say that the soul is a harmony.
And we have already admitted that no soul is more a soul than another; which
is equivalent to admitting that harmony is not more or less harmony, or more or
less completely a harmony?
Quite true.
And that which is not more or less a harmony is not more or less harmonized?
True.
And that which is not more or less harmonized cannot have more or less of
harmony, but only an equal harmony?
Yes, an equal harmony.
Then one soul not being more or less absolutely a soul than another, is not
more or less harmonized?
Exactly.
And therefore has neither more nor less of discord, nor yet of harmony?
She has not.
And having neither more nor less of harmony or of discord, one soul has no
more vice or virtue than another, if vice be discord and virtue harmony?
Not at all more.
Or speaking more correctly, Simmias, the soul, if she is a harmony, will
never have any vice; because a harmony, being absolutely a harmony, has no part
in the inharmonical.
No.
And therefore a soul which is absolutely a soul has no vice?
How can she have, if the previous argument holds?
Then, if all souls are equally by their nature souls, all souls of all living
creatures will be equally good?
I agree with you, Socrates, he said.
And can all this be true, think you? he said; for these are the consequences
which seem to follow from the assumption that the soul is a harmony?
It cannot be true.
Once more, he said, what ruler is there of the elements of human nature other
than the soul, and especially the wise soul? Do you know of any?
Indeed, I do not.
And is the soul in agreement with the affections of the body? or is she at
variance with them? For example, when the body is hot and thirsty, does not the
soul incline us against drinking? and when the body is hungry, against eating?
And this is only one instance out of ten thousand of the opposition of the soul
to the things of the body.
Very true.
But we have already acknowledged that the soul, being a harmony, can never
utter a note at variance with the tensions and relaxations and vibrations and
other affections of the strings out of which she is composed; she can only
follow, she cannot lead them?
It must be so, he replied.
And yet do we not now discover the soul to be doing the exact
opposite—leading the elements of which she is believed to be composed; almost
always opposing and coercing them in all sorts of ways throughout life,
sometimes more violently with the pains of medicine and gymnastic; then again
more gently; now threatening, now admonishing the desires, passions, fears, as
if talking to a thing which is not herself, as Homer in the Odyssee represents
Odysseus doing in the words—
'He beat his breast, and thus reproached his heart: Endure, my heart; far
worse hast thou endured!'
Do you think that Homer wrote this under the idea that the soul is a harmony
capable of being led by the affections of the body, and not rather of a nature
which should lead and master them—herself a far diviner thing than any harmony?
Yes, Socrates, I quite think so.
Then, my friend, we can never be right in saying that the soul is a harmony,
for we should contradict the divine Homer, and contradict ourselves.
True, he said.
Thus much, said Socrates, of Harmonia, your Theban goddess, who has
graciously yielded to us; but what shall I say, Cebes, to her husband Cadmus,
and how shall I make peace with him?
I think that you will discover a way of propitiating him, said Cebes; I am
sure that you have put the argument with Harmonia in a manner that I could never
have expected. For when Simmias was mentioning his difficulty, I quite imagined
that no answer could be given to him, and therefore I was surprised at finding
that his argument could not sustain the first onset of yours, and not impossibly
the other, whom you call Cadmus, may share a similar fate.
Nay, my good friend, said Socrates, let us not boast, lest some evil eye
should put to flight the word which I am about to speak. That, however, may be
left in the hands of those above, while I draw near in Homeric fashion, and try
the mettle of your words. Here lies the point:—You want to have it proven to you
that the soul is imperishable and immortal, and the philosopher who is confident
in death appears to you to have but a vain and foolish confidence, if he
believes that he will fare better in the world below than one who has led
another sort of life, unless he can prove this; and you say that the
demonstration of the strength and divinity of the soul, and of her existence
prior to our becoming men, does not necessarily imply her immortality. Admitting
the soul to be longlived, and to have known and done much in a former state,
still she is not on that account immortal; and her entrance into the human form
may be a sort of disease which is the beginning of dissolution, and may at last,
after the toils of life are over, end in that which is called death. And whether
the soul enters into the body once only or many times, does not, as you say,
make any difference in the fears of individuals. For any man, who is not devoid
of sense, must fear, if he has no knowledge and can give no account of the
soul's immortality. This, or something like this, I suspect to be your notion,
Cebes; and I designedly recur to it in order that nothing may escape us, and
that you may, if you wish, add or subtract anything.
But, said Cebes, as far as I see at present, I have nothing to add or
subtract: I mean what you say that I mean.
Socrates paused awhile, and seemed to be absorbed in reflection. At length he
said: You are raising a tremendous question, Cebes, involving the whole nature
of generation and corruption, about which, if you like, I will give you my own
experience; and if anything which I say is likely to avail towards the solution
of your difficulty you may make use of it.
I should very much like, said Cebes, to hear what you have to say.
Then I will tell you, said Socrates. When I was young, Cebes, I had a
prodigious desire to know that department of philosophy which is called the
investigation of nature; to know the causes of things, and why a thing is and is
created or destroyed appeared to me to be a lofty profession; and I was always
agitating myself with the consideration of questions such as these:—Is the
growth of animals the result of some decay which the hot and cold principle
contracts, as some have said? Is the blood the element with which we think, or
the air, or the fire? or perhaps nothing of the kind—but the brain may be the
originating power of the perceptions of hearing and sight and smell, and memory
and opinion may come from them, and science may be based on memory and opinion
when they have attained fixity. And then I went on to examine the corruption of
them, and then to the things of heaven and earth, and at last I concluded myself
to be utterly and absolutely incapable of these enquiries, as I will
satisfactorily prove to you. For I was fascinated by them to such a degree that
my eyes grew blind to things which I had seemed to myself, and also to others,
to know quite well; I forgot what I had before thought self-evident truths; e.g.
such a fact as that the growth of man is the result of eating and drinking; for
when by the digestion of food flesh is added to flesh and bone to bone, and
whenever there is an aggregation of congenial elements, the lesser bulk becomes
larger and the small man great. Was not that a reasonable notion?
