Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates Part 15

"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 pa.s.sions 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 pa.s.sions 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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.ses 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 be best for it. 106. If any one, then, should desire to discover the cause of every thing, in what way it is produced, or perishes, or exists, he must discover this respecting it--in what way it is best for it either to exist, or to suffer, or do any thing else. From this mode of reasoning, then, it is proper that a man should consider nothing else, both with respect to himself and others, than what is most excellent and best; and it necessarily follows that this same person must also know that which is worst, for that the knowledge of both of them is the same. Thus reasoning with myself, I was delighted to think I had found in Anaxagoras a preceptor who would instruct me in the causes of things, agreeably to my own mind, and that he would inform me, first, whether the earth is flat or round, and, when he had informed me, would, moreover, explain the cause and necessity of its being so, arguing on the principle of the better, and showing that it is better for it to be such as it is; and if he should say that it is in the middle, that he would, moreover, explain how it is better for it to be in the middle; and if he should make all this clear to me, I was prepared no longer to require any other species of cause. 107. I was in like manner prepared to inquire respecting the sun and moon and the other stars, with respect to their velocities in reference to each other, and their revolutions and other conditions, in what way it is better for both to act and be affected as it does and is. For I never thought that after he had said that these things were set in order by intelligence, he would introduce any other cause for them than that it is best for them to be as they are. Hence, I thought, that in a.s.signing the cause to each of them, and to all in common, he would explain that which is best for each, and the common good of all. And I would not have given up my hopes for a good deal; but, having taken up his books with great eagerness, I read through them as quickly as I could, that I might as soon as possible know the best and the worst."

108. "From this wonderful hope, however, my friend, I was speedily thrown down, when, as I advance and read over his works, I meet with a man who makes no use of intelligence, nor a.s.signs any causes for the ordering of all things, but makes the causes to consist of air, ether, and water, and many other things equally absurd. And he appeared to me to be very like one who should say that whatever Socrates does he does by intelligence, and then, attempting to describe the causes of each particular action, should say, first of all, that for this reason I am now sitting here, because my body is composed of bones and sinews and that the bones are hard, and have joints separate from each other, but that the sinews, being capable of tension and contraction, cover the bones, together with the flesh and skin which contain them. The bones, therefore, being suspended in their sockets, the nerves, relaxing and tightening, enable me to bend my limbs as I now do, and from this cause I sit here bent up. 109. And if, again, he should a.s.sign other similar causes for my conversing with you, a.s.signing as causes voice, and air, and hearing, and ten thousand other things of the kind, omitting to mention the real causes, that since it appeared better to the Athenians to condemn me, I therefore thought it better to sit here, and more just to remain and submit to the punishment which they have ordered; for, by the dog! I think these sinews and bones would have been long ago either in Megara or Boeotia, borne thither by an opinion of that which is best, if I had not thought it more just and honorable to submit to whatever sentence the city might order than to flee and run stealthily away. But to call such things causes is too absurd. But if any one should say that without possessing such things as bones and sinews, and whatever else I have, I could not do what I pleased, he would speak the truth; but to say that I do as I do through them, and that I act thus by intelligence, and not from the choice of what is best, would be a great and extreme disregard of reason. 110. For this would be not to be able to distinguish that the real cause is one thing, and that another, without which a cause could not be a cause; which, indeed, the generality of men appear to me to do, fumbling, as it were, in the dark, and making use of strange names, so as to denominate them as the very cause. Wherefore one encompa.s.sing the earth with a vortex from heaven makes the earth remain fixed; but another, as if it were a broad trough, rests it upon the air as its base; but the power by which these things are now so disposed that they may be placed in the best manner possible, this they neither inquire into, nor do they think that it requires any superhuman strength; but they think they will some time or other find out an Atlas stronger and more immortal than this, and more capable of containing all things; and in reality, the good, and that which ought to hold them together and contain them, they take no account of at all. I, then, should most gladly have become the disciple of any one who would teach me of such a cause, in what way it is. But when I was disappointed of this, and was neither able to discover it myself, nor to learn it from another, do you wish, Cebes, that I should show you in what way I set out upon a second voyage in search of the cause?"

111. "I wish it exceedingly," he replied.

"It appeared to me, then," said he, "after this, when I was wearied with considering things that exist, that I ought to beware lest I should suffer in the same way as they do who look at and examine an eclipse of the sun, for some lose the sight of their eyes, unless they behold its image in water, or some similar medium. And I was affected with a similar feeling, and was afraid lest I should be utterly blinded in my soul through beholding things with the eyes, and endeavoring to grasp them by means of the several senses. It seemed to me, therefore, that I ought to have recourse to reasons, and to consider in them the truth of things. Perhaps, however, this similitude of mine may in some respect be incorrect; for I do not altogether admit that he who considers things in their reasons considers them in their images, more than he does who views them in their effects. However, I proceeded thus, and on each occasion laying down the reason, which I deem to be the strongest, whatever things appear to me to accord with this I regard as true, both with respect to the cause and every thing else; but such as do not accord I regard as not true. 112. But I wish to explain my meaning to you in a clearer manner; for I think that you do not yet understand me."

