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.