naturally harmony, so far as it has
been made to accord?"

"I do not understand you," he replied.

"Whether," he said, "if it should be in a greater degree and more fully
made to accord, supposing that were possible, would the harmony be
greater and more full; but if in a less degree and less fully, then
would it be inferior and less full?"

"Certainly."

"Is this, then, the case with the soul that, even in the smallest
extent, one soul is more fully and in a greater degree, or less fully
and in a less degree, this very thing, a soul, than another?"

"In no respect whatever," he replied.

96. "Well, then," he said, "by Jupiter! is one soul said to possess
intelligence and virtue, and to be good, and another folly and vice, and
to be bad? and is this said with truth?"

"With truth, certainly."

"Of those, then, who maintain that the soul is harmony, what will any
one say that these things are in the soul, virtue and vice? Will he call
them another kind of harmony and discord, and say that the one, the good
soul, is harmonized, and, being harmony, contains within itself another
harmony, but that the other is discordant, and does not contain within
itself another harmony?"

"I am unable to say," replied Simmias; "but it is clear that he who
maintains that opinion would say something of the kind."

"But it has been already granted," said he, "that one soul is not more
or less a soul than another; and this is an admission that one harmony
is not to a greater degree or more fully, or to a less degree or less
fully, a harmony, than another; is it not so?"

"Certainly."

"And that that which is neither more or less harmony is neither more nor
less harmonized: is it so?"

"It is."

"But does that which is neither more or less harmonized partake of more
or less harmony, or an equal amount?"

"An equal amount."

97. "A soul, therefore, since it is not more or less this very thing, a
soul, than another, is not more or less harmonized?"

"Even so."

"Such, then, being its condition, it can not partake of a greater degree
of discord or harmony?"

"Certainly not."

"And, again, such being its condition, can one soul partake of a greater
degree of vice or virtue than another, if vice be discord, and virtue
harmony?"

"It can not."

"Or rather, surely, Simmias, according to right reason, no soul will
partake of vice, if it is harmony; for doubtless harmony, which is
perfectly such, can never partake of discord?"

"Certainly not."

"Neither, therefore, can a soul which is perfectly a soul partake of
vice."

"How can it, from what has been already said?"

"From this reasoning, then, all souls of all animals will be equally
good, if, at least, they are by nature equally this very thing, souls?"

"It appears so to me, Socrates," he said.

"And does it appear to you," he said, "to have been thus rightly argued,
and that the argument would lead to this result, if the hypothesis were
correct, that the soul is harmony?"

98. "On no account whatever," he replied.

"But what," said he, "of all the things that are in man? Is there any
thing else that you say bears rule except the soul, especially if it be
wise?"

"I should say not."

"Whether by yielding to the passions in the body, or by opposing them?
My meaning is this: for instance, when heat and thirst are present, by
drawing it the contrary way, so as to hinder it from drinking; and when
hunger is present, by hindering it from eating; and in ten thousand
other instances we see the soul opposing the desires of the body. Do we
not?"

"Certainly."

"But have we not before allowed that if the soul were harmony, it would
never utter a sound contrary to the tension, relaxation, vibration, or
any other affection to which its component parts are subject, but would
follow, and never govern them?"

"We did allow it," he replied, "for how could we do otherwise?"

"What, then? Does not the soul now appear to act quite the contrary,
ruling over all the parts from which any one might say it subsists, and
resisting almost all of them through the whole of life, and exercising
dominion over them in all manner of ways; punishing some more severely
even with pain, both by gymnastics and medicine, and others more mildly;
partly threatening, and partly admonishing the desires, angers and
fears, as if, being itself of a different nature, it were conversing
with something quite different? 99. Just as Homer has done in the
Odyssey,[35] where he speaks of Ulysses--'Having struck his breast, he
chid his heart in the following words: Bear up, my heart; ere this thou
hast borne far worse.' Do you think that he composed this in the belief
that the soul was harmony, and capable of being led by the passions of
the body, and not rather that it was able to lead and govern them, as
being something much more divine than to be compared with harmony?"

"By Jupiter! Socrates, it appears so to me."

"Therefore, my excellent friend, it is on no account correct for us to
say that the soul is a kind of harmony; for, as it appears, we should
neither agree with Homer, that divine poet, nor with ourselves."

"Such is the case," he replied.

"Be it so, then," said Socrates, "we have already, as it seems,
sufficiently appeased this Theban harmony. But how, Cebes, and by what
arguments, shall we appease this Cadmus?"[36]

100. "You appear to me," replied Cebes, "to be likely to find out; for
you have made out this argument against harmony wonderfully beyond my
expectation. For when Simmias was saying what his doubts were, I
wondered very much whether any one would be able to answer his
reasoning. It, therefore, appeared to me unaccountable that he did not
withstand the very first onset of your argument. I should not,
therefore, be surprised if the arguments of Cadmus met with the same
fate."