Yes, said Cebes, I think so.
Well; but let me tell you something more. There was a time when I thought
that I understood the meaning of greater and less pretty well; and when I saw a
great man standing by a little one, I fancied that one was taller than the other
by a head; or one horse would appear to be greater than another horse: and still
more clearly did I seem to perceive that ten is two more than eight, and that
two cubits are more than one, because two is the double of one.
And what is now your notion of such matters? said Cebes.
I should be far enough from imagining, he replied, that I knew the cause of
any of them, by heaven I should; for I cannot satisfy myself that, when one is
added to one, the one to which the addition is made becomes two, or that the two
units added together make two by reason of the addition. I cannot understand
how, when separated from the other, each of them was one and not two, and now,
when they are brought together, the mere juxtaposition or meeting of them should
be the cause of their becoming two: neither can I understand how the division of
one is the way to make two; for then a different cause would produce the same
effect,—as in the former instance the addition and juxtaposition of one to one
was the cause of two, in this the separation and subtraction of one from the
other would be the cause. Nor am I any longer satisfied that I understand the
reason why one or anything else is either generated or destroyed or is at all,
but I have in my mind some confused notion of a new method, and can never admit
the other.
Then I heard some one reading, as he said, from a book of Anaxagoras, that
mind was the disposer and cause of all, and I was delighted at this notion,
which appeared quite admirable, and I said to myself: If mind is the disposer,
mind will dispose all for the best, and put each particular in the best place;
and I argued that if any one desired to find out the cause of the generation or
destruction or existence of anything, he must find out what state of being or
doing or suffering was best for that thing, and therefore a man had only to
consider the best for himself and others, and then he would also know the worse,
since the same science comprehended both. And I rejoiced to think that I had
found in Anaxagoras a teacher of the causes of existence such as I desired, and
I imagined that he would tell me first whether the earth is flat or round; and
whichever was true, he would proceed to explain the cause and the necessity of
this being so, and then he would teach me the nature of the best and show that
this was best; and if he said that the earth was in the centre, he would further
explain that this position was the best, and I should be satisfied with the
explanation given, and not want any other sort of cause. And I thought that I
would then go on and ask him about the sun and moon and stars, and that he would
explain to me their comparative swiftness, and their returnings and various
states, active and passive, and how all of them were for the best. For I could
not imagine that when he spoke of mind as the disposer of them, he would give
any other account of their being as they are, except that this was best; and I
thought that when he had explained to me in detail the cause of each and the
cause of all, he would go on to explain to me what was best for each and what
was good for all. These hopes I would not have sold for a large sum of money,
and I seized the books and read them as fast as I could in my eagerness to know
the better and the worse.
What expectations I had formed, and how grievously was I disappointed! As I
proceeded, I found my philosopher altogether forsaking mind or any other
principle of order, but having recourse to air, and ether, and water, and other
eccentricities. I might compare him to a person who began by maintaining
generally that mind is the cause of the actions of Socrates, but who, when he
endeavoured to explain the causes of my several actions in detail, went on to
show that I sit here because my body is made up of bones and muscles; and the
bones, as he would say, are hard and have joints which divide them, and the
muscles are elastic, and they cover the bones, which have also a covering or
environment of flesh and skin which contains them; and as the bones are lifted
at their joints by the contraction or relaxation of the muscles, I am able to
bend my limbs, and this is why I am sitting here in a curved posture—that is
what he would say, and he would have a similar explanation of my talking to you,
which he would attribute to sound, and air, and hearing, and he would assign ten
thousand other causes of the same sort, forgetting to mention the true cause,
which is, that the Athenians have thought fit to condemn me, and accordingly I
have thought it better and more right to remain here and undergo my sentence;
for I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone
off long ago to Megara or Boeotia—by the dog they would, if they had been moved
only by their own idea of what was best, and if I had not chosen the better and
nobler part, instead of playing truant and running away, of enduring any
punishment which the state inflicts. There is surely a strange confusion of
causes and conditions in all this. It may be said, indeed, that without bones
and muscles and the other parts of the body I cannot execute my purposes. But to
say that I do as I do because of them, and that this is the way in which mind
acts, and not from the choice of the best, is a very careless and idle mode of
speaking. I wonder that they cannot distinguish the cause from the condition,
which the many, feeling about in the dark, are always mistaking and misnaming.
And thus one man makes a vortex all round and steadies the earth by the heaven;
another gives the air as a support to the earth, which is a sort of broad
trough. Any power which in arranging them as they are arranges them for the best
never enters into their minds; and instead of finding any superior strength in
it, they rather expect to discover another Atlas of the world who is stronger
and more everlasting and more containing than the good;—of the obligatory and
containing power of the good they think nothing; and yet this is the principle
which I would fain learn if any one would teach me. But as I have failed either
to discover myself, or to learn of any one else, the nature of the best, I will
exhibit to you, if you like, what I have found to be the second best mode of
enquiring into the cause.
I should very much like to hear, he replied.
Socrates proceeded:—I thought that as I had failed in the contemplation of
true existence, I ought to be careful that I did not lose the eye of my soul; as
people may injure their bodily eye by observing and gazing on the sun during an
eclipse, unless they take the precaution of only looking at the image reflected
in the water, or in some similar medium. So in my own case, I was afraid that my
soul might be blinded altogether if I looked at things with my eyes or tried to
apprehend them by the help of the senses. And I thought that I had better have
recourse to the world of mind and seek there the truth of existence. I dare say
that the simile is not perfect—for I am very far from admitting that he who
contemplates existences through the medium of thought, sees them only 'through a
glass darkly,' any more than he who considers them in action and operation.
