Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/209

Rh PLATO 199 is ended. But, while the record is being entered and the magis trates are thus occupied, Socrates is imagined as addressing (a) the majority, and (6) the minority in the court. a. To those who have condemned him he speaks iu a prophetic tone. &quot; For the sake of depriving an old man of the last dregs of life, they have given Athens a bad name. He would not run away, and so death has overtaken him. But his accusers are overtaken by iinrighteousness, and must reap the fruits of it. &quot; Nor will the Athenians find the desired relief. Other reprovers, whom Socrates has hitherto restrained, will now arise, not in a friendly but in a hostile spirit. The only way for the citizens to escape reproof is to reform their lives. &quot; l&amp;gt;. To the minority, who would have acquitted him, he speaks with gentle solemnity. &quot; Let them know to their comfort that the divine voice has not once checked him throughout that day. This indicates that death is not an evil. And reason shows that death is either a long untroubled sleep, or removal to a better world, where are no unjust judges. &quot; No evil can happen to a good man either in life or after death. Wherefore Socrates will not be angry with his condemners, who have done him no harm, although they meant him anything but good. He will only ask of them to do to the sons of Socrates as Socrates has done to them.&quot; the philosopher a good citizen ? are questions which are sure to arise where the truth involves practical improve ment. In the Apology Socrates appears as an intrepid reformer ; the Crito gives an impressive picture of him as a loyal and law-abiding Athenian. Execution had been delayed during the annual mission to Dclos (during which no one could be put to death). But the returning vessel had just been reported as descried from Sunium. At early dawn Crito, the oldest friend of Socrates, obtained access to his cell, and found him sleeping peacefully. Presently he awoke, and Crito told him of the approach of the fatal ship. Socrates replies by telling his dream. A fair form stood over him and said, &quot;The third day hence to Phthia slmlt thou come.&quot; And it would seem that the day after to-morrow will really be the day for going home. Crito then reveals his plan for an escape. And Socrates argues the question in the old familiar way. &quot; Crito s zeal is excellent, and most men would think his object right. But the few who think soundly say that it is wrong to return evil for evil. The laws of Athens (through the fault of men) are doing Socrates harm. But ought he therefore to infringe the law ? Might not the laws of bis country plead with him and say : You owe to us your birth and breeding ; and when grown up you voluntarily submitted to ns. For you might have gone elsewhere. But you preferred us to all other laws, and have been the most constant resident iu Athens. Even at the last you accepted death rather than exile. If you now break your covenant, you will ruin your friends and will be rejected by all well-ordered cities. You might be received in Thessaly, but could only live there by cringing to foreigners for food. Where in that case will be your talk about virtue ? You would not take your sons thither. And your friends would be equally kind to them if you were dead. &quot; Think not of life and children first and of justice afterwards, but think of justice first, that you may be justified in the world below. &quot; Crito admits these arguments to be unanswerable.
 * o. Is the love of truth consistent with civic duties ? Is
 * 3Jo. The Meno referred to the immortality and pre-existence

of the soul as a traditional doctrine, and it was there associated with the possibility of inquiry. In the Ph&do Plato undertakes to substantiate this belief and base it anew, by narrating the last hours of Socrates, who is represented as calmly discussing the question with his friends when his own death was immediately at hand. The argument turns chiefly on the eternity of knowledge, and is far from satisfying. For, granting that eternity of knowledge involves eternity of mind, does the eternity of mind assure continued being to the individual 1 l Yet no unprejudiced reader of the Phsedo can doubt that Plato, at the time of writing it, sincerely believed in a conscious personal existence after death. The words of Socrates, when he declares his hope of going to be with other friends, are absolutely unambiguous, and his reply to Crito s question, &quot;How shall we bury you 1 ?&quot; has a convincing 1 In the Timseus immortality is made to rest on the goodwill of God, because &quot;only an evil being would wish to dissolve that which is har- nionious and happy&quot; (Tim., 41 A). force beyond all dialectic : &quot; I cannot persuade Crito that I here am Socrates I who am now reasoning and order ing discourse. He imagines Socrates to be that other, whom he will see by and by, a corpse.&quot; This and similar touches not only stamp the Phsedo as a marvel of art, but are indisputable evidences of the writer s profound belief. They may be inventions, but they have nothing &quot; mythi cal &quot; about them, any more than the charge of Socrates to his friends, that they would best fulfil his wishes by attending to their own lives. The narrative, to be appreciated, must be read in full. But a short abstract of the argument may be given here. 1. Death is merely the separation of soul and body. And this is the very consummation at which philosophy aims. The body hinders thought. The mind attains to truth by retiring into her self. Through no bodily sense does she perceive justice, beauty, goodness, and other ideas. The philosopher has a life-long quarrel with bodily desires, and he should welcome the release of his soul. Thus he alone can have true courage, even as temperance and all the virtues are real in him alone. But does the soul exist after death ? a. An old tradition tells of many successive births, the soul departing to Hades and returning again, so that the living are born from the dead. And if the dead had no existence, this could not be, since from nothing nothing can arise. Moreover, experi ence shows that opposite states come from their opposites, and that such a process is always reciprocal. Death certainly succeeds to life. Then life must succeed to death. And that which undergoes these changes must exist through all. If the dead came from the living, and not the living from the dead, the universe would ultimately be consumed in death. This presumption is confirmed by the doctrine (here attributed to Socrates, comp. Meno) that knowledge comes through recollection. What is recollected must be previously known. Now we have never since birth had intuition of the absolute equality of which (through association) we are reminded by the sight of things approximately equal. And we cannot have seen it at the moment of birth, for at what other moment can we have forgotten it ? Therefore, if ideals be not vain, our souls must have existed before birth, and, according to the doctrine of opposites above stated, will have continued existence after death. b. To charm away the fears of the &quot;child within,&quot; Socrates adds, as further considerations: (1) The soul is uncompounded, incorporeal, invisible, and there fore indissoluble and immutable. (2) The soul commands, the body serves ; therefore the soul is. akin to the divine. (3) Yet even the body holds together long after death, and the bones are all but indestructible. The soul, if pure, departs to the invisible world, but, if tainted by communion with the body, she lingers hovering near the earth, and is afterwards born into the likeness of some lower form. That which true philosophy has purified alone rises ultimately to the gods. This lesson is impressively applied. 2. A pause ensues ; and Simmias and Cebes are invited to express their doubts. For, as the swan dies singing, Socrates would die discoursing. a. Simmias desires not to rest short of demonstration, though he is willing to make the highest attainable probability the guide of life. If the soul is the harmony of the body, what becomes of her &quot; when the lute is broken &quot; ? b. Cebes compares the body to a garment which the soul keeps weaving at. The garment in which the weaver dies outlasts him. So the soul may have woven and worn many bodies in one lifetime, yet may perish and leave a body behind. Or even supposing her to have many lives, does even this hypothesis exempt her from ultimate decay ? Socrates warns his friends against losing faith in inquiry. Theories, like men, are disappointing ; yet we should be neither misanthropists nor misologists. Then he answers his two friends. (a) (1) The soul is acknowledged to be prior to the bod^r But no harmony is prior to the elements which are harmonized. (2) The soul has virtue and vice, i.e., harmony and discord. Is there harmony of harmony ? Comp. Hep., x. 609. (3) All soul is equally soul, but all harmony is not equally harmonious. (4) If the soul were the harmony of the body, they would be agreed ; but, as lias been already shown, they are perpetually quarrelling. (5) The soul is not conditioned by the bodily elements, but has the power of controlling them. (b. ) Cubes has raised the wide question whether the soul is inde pendent of generation and corruption, Socrates owns that he him-