"My good friend," said Socrates, "do not speak so boastfully, lest some
envious power should overthrow the argument that is about to be urged.
These things, however, will be cared for by the deity; but let us,
meeting hand to hand, in the manner of Homer, try whether you say any
thing to the purpose. This, then, is the sum of what you inquire you
require it to be proved that our soul is imperishable and immortal; if a
philosopher that is about to die, full of confidence and hope that after
death he shall be far happier than if he had died after leading a
different kind of life, shall not entertain this confidence foolishly
and vainly. 101. But to show that the soul is something strong and
divine, and that it existed before we men were born, you say not at all
hinders, but that all these things may evince, not its immortality, but
that the soul is durable, and existed an immense space of time before,
and knew and did many things. But that, for all this, it was not at all
the more immortal, but that its very entrance into the body of a man was
the beginning of its destruction, as if it were a disease; so that it
passes through this life in wretchedness, and at last perishes in that
which is called death. But you say that it is of no consequence whether
it comes into a body once or often, with respect to our occasion of
fear; for it is right he should be afraid, unless he is foolish, who
does not know, and can not give a reason to prove, that the soul is
immortal. Such, I think, Cebes, is the sum of what you say; and I
purposely repeat it often, that nothing may escape us, and, if you
please, you may add to or take from it."

Cebes replied, "I do not wish at present either to take from or add to
it; that is what I mean."

102. Socrates, then having paused for some time, and considered
something within himself, said, "You inquire into no easy matter, Cebes;
for it is absolutely necessary to discuss the whole question of
generation and corruption. If you please, then, I will relate to you
what happened to me with reference to them; and afterward, if any thing
that I shall say shall appear to you useful toward producing conviction
on the subject you are now treating of, make use of it."

"I do indeed wish it," replied Cebes.

"Hear my relation, then. When I was a young man, Cebes, I was
wonderfully desirous of that wisdom which they call a history of nature;
for it appeared to me to be a very sublime thing to know the causes of
every thing--why each thing is generated, why it perishes, and why it
exists. And I often tossed myself upward and downward, considering first
such things as these, whether when heat and cold have undergone a
certain corruption, as some say, then animals are formed; and whether
the blood is that by means of which we think, or air, or fire, or none
of these, but that it is the brain that produces the perceptions of
hearing, seeing, and smelling; and that from these come memory and
opinion; and from memory and opinion, when in a state of rest, in the
same way knowledge is produced. 103. And, again, considering the
corruptions of these, and the affections incidental to the heavens and
the earth, I at length appeared to myself so unskillful in these
speculations that nothing could be more so. But I will give you a
sufficient proof of this; for I then became, by these very speculations,
so very blind with respect to things which I knew clearly before, as it
appeared to myself and others, that I unlearned even the things which I
thought I knew before, both on many other subjects and also this, why a
man grows. For, before, I thought this was evident to every one--that it
proceeds from eating and drinking; for that, when, from the food, flesh
is added to flesh, bone to bone, and so on in the same proportion, what
is proper to them is added to the several other parts, then the bulk
which was small becomes afterward large, and thus that a little man
becomes a big one. Such was my opinion at that time. Does it appear to
you correct?"

"To me it does," said Cebes.

104. "Consider this further. I thought that I had formed a right
opinion, when, on seeing a tall man standing by a short one, I judged
that he was taller by the head, and in like manner, one horse than
another; and, still more clearly than this, ten appeared to me to be
more than eight by two being added to them, and that two cubits are
greater than one cubit by exceeding it a half."

"But now," said Cebes, "what think you of these matters?"

"By Jupiter!" said he, "I am far from thinking that I know the cause of
these, for that I can not even persuade myself of this: when a person
has added one to one, whether the one to which the addition has been
made has become two, or whether that which has been added, and that to
which the addition has been made, have become two by the addition of the
one to the other. For I wonder if, when each of these was separate from
the other, each was one, and they were not yet two; but when they have
approached nearer each other this should be the cause of their becoming
two--namely, the union by which they have been placed nearer one
another. 105. Nor yet, if any person should divide one, am I able to
persuade myself that this, their division, is the cause of its becoming
two. For this cause is the contrary to the former one of their becoming
two; for then it was because they were brought nearer to each other, and
the one was added to the other; but now it is because one is removed and
separated from the other. Nor do I yet persuade myself that I know why
one is one, nor, in a word, why any thing else is produced, or perishes,
or exists, according to this method of proceeding; but I mix up another
method of my own at random, for this I can on no account give in to."

"But, having once heard a person reading from a book, written, as he
said, by Anaxagoras, and which said that it is intelligence that sets in
order and is the cause of all things, I was delighted with this cause,
and it appeared to me in a manner to be well that intelligence should be
the cause of all things, and I considered with myself, if this is so,
that the regulating intelligence orders all things, and disposes each in
such way as will