However, this was the method which I adopted: I first assumed some principle
which I judged to be the strongest, and then I affirmed as true whatever seemed
to agree with this, whether relating to the cause or to anything else; and that
which disagreed I regarded as untrue. But I should like to explain my meaning
more clearly, as I do not think that you as yet understand me.
No indeed, replied Cebes, not very well.
There is nothing new, he said, in what I am about to tell you; but only what
I have been always and everywhere repeating in the previous discussion and on
other occasions: I want to show you the nature of that cause which has occupied
my thoughts. I shall have to go back to those familiar words which are in the
mouth of every one, and first of all assume that there is an absolute beauty and
goodness and greatness, and the like; grant me this, and I hope to be able to
show you the nature of the cause, and to prove the immortality of the soul.
Cebes said: You may proceed at once with the proof, for I grant you this.
Well, he said, then I should like to know whether you agree with me in the
next step; for I cannot help thinking, if there be anything beautiful other than
absolute beauty should there be such, that it can be beautiful only in as far as
it partakes of absolute beauty—and I should say the same of everything. Do you
agree in this notion of the cause?
Yes, he said, I agree.
He proceeded: I know nothing and can understand nothing of any other of those
wise causes which are alleged; and if a person says to me that the bloom of
colour, or form, or any such thing is a source of beauty, I leave all that,
which is only confusing to me, and simply and singly, and perhaps foolishly,
hold and am assured in my own mind that nothing makes a thing beautiful but the
presence and participation of beauty in whatever way or manner obtained; for as
to the manner I am uncertain, but I stoutly contend that by beauty all beautiful
things become beautiful. This appears to me to be the safest answer which I can
give, either to myself or to another, and to this I cling, in the persuasion
that this principle will never be overthrown, and that to myself or to any one
who asks the question, I may safely reply, That by beauty beautiful things
become beautiful. Do you not agree with me?
I do.
And that by greatness only great things become great and greater greater, and
by smallness the less become less?
True.
Then if a person were to remark that A is taller by a head than B, and B less
by a head than A, you would refuse to admit his statement, and would stoutly
contend that what you mean is only that the greater is greater by, and by reason
of, greatness, and the less is less only by, and by reason of, smallness; and
thus you would avoid the danger of saying that the greater is greater and the
less less by the measure of the head, which is the same in both, and would also
avoid the monstrous absurdity of supposing that the greater man is greater by
reason of the head, which is small. You would be afraid to draw such an
inference, would you not?
Indeed, I should, said Cebes, laughing.
In like manner you would be afraid to say that ten exceeded eight by, and by
reason of, two; but would say by, and by reason of, number; or you would say
that two cubits exceed one cubit not by a half, but by magnitude?-for there is
the same liability to error in all these cases.
Very true, he said.
Again, would you not be cautious of affirming that the addition of one to
one, or the division of one, is the cause of two? And you would loudly
asseverate that you know of no way in which anything comes into existence except
by participation in its own proper essence, and consequently, as far as you
know, the only cause of two is the participation in duality—this is the way to
make two, and the participation in one is the way to make one. You would say: I
will let alone puzzles of division and addition—wiser heads than mine may answer
them; inexperienced as I am, and ready to start, as the proverb says, at my own
shadow, I cannot afford to give up the sure ground of a principle. And if any
one assails you there, you would not mind him, or answer him, until you had seen
whether the consequences which follow agree with one another or not, and when
you are further required to give an explanation of this principle, you would go
on to assume a higher principle, and a higher, until you found a resting-place
in the best of the higher; but you would not confuse the principle and the
consequences in your reasoning, like the Eristics—at least if you wanted to
discover real existence. Not that this confusion signifies to them, who never
care or think about the matter at all, for they have the wit to be well pleased
with themselves however great may be the turmoil of their ideas. But you, if you
are a philosopher, will certainly do as I say.
What you say is most true, said Simmias and Cebes, both speaking at once.
ECHECRATES: Yes, Phaedo; and I do not wonder at their assenting. Any one who
has the least sense will acknowledge the wonderful clearness of Socrates'
reasoning.
PHAEDO: Certainly, Echecrates; and such was the feeling of the whole company
at the time.
ECHECRATES: Yes, and equally of ourselves, who were not of the company, and
are now listening to your recital. But what followed?
PHAEDO: After all this had been admitted, and they had that ideas exist, and
that other things participate in them and derive their names from them,
Socrates, if I remember rightly, said:—
This is your way of speaking; and yet when you say that Simmias is greater
than Socrates and less than Phaedo, do you not predicate of Simmias both
greatness and smallness?
Yes, I do.
But still you allow that Simmias does not really exceed Socrates, as the
words may seem to imply, because he is Simmias, but by reason of the size which
he has; just as Simmias does not exceed Socrates because he is Simmias, any more
than because Socrates is Socrates, but because he has smallness when compared
with the greatness of Simmias?
True.
And if Phaedo exceeds him in size, this is not because Phaedo is Phaedo, but
because Phaedo has greatness relatively to Simmias, who is comparatively
smaller?
That is true.
And therefore Simmias is said to be great, and is also said to be small,
because he is in a mean between them, exceeding the smallness of the one by his
greatness, and allowing the greatness of the other to exceed his smallness. He
added, laughing, I am speaking like a book, but I believe that what I am saying
is true.
Simmias assented.
I speak as I do because I want you to agree with me in thinking, not only
that absolute greatness will never be great and also small, but that greatness
in us or in the concrete will never admit the small or admit of being exceeded:
instead of this, one of two things will happen, either the greater will fly or
retire before the opposite, which is the less, or at the approach of the less
has already ceased to exist; but will not, if allowing or admitting of
smallness, be changed by that; even as I, having received and admitted smallness
when compared with Simmias, remain just as I was, and am the same small person.
