[Sidenote: Rather when free from bodily impurity she departs to the seats
of the blessed.]
That soul, I say, herself invisible, departs to the invisible
world—to the divine and immortal and rational: thither
arriving, she is secure of bliss and is released from the error
and folly of men, their fears and wild passions and all
other human ills, and for ever dwells, as they say of the
initiated, in company with the gods[25]. Is not this true,
Cebes?
Yes, said Cebes, beyond a doubt.
[Sidenote: _The impure soul made corporeal._]
But the soul which has been polluted, and is impure at the
time of her departure, and is the companion and servant of
the body always, and is in love with and fascinated by the
body and by the desires and pleasures of the body, until she
is led to believe that the truth only exists in a bodily form,
which a man may touch and see and taste, and use for the
purposes of his lusts,—the soul, I mean, accustomed to hate
and fear and avoid the intellectual principle, which to the
bodily eye is dark and invisible, and can be attained only by
philosophy;—do you suppose that such a soul will depart
pure and unalloyed?
Impossible, he replied.
She is held fast by the corporeal, which the continual
association and constant care of the body have wrought into
her nature.
Very true.
[Sidenote: But the souls of the wicked are dragged down by the corporeal
element.]
And this corporeal element, my friend, is heavy and
weighty and earthy, and is that element of sight by which
a soul is depressed and dragged down again into the visible
world, because she is afraid of the invisible and of the world
below—prowling about tombs and sepulchres, near which,
as they tell us, are seen certain ghostly apparitions of souls
which have not departed pure, but are cloyed with sight and
therefore visible[26].
[Sidenote: _Transmigration of men into animals._]
That is very likely, Socrates.
Yes, that is very likely, Cebes; and these must be the
souls, not of the good, but of the evil, which are compelled
to wander about such places in payment of the penalty of
their former evil way of life; and they continue to wander
until through the craving after the corporeal which never
leaves them, they are imprisoned finally in another body.
And they may be supposed to find their prisons in the same
natures which they have had in their former lives.
What natures do you mean, Socrates?
[Sidenote: They wander into the bodies of the animals or of birds which
are of a like nature with themselves.]
What I mean is that men who have followed after gluttony,
and wantonness, and drunkenness, and have had no thought
of avoiding them, would pass into asses and animals of that
sort. What do you think? 82