Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates by Plato (top ten books to read .TXT) 📕

86. Phæd. Indeed, Echecrates, though I have often admired Socrates, I was never more delighted than at being with him on that occasion. That he should be able to say something is perhaps not at all surprising; but I especially admired this in him—first of all, that he listened to the argument of the young men so sweetly, affably, and approvingly; in the next place, that he so quickly perceived how we were affected by their arguments; and, lastly, that he cured us so well and recalled us, when we were put to flight, as it were, and vanquished, and encouraged us to accompany him, and consider the argument with him.

Echec. How was that?

Phæd. I will tell you: I happened to be sitting at his right hand, near the bed, upon a low seat, but he himself sat much higher than I. Stroking my head, then, and laying hold of the hair that hung on my neck—for he used, often, to play with my hairs—"To-morrow," he said, "perhaps, Phædo, you will cut off these beautiful locks?"

"It seems likely, Socrates," said I.

87. "Not if you are persuaded by me."

"Why so?" I asked.

"To-day," he replied, "both I ought to cut off mine and you yours, if our argument must die, and we are unable to revive it. And I, if I were you, and the arguments were to escape me, would take an oath, as the Argives do, not to suffer my hair to grow until I had renewed the contest, and vanquished the arguments of Simmias and Cebes."

"But," I said, "even Hercules himself is said not to have been a match for two."

"Call upon me, then," he said, "as your Iolaus, while it is yet day."

"I do call on you, then," I said, "not as Hercules upon Iolaus, but as Iolaus upon Hercules."

"It will make no difference," he replied. "But, first of all, we must beware lest we meet with some mischance."

"What?" I asked.

"That we do not become," he answered, "haters of reasoning, as some become haters of men; for no greater evil can happen to any one than to hate reasoning. 88. But hatred of reasoning and hatred of mankind both spring from the same source. For hatred of mankind is produced in us from having placed too great reliance on some one without sufficient knowledge of him, and from having considered him to be a man altogether true, sincere, and faithful, and then, after a little while, finding him depraved and unfaithful, and after him another. And when a man has often experienced this, and especially from those whom he considered his most intimate and best friends, at length, having frequently stumbled, he hates all men, and thinks that there is no soundness at all in any of them. Have you not perceived that this happens so?"

"Certainly," I replied.

"Is it not a shame?" he said "And is it not evident that such a one attempts to deal with men without sufficient knowledge of human affairs? For if he had dealt with them with competent knowledge, as the case really is, so he would have considered that the good and the bad are each very few in number, and that those between both are most numerous."

89. "How say you?" I asked.

"In the same manner," he replied, "as with things very little and very large Do you think that any thing is more rare than to find a very large on a very little man, or dog, or any thing else? and, again, swift or slow, beautiful or ugly, white or black? Do you not perceive that of all such things the extremes are rare and few, but that the intermediate are abundant and numerous?"

"Certainly," I replied.

"Do you not think, then," he continued, "that if a contest in wickedness were proposed, even here very few would be found pre-eminent?"

"It is probable," I said.

"It is so," he said, "but in this respect reasonings do not resemble men, for I was just now following you as my leader, but in this they do resemble them, when any one believes in any argument as true without being skilled in the art of reasoning, and then shortly afterward it appears to him to be false, at one time being so and at another time not, and so on with one after another,34 and especially they who devote themselves to controversial arguments, you are aware, at length think they have become very wise and have alone discovered that there is nothing sound and stable either in things or reasonings but that all things that exist, as is the case with the Euripus, are in a constant state of flux and reflux, and never continue in any one condition for any length of time."

"You speak perfectly true," I said.

90. "Would it not, then, Phædo" he said "be a sad thing if, when there is a true and sound reasoning, and such as one can understand, one should then, through lighting upon such arguments as appear to be at one time true and at another false, not blame one's self and one's own want of skill, but at length, through grief, should anxiously transfer the blame from one's self to the arguments, and thereupon pass the rest of one's life in hating and reviling arguments and so be depraved of the truth and knowledge of things that exist?"

"By Jupiter!" I said, "it would be sad, indeed."