And as the idea of greatness cannot condescend ever to be or become small, in
like manner the smallness in us cannot be or become great; nor can any other
opposite which remains the same ever be or become its own opposite, but either
passes away or perishes in the change.
That, replied Cebes, is quite my notion.
Hereupon one of the company, though I do not exactly remember which of them,
said: In heaven's name, is not this the direct contrary of what was admitted
before—that out of the greater came the less and out of the less the greater,
and that opposites were simply generated from opposites; but now this principle
seems to be utterly denied.
Socrates inclined his head to the speaker and listened. I like your courage,
he said, in reminding us of this. But you do not observe that there is a
difference in the two cases. For then we were speaking of opposites in the
concrete, and now of the essential opposite which, as is affirmed, neither in us
nor in nature can ever be at variance with itself: then, my friend, we were
speaking of things in which opposites are inherent and which are called after
them, but now about the opposites which are inherent in them and which give
their name to them; and these essential opposites will never, as we maintain,
admit of generation into or out of one another. At the same time, turning to
Cebes, he said: Are you at all disconcerted, Cebes, at our friend's objection?
No, I do not feel so, said Cebes; and yet I cannot deny that I am often
disturbed by objections.
Then we are agreed after all, said Socrates, that the opposite will never in
any case be opposed to itself?
To that we are quite agreed, he replied.
Yet once more let me ask you to consider the question from another point of
view, and see whether you agree with me:—There is a thing which you term heat,
and another thing which you term cold?
Certainly.
But are they the same as fire and snow?
Most assuredly not.
Heat is a thing different from fire, and cold is not the same with snow?
Yes.
And yet you will surely admit, that when snow, as was before said, is under
the influence of heat, they will not remain snow and heat; but at the advance of
the heat, the snow will either retire or perish?
Very true, he replied.
And the fire too at the advance of the cold will either retire or perish; and
when the fire is under the influence of the cold, they will not remain as
before, fire and cold.
That is true, he said.
And in some cases the name of the idea is not only attached to the idea in an
eternal connection, but anything else which, not being the idea, exists only in
the form of the idea, may also lay claim to it. I will try to make this clearer
by an example:—The odd number is always called by the name of odd?
Very true.
But is this the only thing which is called odd? Are there not other things
which have their own name, and yet are called odd, because, although not the
same as oddness, they are never without oddness?—that is what I mean to
ask—whether numbers such as the number three are not of the class of odd. And
there are many other examples: would you not say, for example, that three may be
called by its proper name, and also be called odd, which is not the same with
three? and this may be said not only of three but also of five, and of every
alternate number—each of them without being oddness is odd, and in the same way
two and four, and the other series of alternate numbers, has every number even,
without being evenness. Do you agree?
Of course.
Then now mark the point at which I am aiming:—not only do essential opposites
exclude one another, but also concrete things, which, although not in themselves
opposed, contain opposites; these, I say, likewise reject the idea which is
opposed to that which is contained in them, and when it approaches them they
either perish or withdraw. For example; Will not the number three endure
annihilation or anything sooner than be converted into an even number, while
remaining three?
Very true, said Cebes.
And yet, he said, the number two is certainly not opposed to the number
three?
It is not.
Then not only do opposite ideas repel the advance of one another, but also
there are other natures which repel the approach of opposites.
Very true, he said.
Suppose, he said, that we endeavour, if possible, to determine what these
are.
By all means.
Are they not, Cebes, such as compel the things of which they have possession,
not only to take their own form, but also the form of some opposite?
What do you mean?
I mean, as I was just now saying, and as I am sure that you know, that those
things which are possessed by the number three must not only be three in number,
but must also be odd.
Quite true.
And on this oddness, of which the number three has the impress, the opposite
idea will never intrude?
No.
And this impress was given by the odd principle?
Yes.
And to the odd is opposed the even?
True.
Then the idea of the even number will never arrive at three?
No.
Then three has no part in the even?
None.
Then the triad or number three is uneven?
Very true.
To return then to my distinction of natures which are not opposed, and yet do
not admit opposites—as, in the instance given, three, although not opposed to
the even, does not any the more admit of the even, but always brings the
opposite into play on the other side; or as two does not receive the odd, or
fire the cold—from these examples (and there are many more of them) perhaps you
may be able to arrive at the general conclusion, that not only opposites will
not receive opposites, but also that nothing which brings the opposite will
admit the opposite of that which it brings, in that to which it is brought. And
here let me recapitulate—for there is no harm in repetition. The number five
will not admit the nature of the even, any more than ten, which is the double of
five, will admit the nature of the odd. The double has another opposite, and is
not strictly opposed to the odd, but nevertheless rejects the odd altogether.
Nor again will parts in the ratio 3:2, nor any fraction in which there is a
half, nor again in which there is a third, admit the notion of the whole,
although they are not opposed to the whole: You will agree?
Yes, he said, I entirely agree and go along with you in that.
And now, he said, let us begin again; and do not you answer my question in
the words in which I ask it: let me have not the old safe answer of which I
spoke at first, but another equally safe, of which the truth will be inferred by
you from what has been just said. I mean that if any one asks you 'what that is,
of which the inherence makes the body hot,' you will reply not heat (this is
what I call the safe and stupid answer), but fire, a far superior answer, which
we are now in a condition to give. Or if any one asks you 'why a body is
diseased,' you will not say from disease, but from fever; and instead of saying
that oddness is the cause of odd numbers, you will say that the monad is the
cause of them: and so of things in general, as I dare say that you will
understand sufficiently without my adducing any further examples.
Yes, he said, I quite understand you.
Tell me, then, what is that of which the inherence will render the body
alive?
The soul, he replied.
And is this always the case?
