Part 29

“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 afterwards it appears to him to be false, at one time being so and at another time not, and so on with one after another; 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.”

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Footnote 34:

καὶ αὖθις ἕτερος καὶ ἕτερος, that is, “with one argument after another.” Though Cousin translates it et successivement tout différent de lui-mâne, and Ast, et rursus alia atque alia, which may be taken in either sense, yet it appears to me to mean that, when a man repeatedly discovers the fallacy of arguments which he before believed to be true, he distrusts reasoning altogether, just as one who meets with friend after friend who proves unfaithful, becomes a misanthrope.

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“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 deprived 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 endeavour 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 enquire 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 enclosed 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 results 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.