"In the first place, then," he said, "let us beware of this, and let us not admit into our souls the notion that there appears to be nothing sound in reasoning, but much rather that we are not yet in a sound condition, and that we ought vigorously and strenuously to endeavor to become sound, you and the others, on account of your whole future life, but I, on account of my death, since I am in danger, at the present time, of not behaving as becomes a philosopher with respect to this very subject, but as a wrangler, like those who are utterly uninformed 91. For they, when they dispute about any thing, care nothing at all for the subject about which the discussion is, but are anxious about this, that what they have themselves advanced shall appear true to the persons present. And I seem to myself on the present occasion to differ from them only in this respect, for I shall not be anxious to make what I say appear true to those who are present, except that may happen by the way, but that it may appear certainly to be so to myself. For I thus reason, my dear friend, and observe how interestedly. If what I say be true, it is well to be persuaded of it, but if nothing remains to one that is dead, I shall, at least, during the interval before death be less disagreeable to those present by my lamentations. But this ignorance of mine will not continue long, for that would be bad, but will shortly be put an end to. Thus prepared, then, Simmias and Cebes," he continued, "I now proceed to my argument. Do you, however, if you will be persuaded by me, pay little attention to Socrates, but much more to the truth, and if I appear to you to say any thing true, assent to it, but if not, oppose me with all your might, taking good care that in my zeal I do not deceive both myself and you, and, like a bee, depart leaving my sting behind."

92. "But let us proceed," he said "First of all, remind me of what you said, if I should appear to have forgotten it For Simmias, as I think, is in doubt, and fears lest the soul, though more divine and beautiful than the body, should perish before it, as being a species of harmony. But Cebes appeared to me to grant me this, that the soul is more durable than the body, but he argued that it is uncertain to every one, whether when the soul has worn out many bodies and that repeatedly, it does not, on leaving the last body, itself also perish, so that this very thing is death, the destruction of the soul, since the body never ceases decaying Are not these the things, Simmias and Cebes, which we have to inquire into?"

They both agreed that they were.

"Whether, then," he continued "do you reject all our former arguments, or some of them only, and not others?"

"Some we do," they replied, "and others not."

"What, then," he proceeded, "do you say about that argument in which we asserted that knowledge is reminiscence, and that, this being the case, our soul must necessarily have existed somewhere before it was inclosed in the body?"

93. "I, indeed," replied Cebes "was both then wonderfully persuaded by it, and now persist in it, as in no other argument."

"And I, too," said Simmias, "am of the same mind, and should very much wonder if I should ever think otherwise on that point."

"Then," Socrates said, "you must needs think otherwise, my Theban friend, if this opinion holds good, that harmony is something compounded, and that the soul is a kind of harmony that results from the parts compacted together in the body. For surely you will not allow yourself to say that harmony was composed prior to the things from which it required to be composed Would you allow this?"

"By no means, Socrates" he replied.

"Do you perceive, then," he said, "that this result from what you say, when you assert that the soul existed before it came into a human form and body, but that it was composed from things that did not yet exist? For harmony is not such as that to which you compare it, but first the lyre, and the chords, and the sounds yet unharmonized, exist, and, last of all, harmony is produced, and first perishes. How, then, will this argument accord with that?"

"Not at all," said Simmias.

94. "And yet," he said, "if in any argument, there ought to be an accordance in one respecting harmony."

"There ought," said Simmias.

"This of yours, however," he said, "is not in accordance. Consider, then, which of these two statements do you prefer—that knowledge is reminiscence, or the soul harmony?"

"The former by far, Socrates," he replied; "for the latter occurred to me without demonstration, through a certain probability and speciousness whence most men derive their opinions. But I am well aware that arguments which draw their demonstrations from probabilities are idle; and, unless one is on one's guard against them, they are very deceptive, both in geometry and all other subjects. But the argument respecting reminiscence and knowledge may be said to have been demonstrated by a satisfactory hypothesis. For in this way it was said that our soul existed before it came into the body, because the essence that bears the appellation of 'that which is' belongs to it. But of this, as I persuade myself, I am fully and rightly convinced. It is therefore necessary, as it seems, that I should neither allow myself nor any one else to maintain that the soul is harmony."

95. "But what, Simmias," said he, "if you consider it thus? Does it appear to you to appertain to harmony, or to any other composition, to subsist in any other way than the very things do of which it is composed?"

"By no means."

"And indeed, as I think, neither to do any thing, nor suffer any thing else, besides what they do or suffer."

He agreed.

"It does not, therefore, appertain to