Yes, he said, of course.
Then whatever the soul possesses, to that she comes bearing life?
Yes, certainly.
And is there any opposite to life?
There is, he said.
And what is that?
Death.
Then the soul, as has been acknowledged, will never receive the opposite of
what she brings.
Impossible, replied Cebes.
And now, he said, what did we just now call that principle which repels the
even?
The odd.
And that principle which repels the musical, or the just?
The unmusical, he said, and the unjust.
And what do we call the principle which does not admit of death?
The immortal, he said.
And does the soul admit of death?
No.
Then the soul is immortal?
Yes, he said.
And may we say that this has been proven?
Yes, abundantly proven, Socrates, he replied.
Supposing that the odd were imperishable, must not three be imperishable?
Of course.
And if that which is cold were imperishable, when the warm principle came
attacking the snow, must not the snow have retired whole and unmelted—for it
could never have perished, nor could it have remained and admitted the heat?
True, he said.
Again, if the uncooling or warm principle were imperishable, the fire when
assailed by cold would not have perished or have been extinguished, but would
have gone away unaffected?
Certainly, he said.
And the same may be said of the immortal: if the immortal is also
imperishable, the soul when attacked by death cannot perish; for the preceding
argument shows that the soul will not admit of death, or ever be dead, any more
than three or the odd number will admit of the even, or fire or the heat in the
fire, of the cold. Yet a person may say: 'But although the odd will not become
even at the approach of the even, why may not the odd perish and the even take
the place of the odd?' Now to him who makes this objection, we cannot answer
that the odd principle is imperishable; for this has not been acknowledged, but
if this had been acknowledged, there would have been no difficulty in contending
that at the approach of the even the odd principle and the number three took
their departure; and the same argument would have held good of fire and heat and
any other thing.
Very true.
And the same may be said of the immortal: if the immortal is also
imperishable, then the soul will be imperishable as well as immortal; but if
not, some other proof of her imperishableness will have to be given.
No other proof is needed, he said; for if the immortal, being eternal, is
liable to perish, then nothing is imperishable.
Yes, replied Socrates, and yet all men will agree that God, and the essential
form of life, and the immortal in general, will never perish.
Yes, all men, he said—that is true; and what is more, gods, if I am not
mistaken, as well as men.
Seeing then that the immortal is indestructible, must not the soul, if she is
immortal, be also imperishable?
Most certainly.
Then when death attacks a man, the mortal portion of him may be supposed to
die, but the immortal retires at the approach of death and is preserved safe and
sound?
True.
Then, Cebes, beyond question, the soul is immortal and imperishable, and our
souls will truly exist in another world!
I am convinced, Socrates, said Cebes, and have nothing more to object; but if
my friend Simmias, or any one else, has any further objection to make, he had
better speak out, and not keep silence, since I do not know to what other season
he can defer the discussion, if there is anything which he wants to say or to
have said.
But I have nothing more to say, replied Simmias; nor can I see any reason for
doubt after what has been said. But I still feel and cannot help feeling
uncertain in my own mind, when I think of the greatness of the subject and the
feebleness of man.
Yes, Simmias, replied Socrates, that is well said: and I may add that first
principles, even if they appear certain, should be carefully considered; and
when they are satisfactorily ascertained, then, with a sort of hesitating
confidence in human reason, you may, I think, follow the course of the argument;
and if that be plain and clear, there will be no need for any further enquiry.
Very true.
But then, O my friends, he said, if the soul is really immortal, what care
should be taken of her, not only in respect of the portion of time which is
called life, but of eternity! And the danger of neglecting her from this point
of view does indeed appear to be awful. If death had only been the end of all,
the wicked would have had a good bargain in dying, for they would have been
happily quit not only of their body, but of their own evil together with their
souls. But now, inasmuch as the soul is manifestly immortal, there is no release
or salvation from evil except the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom.
For the soul when on her progress to the world below takes nothing with her but
nurture and education; and these are said greatly to benefit or greatly to
injure the departed, at the very beginning of his journey thither.
For after death, as they say, the genius of each individual, to whom he
belonged in life, leads him to a certain place in which the dead are gathered
together, whence after judgment has been given they pass into the world below,
following the guide, who is appointed to conduct them from this world to the
other: and when they have there received their due and remained their time,
another guide brings them back again after many revolutions of ages. Now this
way to the other world is not, as Aeschylus says in the Telephus, a single and
straight path—if that were so no guide would be needed, for no one could miss
it; but there are many partings of the road, and windings, as I infer from the
rites and sacrifices which are offered to the gods below in places where three
ways meet on earth. The wise and orderly soul follows in the straight path and
is conscious of her surroundings; but the soul which desires the body, and
which, as I was relating before, has long been fluttering about the lifeless
frame and the world of sight, is after many struggles and many sufferings hardly
and with violence carried away by her attendant genius, and when she arrives at
the place where the other souls are gathered, if she be impure and have done
impure deeds, whether foul murders or other crimes which are the brothers of
these, and the works of brothers in crime—from that soul every one flees and
turns away; no one will be her companion, no one her guide, but alone she
wanders in extremity of evil until certain times are fulfilled, and when they
are fulfilled, she is borne irresistibly to her own fitting habitation; as every
pure and just soul which has passed through life in the company and under the
guidance of the gods has also her own proper home.
Now the earth has divers wonderful regions, and is indeed in nature and
extent very unlike the notions of geographers, as I believe on the authority of
one who shall be nameless.
What do you mean, Socrates? said Simmias. I have myself heard many
descriptions of the earth, but I do not know, and I should very much like to
know, in which of these you put faith.
And I, Simmias, replied Socrates, if I had the art of Glaucus would tell you;
although I know not that the art of Glaucus could prove the truth of my tale,
which I myself should never be able to prove, and even if I could, I fear,
Simmias, that my life would come to an end before the argument was completed. I
may describe to you, however, the form and regions of the earth according to my
conception of them.