"No, by Jupiter!" said Cebes, "not well."

"However," continued he, "I am now saying nothing new, but what I have always at other times, and in a former part of this discussion, never ceased to say. I proceed, then, to attempt to explain to you that species of cause which I have busied myself about, and return again to those well-known subjects, and set out from them, laying down as an hypothesis, that there is a certain abstract beauty, and goodness, and magnitude, and so of all other things; which if you grant me, and allow that they do exist, I hope that I shall be able from these to explain the cause to you, and to discover that the soul is immortal."

"But," said Cebes, "since I grant you this, you may draw your conclusion at once."

"But consider," he said, "what follows from thence, and see if you can agree with me. For it appears to me that if there is any thing else beautiful besides beauty itself, it is not beautiful for any other reason than because it partakes of that abstract beauty; and I say the same of every thing. Do you admit such a cause?"

"I do admit it," he replied.

113. "I do not yet understand," he continued, "nor am I able to conceive, those other wise causes; but if any one should tell me why any thing is beautiful, either because it has a blooming florid color, or figure, or any thing else of the kind, I dismiss all other reasons, for I am confounded by them all; but I simply, wholly, and perhaps foolishly, confine myself to this, that nothing else causes it to be beautiful except either the presence or communication of that abstract beauty, by whatever means and in whatever way communicated; for I can not yet affirm this with certainty, but only that by means of beauty all beautiful things become beautiful. For this appears to me the safest answer to give both to myself and others; and adhering to this, I think that I shall never fall, but that it is a safe answer both for me and any one else to give--that by means of beauty beautiful things become beautiful. Does it not also seem so to you?"

"It does."

"And that by magnitude great things become great, and greater things, greater; and by littleness less things become less?"

"Yes."

114. "You would not, then, approve of it, if any one said that one person is greater than another by the head, and that the less is less by the very same thing; but you would maintain that you mean nothing else than that every thing that is greater than another is greater by nothing else than magnitude, and that it is greater on this account--that is, on account of magnitude; and that the less is less by nothing else than littleness, and on this account less--that is, on account of littleness; being afraid, I think, lest some opposite argument should meet you if you should say that any one is greater and less by the head; as, first, that the greater is greater, and the less less, by the very same thing; and, next, that the greater is greater by the head, which is small; and that it is monstrous to suppose that any one is great through something small. Should you not be afraid of this?"

To which said Cebes, smilingly, "Indeed, I should."

"Should you not, then," he continued, "be afraid to say that ten is more than eight by two, and for this cause exceeds it, and not by number, and on account of number? and that two cubits are greater than one cubit by half, and not by magnitude (for the fear is surely the same)?"

"Certainly," he replied.

115. "What, then? When one has been added to one, would you not beware of saying that the addition is the cause of its being two, or division when it has been divided; and would you not loudly a.s.sert that you know no other way in which each thing subsists, than by partaking of the peculiar essence of each of which it partakes, and that in these cases you can a.s.sign no other cause of its becoming two than its partaking of duality; and that such things as are to become two must needs partake of this, and what is to become one, of unity; but these divisions and additions, and other such subtleties, you would dismiss, leaving them to be given as answers by persons wiser than yourself; whereas you, fearing, as it is said, your own shadow and inexperience, would adhere to this safe hypothesis, and answer accordingly? But if any one should a.s.sail this hypothesis of yours, would you not dismiss him, and refrain from answering him till you had considered the consequences resulting from it, whether in your opinion they agree with or differ from each other? But when it should be necessary for you to give a reason for it, would you give one in a similar way, by again laying down another hypothesis, which should appear the best of higher principles, until you arrived at something satisfactory; but, at the same time, you would avoid making confusion, as disputants do, in treating of the first principle and the results arising from it, if you really desire to arrive at the truth of things? 116. For they, perhaps, make no account at all of this, nor pay any attention to it; for they are able, through their wisdom, to mingle all things together, and at the same time please themselves. But you, if you are a philosopher, would act, I think, as I now describe."

"You speak most truly," said Simmias and Cebes together.

_Echec._ By Jupiter! Phaedo, they said so with good reason; for he appears to me to have explained these things with wonderful clearness, even to one endued with a small degree of intelligence.

_Phaed._ Certainly, Echecrates, and so it appeared to all who were present.

_Echec._ And so it appears to me, who was absent, and now hear it related. But what was said after this?

As well as I remember, when these things had been granted him, and it was allowed that each several idea exists of itself,[37] and that other things partaking of them receive their denomination from them, he next asked: "If, then," he said, "you admit that things are so, whether, when you say that Simmias is greater than Socrates, but less than Phaedo, do you not then say that magnitude and littleness are both in Simmias?"

"I do."

117. "And yet," he said, "you must confess that Simmias's exceeding Socrates is not actually true in the manner in which the words express it; for Simmias does not naturally exceed Socrates in that he is Simmias, but in consequence of the magnitude which he happens to have; nor, again, does he exceed Socrates because Socrates is Socrates, but because Socrates possesses littleness in comparison with his magnitude?"

"True."