Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/369

 368 D. G. EITCHIE : sometimes treated as a separate argument for the immortality of the soul (e.g., by Ueberweg and Prof. Geddes). 1 This Mr. Archer-Hind denies ; rightly, if we consider only the formal nature of the argument. But it contains the assertion of the priority and independence of the soul, and thus does really advance the general argument of the dialogue. (1) The doc- trine of harmony is shown to be inconsistent with the already accepted doctrine of Recollection (91 C-92 D). A harmony can only come into existence after that which produced it. (2) A harmony is dependent upon the materials that produce it, and is more or less of a harmony according to their condi- tion ; whereas the soul as such (i.e., in its ultimate essence, as we might say the mere I which is the condition of any knowledge) does not admit of degrees. The virtuous soul is not more a soul than the vicious, though it may be called more of a harmony (92 E-94 B). (3) The soul rules the body, whereas a harmony, as before said, is dependent on its materials (94 B-95 A). The harmony-theory is also criti- cised by Aristotle, in the De Anima, i. 4, who, like Plato, speaks of it as widely held. It is impossible for us to find out with whom the theory originated. It may, to begin with, have been nothing more than a poetical image popularly accepted. Plato's main argument against it is the first one that it is inconsistent with the theory which alone explains knowledge. On this position the other two depend. J. S. Mill (Essays on Religion, p. 197) considers this argu- ment of Simmias to be that which a modern objector would naturally make to Plato's argument, viz., " that thought and consciousness, though mentally distinguishable from the body, may not be a substance separable from it, but a result of it, standing in a relation to it like that of a tune to the musical instrument on which it is played ".'- We may com- pare Voltaire's question whether the song of the nightingale can live when the bird has been devoured by an eagle. It should be noticed that ap/j,ovla means properly a succession of notes, and so is equivalent to our word ' tune ' or ' air/ rather than to ' harmony '. This being so, does not the illustration of the lyre tell the other way? A tune certainly cannot exist apart from the notes of which it is composed. They 1 Cp. Teichmiiller.(y liiologists to identify the soul with a special form ot that correspondence between organism ana environment in which life i.s held to roii>i.-t :!.