That, said Simmias, will be enough.
Well, then, he said, my conviction is, that the earth is a round body in the
centre of the heavens, and therefore has no need of air or any similar force to
be a support, but is kept there and hindered from falling or inclining any way
by the equability of the surrounding heaven and by her own equipoise. For that
which, being in equipoise, is in the centre of that which is equably diffused,
will not incline any way in any degree, but will always remain in the same state
and not deviate. And this is my first notion.
Which is surely a correct one, said Simmias.
Also I believe that the earth is very vast, and that we who dwell in the
region extending from the river Phasis to the Pillars of Heracles inhabit a
small portion only about the sea, like ants or frogs about a marsh, and that
there are other inhabitants of many other like places; for everywhere on the
face of the earth there are hollows of various forms and sizes, into which the
water and the mist and the lower air collect. But the true earth is pure and
situated in the pure heaven—there are the stars also; and it is the heaven which
is commonly spoken of by us as the ether, and of which our own earth is the
sediment gathering in the hollows beneath. But we who live in these hollows are
deceived into the notion that we are dwelling above on the surface of the earth;
which is just as if a creature who was at the bottom of the sea were to fancy
that he was on the surface of the water, and that the sea was the heaven through
which he saw the sun and the other stars, he having never come to the surface by
reason of his feebleness and sluggishness, and having never lifted up his head
and seen, nor ever heard from one who had seen, how much purer and fairer the
world above is than his own. And such is exactly our case: for we are dwelling
in a hollow of the earth, and fancy that we are on the surface; and the air we
call the heaven, in which we imagine that the stars move. But the fact is, that
owing to our feebleness and sluggishness we are prevented from reaching the
surface of the air: for if any man could arrive at the exterior limit, or take
the wings of a bird and come to the top, then like a fish who puts his head out
of the water and sees this world, he would see a world beyond; and, if the
nature of man could sustain the sight, he would acknowledge that this other
world was the place of the true heaven and the true light and the true earth.
For our earth, and the stones, and the entire region which surrounds us, are
spoilt and corroded, as in the sea all things are corroded by the brine, neither
is there any noble or perfect growth, but caverns only, and sand, and an endless
slough of mud: and even the shore is not to be compared to the fairer sights of
this world. And still less is this our world to be compared with the other. Of
that upper earth which is under the heaven, I can tell you a charming tale,
Simmias, which is well worth hearing.
And we, Socrates, replied Simmias, shall be charmed to listen to you.
The tale, my friend, he said, is as follows:—In the first place, the earth,
when looked at from above, is in appearance streaked like one of those balls
which have leather coverings in twelve pieces, and is decked with various
colours, of which the colours used by painters on earth are in a manner samples.
But there the whole earth is made up of them, and they are brighter far and
clearer than ours; there is a purple of wonderful lustre, also the radiance of
gold, and the white which is in the earth is whiter than any chalk or snow. Of
these and other colours the earth is made up, and they are more in number and
fairer than the eye of man has ever seen; the very hollows (of which I was
speaking) filled with air and water have a colour of their own, and are seen
like light gleaming amid the diversity of the other colours, so that the whole
presents a single and continuous appearance of variety in unity. And in this
fair region everything that grows—trees, and flowers, and fruits—are in a like
degree fairer than any here; and there are hills, having stones in them in a
like degree smoother, and more transparent, and fairer in colour than our
highly-valued emeralds and sardonyxes and jaspers, and other gems, which are but
minute fragments of them: for there all the stones are like our precious stones,
and fairer still (compare Republic). The reason is, that they are pure, and not,
like our precious stones, infected or corroded by the corrupt briny elements
which coagulate among us, and which breed foulness and disease both in earth and
stones, as well as in animals and plants. They are the jewels of the upper
earth, which also shines with gold and silver and the like, and they are set in
the light of day and are large and abundant and in all places, making the earth
a sight to gladden the beholder's eye. And there are animals and men, some in a
middle region, others dwelling about the air as we dwell about the sea; others
in islands which the air flows round, near the continent: and in a word, the air
is used by them as the water and the sea are by us, and the ether is to them
what the air is to us. Moreover, the temperament of their seasons is such that
they have no disease, and live much longer than we do, and have sight and
hearing and smell, and all the other senses, in far greater perfection, in the
same proportion that air is purer than water or the ether than air. Also they
have temples and sacred places in which the gods really dwell, and they hear
their voices and receive their answers, and are conscious of them and hold
converse with them, and they see the sun, moon, and stars as they truly are, and
their other blessedness is of a piece with this.
