Page:The trial and death of Socrates (1895).pdf/91

lxxxv life is inseparable from the soul. Therefore the soul will not admit death. She is immortal, and therefore indestructible: and when a man dies his soul goes away safe and unharmed. Simmias admits that he has nothing to urge against Socrates' reasoning though he cannot say that he is quite satisfied. Human reason is weak and the subject vast.

But if the soul lives on after death, how terrible must be the danger of neglecting her! For she takes to Hades nothing but her nurture and education, and these make a great difference to her at the very beginning of her journey thither. Socrates then describes the soul's journey to the other world, and her life there: a remark that the earth is a wonderful place, not at all like what it is commonly thought to be, leads to the description of the earth in the famous Myth of the Phædo, which Plato, with consummate art, interposes between the hard metaphysical argument of the dialogue, and the account of Socrates' death. Socrates describes the earth, its shape, and character, and inhabitants, and beauty. We men, who think we live on its surface, really live down in a hollow. Other men live on the surface, which is much fairer than our world. Then he goes on to describe Tartarus and its rivers, of which the chief are Oceanus, Acheron, Pyriphlegethon, and Cocytus. He proceeds to speak of the judgment and rewards and punishments of the souls after death: a man who has devoted himself to his soul and not to his body need not