Echecrates. Goodness, Phaedo, you have my sympathy. Because d now that I've heard you, it occurs to me to say to myself something like this: 'What argument shall we ever trust now? How thoroughly convincing was the argument that Socrates gave, yet now it's fallen into discredit.' This theory that our soul is a kind of attunement has 5 a strange hold on me, now as it always has done, so your statement of it has served to remind me that I'd formerly held this view myself. And I very much need some other argument that will convince me once again, as if from the start, that the soul of one who has died
doesn't die with him. So do please tell me how Socrates pursued the discussion. Did he become visibly troubled at all, as you say you were, or did he come quietly to the argument's help? And was his help adequate or deficient? Please relate everything to us, as minutely as you can.
Phaedo. Well, Echecrates, often as I've admired Socrates, I never found him more wonderful than when with him then. That he should have had an answer to give isn't, perhaps, surprising; but what I specially admired was, first, the pleasure, kindliness, and approval with which he received the young men's argument; next his acute- ness in perceiving how their speeches had affected us; and finally his success in treating us, rallying us as if we were fleeing in defeat, and encouraging us to follow him in examining the argument together. Echecrates. In what way?
Phaedo. I'll tell you. I happened to be sitting to his right, on a stool beside the bed, while he was a good way above me. Stroking my head and gathering the hair on my neck—it was his way now and again to make fun of my hair44—he said: 'So tomorrow perhaps, Phaedo, you'll cut off those lovely locks.'
'I expect so, Socrates,' I replied.
'You won't, if you listen to me.'
'What then?' I asked.
'Today', he said, 'I'll cut mine and you yours—if, that is, the argument dies on us and we can't revive it. For myself, if I were you and the argument got away from me, I should swear an oath, like the Argives, not to grow my hair again till I'd fought back and defeated the argument of Simmias and Cebes.'
'But', I said, 'even Heracles is said to have been no match for two.'
'Then summon me as your Iolaus,' he said, 'while there's still light.'
'AH right,' I said, 'I summon you, not as if I were Heracles myself, but rather as Iolaus summoning Heracles.'
'That will make no difference,' he said. 'But first let's take care that a certain fate doesn't befall us.'
'What's that?' I asked.
'The fate of becoming "misologists", just as some become misanthropists; because there's no greater evil that could befall anyone
than this—the hating of arguments. "Misology" and misanthropy 5 both arise from the same source. Misanthropy develops when, without skill, one puts complete trust in somebody, thinking the man absolutely true and sound and reliable, and then a little later finds him bad and unreliable; and then this happens again with another person; and when it happens to someone often, especially e at the hands of those he'd regard as his nearest and dearest friends, he ends up, after repeated hard knocks, hating everyone, thinking there's no soundness whatever in anyone at all. Have you never noticed that happening?'
'I certainly have,' I said. 5 'Well, isn't it an ugly thing, and isn't it clear that such a man was setting about handling human beings, without any skill in human relations? Because if he handled them with skill, he'd surely have 90 recognized the truth, that extremely good and bad people are both very few in number, and the majority lie in between.'
'What do you mean?' I asked.
'It's the same as with extremely small and large things: do you 5 think anything is rarer than finding an extremely large or extremely small man, or dog, or anything else? Or again, one that's extremely fast or slow, ugly or beautiful, pale or dark?45 Haven't you noticed that in all such cases extreme instances at either end are rare and few in number, whereas intermediate ones are plentiful and common?' 10 'Certainly,' I said.
b 'Don't you think, then, that if a contest in badness were promoted, there too those in the first class would be very few?'
'Probably,' I said.
'Yes, probably; though in that respect arguments aren't like men, 5 but I was following the lead you gave just now. The resemblance is found, rather, when someone who lacks skill in arguments, trusts some argument to be true, and then a little later it seems to him false, sometimes when it is, and sometimes when it isn't, and then the same thing happens with one argument after another-it is, as you c know, especially those who've spent all their time on antinomies, who end up thinking they've become extremely wise: they alone have discerned that there's nothing sound or secure whatever, either in things or arguments; but that all the things that are are carried up
and down, just like things fluctuating in the Euripus, and never 5 remain at rest for any time.'
'What you say is perfectly true,' I said.
'Then, Phaedo, it would be a pitiful fate, if there were in fact some true and secure argument, and one that could be discerned, yet d owing to association with arguments of the sort that seem now true and now false, a man blamed neither himself nor his own lack of skill, but finally relieved his distress by shifting the blame from himself to arguments, and then finished out the rest of his life 5 hating and abusing arguments, and was deprived both of the truth and of knowledge of the things that are.'46
'Goodness, that certainly would be pitiful,' I said.
'Then let's guard against this first, and let's not admit into our soul the thought that there's probably nothing sound in arguments; e but let's far rather admit that we're not yet sound ourselves, but must strive manfully to become sound—you and the others for the sake of your whole future life, but I because of death itself; since 91 that very issue is one that I may not be facing as a philosopher should, but rather as one bent on victory, like those quite devoid of education. They too, when they dispute about something, care nothing for the truth of the matter under discussion, but are eager only that those present shall accept their own thesis. It seems to me 5 that on this occasion I shall differ from them only to this extent: my concern will not be, except perhaps incidentally, that what I say shall seem true to those present, but rather that it shall, as far as possible, seem so to myself. Because I reckon, my dear friend—watch b how anxious I am to score—that if what I say proves true, it's surely well to have been persuaded; whereas if there's nothing for a dead man, still, at least during this very time before my death, I'll distress those present less with lamentation, and this ignorance47 of mine will 5 not persist-that would be a bad thing-but will in a little while be ended.
'Thus prepared, Simmias and Cebes, I advance against the argument; but for your part, if you take my advice, you'll care little for Socrates but much more for the truth: if I seem to you to say c anything true, agree with it; but if not, resist it with every argument you can, taking care that in my zeal I don't deceive you and myself
5 alike, and go off like a bee leaving its sting behind.
'Well now, to proceed. First remind me of what you were saying, in case I prove not to have remembered. Simmias, I believe, is doubtful and afraid that the soul, though more divine and lovelier d than the body, may still perish before it, being a kind of attunement. Whereas Cebes, I thought, agreed with me in this much, that soul is longer-lived than body; but he held that no one could be sure whether 5 the soul, after wearing out many bodies time and again, might not then perish itself, leaving its last body behind, and whether death might not be just this, the perishing of soul—since body, of course, is perishing incessantly and never stops. Aren't those the points, Simmias and Cebes, that we have to consider?' e They both agreed that they were.