Such is the nature of the whole earth, and of the things which are around the
earth; and there are divers regions in the hollows on the face of the globe
everywhere, some of them deeper and more extended than that which we inhabit,
others deeper but with a narrower opening than ours, and some are shallower and
also wider. All have numerous perforations, and there are passages broad and
narrow in the interior of the earth, connecting them with one another; and there
flows out of and into them, as into basins, a vast tide of water, and huge
subterranean streams of perennial rivers, and springs hot and cold, and a great
fire, and great rivers of fire, and streams of liquid mud, thin or thick (like
the rivers of mud in Sicily, and the lava streams which follow them), and the
regions about which they happen to flow are filled up with them. And there is a
swinging or see-saw in the interior of the earth which moves all this up and
down, and is due to the following cause:—There is a chasm which is the vastest
of them all, and pierces right through the whole earth; this is that chasm which
Homer describes in the words,—
'Far off, where is the inmost depth beneath the earth;'
and which he in other places, and many other poets, have called Tartarus. And
the see-saw is caused by the streams flowing into and out of this chasm, and
they each have the nature of the soil through which they flow. And the reason
why the streams are always flowing in and out, is that the watery element has no
bed or bottom, but is swinging and surging up and down, and the surrounding wind
and air do the same; they follow the water up and down, hither and thither, over
the earth—just as in the act of respiration the air is always in process of
inhalation and exhalation;—and the wind swinging with the water in and out
produces fearful and irresistible blasts: when the waters retire with a rush
into the lower parts of the earth, as they are called, they flow through the
earth in those regions, and fill them up like water raised by a pump, and then
when they leave those regions and rush back hither, they again fill the hollows
here, and when these are filled, flow through subterranean channels and find
their way to their several places, forming seas, and lakes, and rivers, and
springs. Thence they again enter the earth, some of them making a long circuit
into many lands, others going to a few places and not so distant; and again fall
into Tartarus, some at a point a good deal lower than that at which they rose,
and others not much lower, but all in some degree lower than the point from
which they came. And some burst forth again on the opposite side, and some on
the same side, and some wind round the earth with one or many folds like the
coils of a serpent, and descend as far as they can, but always return and fall
into the chasm. The rivers flowing in either direction can descend only to the
centre and no further, for opposite to the rivers is a precipice.
Now these rivers are many, and mighty, and diverse, and there are four
principal ones, of which the greatest and outermost is that called Oceanus,
which flows round the earth in a circle; and in the opposite direction flows
Acheron, which passes under the earth through desert places into the Acherusian
lake: this is the lake to the shores of which the souls of the many go when they
are dead, and after waiting an appointed time, which is to some a longer and to
some a shorter time, they are sent back to be born again as animals. The third
river passes out between the two, and near the place of outlet pours into a vast
region of fire, and forms a lake larger than the Mediterranean Sea, boiling with
water and mud; and proceeding muddy and turbid, and winding about the earth,
comes, among other places, to the extremities of the Acherusian Lake, but
mingles not with the waters of the lake, and after making many coils about the
earth plunges into Tartarus at a deeper level. This is that Pyriphlegethon, as
the stream is called, which throws up jets of fire in different parts of the
earth. The fourth river goes out on the opposite side, and falls first of all
into a wild and savage region, which is all of a dark-blue colour, like lapis
lazuli; and this is that river which is called the Stygian river, and falls into
and forms the Lake Styx, and after falling into the lake and receiving strange
powers in the waters, passes under the earth, winding round in the opposite
direction, and comes near the Acherusian lake from the opposite side to
Pyriphlegethon. And the water of this river too mingles with no other, but flows
round in a circle and falls into Tartarus over against Pyriphlegethon; and the
name of the river, as the poets say, is Cocytus.
Such is the nature of the other world; and when the dead arrive at the place
to which the genius of each severally guides them, first of all, they have
sentence passed upon them, as they have lived well and piously or not. And those
who appear to have lived neither well nor ill, go to the river Acheron, and
embarking in any vessels which they may find, are carried in them to the lake,
and there they dwell and are purified of their evil deeds, and having suffered
the penalty of the wrongs which they have done to others, they are absolved, and
receive the rewards of their good deeds, each of them according to his deserts.
But those who appear to be incurable by reason of the greatness of their
crimes—who have committed many and terrible deeds of sacrilege, murders foul and
violent, or the like—such are hurled into Tartarus which is their suitable
destiny, and they never come out. Those again who have committed crimes, which,
although great, are not irremediable—who in a moment of anger, for example, have
done violence to a father or a mother, and have repented for the remainder of
their lives, or, who have taken the life of another under the like extenuating
circumstances—these are plunged into Tartarus, the pains of which they are
compelled to undergo for a year, but at the end of the year the wave casts them
forth—mere homicides by way of Cocytus, parricides and matricides by
Pyriphlegethon—and they are borne to the Acherusian lake, and there they lift up
their voices and call upon the victims whom they have slain or wronged, to have
pity on them, and to be kind to them, and let them come out into the lake. And
if they prevail, then they come forth and cease from their troubles; but if not,
they are carried back again into Tartarus and from thence into the rivers
unceasingly, until they obtain mercy from those whom they have wronged: for that
is the sentence inflicted upon them by their judges. Those too who have been
pre-eminent for holiness of life are released from this earthly prison, and go
to their pure home which is above, and dwell in the purer earth; and of these,
such as have duly purified themselves with philosophy live henceforth altogether
without the body, in mansions fairer still which may not be described, and of
which the time would fail me to tell.
Wherefore, Simmias, seeing all these things, what ought not we to do that we
may obtain virtue and wisdom in this life? Fair is the prize, and the hope
great!
A man of sense ought not to say, nor will I be very confident, that the
description which I have given of the soul and her mansions is exactly true. But
I do say that, inasmuch as the soul is shown to be immortal, he may venture to
think, not improperly or unworthily, that something of the kind is true. The
venture is a glorious one, and he ought to comfort himself with words like
these, which is the reason why I lengthen out the tale. Wherefore, I say, let a
man be of good cheer about his soul, who having cast away the pleasures and
ornaments of the body as alien to him and working harm rather than good, has
sought after the pleasures of knowledge; and has arrayed the soul, not in some
foreign attire, but in her own proper jewels, temperance, and justice, and
courage, and nobility, and truth—in these adorned she is ready to go on her
journey to the world below, when her hour comes. You, Simmias and Cebes, and all
other men, will depart at some time or other. Me already, as the tragic poet
would say, the voice of fate calls. Soon I must drink the poison; and I think
that I had better repair to the bath first, in order that the women may not have
the trouble of washing my body after I am dead.
When he had done speaking, Crito said: And have you any commands for us,
Socrates—anything to say about your children, or any other matter in which we
can serve you?
