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.