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.
[Sidenote: _The pre-existence of the soul._]
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.
[Sidenote: But if so, our souls must have existed before they were in the
form of man; or if not the souls, then not the ideas.]
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.
[Sidenote: _Simmias and Cebes are not quite satisfied._]
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 77
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.
[Sidenote: Simmias and Cebes are agreed in thinking that the previous
existence of the soul is sufficiently proved, but not the future
existence.]
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.
[Sidenote: But if the soul passes from death to birth, she must exist
after death as well as before birth.]
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.
[Sidenote: _‘The child within us.’_]
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.
[Sidenote: The fear that the soul will vanish into air must be charmed
away.]
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, 78
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.
[Sidenote: What is the element which is liable to be scattered?—Not the
simple and unchangeable, but the composite and changing.]
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.
[Sidenote: _The seen and the unseen._]
And the uncompounded may be assumed to be the same
and unchanging, whereas the compound is always changing
and never the same.