Nothing particular, Crito, he replied: only, as I have always told you, take
care of yourselves; that is a service which you may be ever rendering to me and
mine and to all of us, whether you promise to do so or not. But if you have no
thought for yourselves, and care not to walk according to the rule which I have
prescribed for you, not now for the first time, however much you may profess or
promise at the moment, it will be of no avail.
We will do our best, said Crito: And in what way shall we bury you?
In any way that you like; but you must get hold of me, and take care that I
do not run away from you. Then he turned to us, and added with a smile:—I cannot
make Crito believe that I am the same Socrates who have been talking and
conducting the argument; he fancies that I am the other Socrates whom he will
soon see, a dead body—and he asks, How shall he bury me? And though I have
spoken many words in the endeavour to show that when I have drunk the poison I
shall leave you and go to the joys of the blessed,—these words of mine, with
which I was comforting you and myself, have had, as I perceive, no effect upon
Crito. And therefore I want you to be surety for me to him now, as at the trial
he was surety to the judges for me: but let the promise be of another sort; for
he was surety for me to the judges that I would remain, and you must be my
surety to him that I shall not remain, but go away and depart; and then he will
suffer less at my death, and not be grieved when he sees my body being burned or
buried. I would not have him sorrow at my hard lot, or say at the burial, Thus
we lay out Socrates, or, Thus we follow him to the grave or bury him; for false
words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Be of
good cheer, then, my dear Crito, and say that you are burying my body only, and
do with that whatever is usual, and what you think best.
When he had spoken these words, he arose and went into a chamber to bathe;
Crito followed him and told us to wait. So we remained behind, talking and
thinking of the subject of discourse, and also of the greatness of our sorrow;
he was like a father of whom we were being bereaved, and we were about to pass
the rest of our lives as orphans. When he had taken the bath his children were
brought to him—(he had two young sons and an elder one); and the women of his
family also came, and he talked to them and gave them a few directions in the
presence of Crito; then he dismissed them and returned to us.
Now the hour of sunset was near, for a good deal of time had passed while he
was within. When he came out, he sat down with us again after his bath, but not
much was said. Soon the jailer, who was the servant of the Eleven, entered and
stood by him, saying:—To you, Socrates, whom I know to be the noblest and
gentlest and best of all who ever came to this place, I will not impute the
angry feelings of other men, who rage and swear at me, when, in obedience to the
authorities, I bid them drink the poison—indeed, I am sure that you will not be
angry with me; for others, as you are aware, and not I, are to blame. And so
fare you well, and try to bear lightly what must needs be—you know my errand.
Then bursting into tears he turned away and went out.
Socrates looked at him and said: I return your good wishes, and will do as
you bid. Then turning to us, he said, How charming the man is: since I have been
in prison he has always been coming to see me, and at times he would talk to me,
and was as good to me as could be, and now see how generously he sorrows on my
account. We must do as he says, Crito; and therefore let the cup be brought, if
the poison is prepared: if not, let the attendant prepare some.
Yet, said Crito, the sun is still upon the hill-tops, and I know that many a
one has taken the draught late, and after the announcement has been made to him,
he has eaten and drunk, and enjoyed the society of his beloved; do not
hurry—there is time enough.
Socrates said: Yes, Crito, and they of whom you speak are right in so acting,
for they think that they will be gainers by the delay; but I am right in not
following their example, for I do not think that I should gain anything by
drinking the poison a little later; I should only be ridiculous in my own eyes
for sparing and saving a life which is already forfeit. Please then to do as I
say, and not to refuse me.
Crito made a sign to the servant, who was standing by; and he went out, and
having been absent for some time, returned with the jailer carrying the cup of
poison. Socrates said: You, my good friend, who are experienced in these
matters, shall give me directions how I am to proceed. The man answered: You
have only to walk about until your legs are heavy, and then to lie down, and the
poison will act. At the same time he handed the cup to Socrates, who in the
easiest and gentlest manner, without the least fear or change of colour or
feature, looking at the man with all his eyes, Echecrates, as his manner was,
took the cup and said: What do you say about making a libation out of this cup
to any god? May I, or not? The man answered: We only prepare, Socrates, just so
much as we deem enough. I understand, he said: but I may and must ask the gods
to prosper my journey from this to the other world—even so—and so be it
according to my prayer. Then raising the cup to his lips, quite readily and
cheerfully he drank off the poison. And hitherto most of us had been able to
control our sorrow; but now when we saw him drinking, and saw too that he had
finished the draught, we could no longer forbear, and in spite of myself my own
tears were flowing fast; so that I covered my face and wept, not for him, but at
the thought of my own calamity in having to part from such a friend. Nor was I
the first; for Crito, when he found himself unable to restrain his tears, had
got up, and I followed; and at that moment, Apollodorus, who had been weeping
all the time, broke out in a loud and passionate cry which made cowards of us
all. Socrates alone retained his calmness: What is this strange outcry? he said.
I sent away the women mainly in order that they might not misbehave in this way,
for I have been told that a man should die in peace. Be quiet, then, and have
patience. When we heard his words we were ashamed, and refrained our tears; and
he walked about until, as he said, his legs began to fail, and then he lay on
his back, according to the directions, and the man who gave him the poison now
and then looked at his feet and legs; and after a while he pressed his foot
hard, and asked him if he could feel; and he said, No; and then his leg, and so
upwards and upwards, and showed us that he was cold and stiff. And he felt them
himself, and said: When the poison reaches the heart, that will be the end. He
was beginning to grow cold about the groin, when he uncovered his face, for he
had covered himself up, and said—they were his last words—he said: Crito, I owe
a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt? The debt shall be paid,
said Crito; is there anything else? There was no answer to this question; but in
a minute or two a movement was heard, and the attendants uncovered him; his eyes
were set, and Crito closed his eyes and mouth.
Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend; concerning whom I may truly say,
that of all the men of his time whom I have known, he was the wisest and justest
and best.
