'Thank you,' said Simmias; 'then I'll tell you my difficulty, and 10 Cebes here in his turn will say where he doesn't accept what's been c said. I think, Socrates, as perhaps you do too, that in these matters certain knowledge is either impossible or very hard to come by in this life; but that even so, not to test what is said about them in every possible way, without leaving off till one has examined them 5 exhaustively from every aspect, shows a very feeble spirit; on these questions one must achieve one of two things: either learn or find out how things are; or, if that's impossible, then adopt the best and least refutable of human doctrines, embarking on it as a kind of raft, d and risking the dangers of the voyage through life, unless one could travel more safely and with less risk, on a securer conveyance afforded by some divine doctrine. So now I shan't scruple to put my question, since you tell me to, and then I shan't reproach myself 5 at a later time for failing to speak my mind now. In my view, Socrates, when I examine what's been said, either alone or with Cebes here, it doesn't seem altogether adequate.' 10
'Maybe your view is correct, my friend,' said Socrates; 'but tell e me, in what way inadequate?'
'I think in this way,' he said; 'one could surely use the same argument about the attunement of a lyre and its strings, and say that the attunement is something unseen and incorporeal and very lovely 5 and divine in the tuned lyre, while the lyre itself and its strings are 86
corporeal bodies and composite and earthy and akin to the mortal. Now, if someone smashed the lyre, or severed and snapped its strings, suppose it were maintained, by the same argument as yours, that the attunement must still exist and not have perished—because it would be inconceivable that when the strings had been snapped, the lyre and the strings themselves, which are of mortal nature, should still exist, and yet that the attunement, which has affinity and kinship to the divine and the immortal, should have perished— and perished before the mortal; rather, it might be said, the attunement itself must still exist somewhere, and the wood and the strings would have to rot away before anything happened to it. And in point of fact, Socrates, my own belief is that you're aware yourself that something of this sort is what we actually take the soul to be: our body is kept in tension, as it were, and held together by hot and cold, dry and wet, and the like, and our soul is a blending and attunement of these same things, when they're blended with each other in due proportion. If, then, the soul proves to be some kind of attunement, it's clear that when our body is unduly relaxed or tautened by illnesses and other troubles, then the soul must perish at once, no matter how divine it may be, just like other attunements, those in musical notes and in all the products of craftsmen; whereas the remains of each body will last for a long time, until they're burnt up or rot away. Well, consider what we shall say in answer to that argument, if anyone should claim that the soul, being a blending of the bodily elements, is the first thing to perish in what is called death.'
At this Socrates looked at us wide-eyed, as he often used to, and said with a smile: 'Simmias' remarks are certainly fair. So if any of you is more resourceful than I am, why doesn't he answer him? Because he really seems to be coming to grips with the argument in no mean fashion. However, before answering I think we should first hear from Cebes here what further charge he has to bring against the argument, so that in the intervening period we may be thinking what to say; then, when we've heard them both, either we can agree with them, if it seems they're at all in tune; or if not, we can enter a plea for the argument at that point. Come on then, Cebes, tell us what's been troubling you.'
'I certainly will,' said Cebes. 'You see, the argument seems to me to remain where it was, and to be open to the same charge as we made before. As to the existence of our soul even before it entered 87 its present form, I don't take back my admission that this has been very neatly, and, if it's not presumptuous to say so, very adequately proved; but I don't think the same about its still existing somewhere when we've died. Not that I agree with Simmias' objection that soul 5 isn't stronger and longer-lived than body: because I think it far superior in all those ways. "Why then", the argument would say, "are you still in doubt, when you can see that the weaker part still exists after the man has died? Don't you think the longer-lived part b must still be preserved during that time?"
'Well, consider if there's anything in my reply to that; because it seems that, like Simmias, I too need an image. What's being said, I think, is very much as if someone should offer this argument about a man—a weaver who has died in old age—to show that the man hasn't 5 perished but exists somewhere intact, and should produce as evidence the fact that the cloak he had woven for himself, and worn, was intact and had not perished; and if anyone doubted him, he should c ask which class of thing is longer-lived, a man, or a cloak in constant use and wear; and on being answered that a man is much longer- lived, should think it had been proved that the man must therefore surely be intact, seeing that something shorter-lived hadn't perished. 5 Yet in fact, Simmias, this isn't so: because you too must consider what I'm saying. Everyone would object that this is a simple-minded argument. Because this weaver, though he'd woven and worn out many such cloaks, perished after all of them, despite their number, d but still, presumably, before the last one; and yet for all that a man is neither lesser nor weaker than a cloak.
'The relation of soul to body would, I think, admit of the same comparison: anyone making the same points about them, that the soul is long-lived, while the body is weaker and shorter-lived, would 5 in my view argue reasonably; true indeed, he might say, every soul wears out many bodies, especially in a life of many years—because, though the body may decay and perish while the man is still alive, still the soul will always weave afresh what's being worn out; never- e theless, when the soul does perish, it will have to be wearing its last
garment, and must perish before that one alone; and when the soul 5 has perished, then at last the body will reveal its natural weakness, moulder away quickly, and be gone. So we've no right as yet to 88 trust this argument, and feel confident that our soul still exists somewhere after we've died. Indeed, were one to grant the speaker even more than what you say,43 allowing him not only that our souls existed in the time before we were born, but that nothing prevents 5 the souls of some, even after we've died, from still existing and continuing to exist, and from being bo,rn and dying over and over again—because soul is so strong by nature that it can endure repeated births—even allowing all that, were one not to grant the further point that it does not suffer in its many births, and does not end by 10 perishing completely in one of its deaths, and were one to say that b no one can know this death or detachment from the body which brings perishing to the soul—since none of us can possibly perceive it—well, if that's the case, then anyone who's confident in face of 5 death must be possessed of a foolish confidence, unless he can prove that soul is completely immortal and imperishable; otherwise, anyone about to die must always fear for his own soul, lest in its present disjunction from the body it perish completely.'
c All of us who heard them were disagreeably affected by their words, as we afterwards told one another: we'd been completely convinced by the earlier argument, yet now they seemed to disturb us again, and make us doubtful not only about the arguments already 5 put forward but also about points yet to be raised, for fear that we were incompetent judges of anything, or even that these things might be inherently doubtful.