Phaedo (92-96)

Phaedo. What you think, he asked, about the argument in which we said that learning is recollection and that, since this is so, our soul must necessarily have been somewhere before it was imprisoned in the body? I, said Cebes, was wonderfully convinced by it at the time and I still believe it more firmly than any other argument. And I too, said Simmias, feel just as he does, and I should be much surprised if I should ever think differently on this point. And Socrates said: You must, my Theban friend, think differently, if you persist in your opinion that a harmony is a compound and that the soul is a harmony made up of the elements that are strung like harpstrings in the body. For surely you will not accept your own statement that a composite harmony existed before those things from which it had to be composed, will you? Certainly not, Socrates. Then do you see, said he, that this is just what you say when you assert that the soul exists before it enters into the form and body of a man, and that it is composed of things that do not yet exist? For harmony is not what your comparison assumes it to be. The lyre and the strings and the sounds come into being in a tuneless condition, and the harmony is the last of all to be composed and the first to perish. So how can you bring this theory into harmony with the other? I cannot at all, said Simmias. And yet, said Socrates, there ought to be harmony between it and the theory about harmony above all others. Yes, there ought, said Simmias. Well, said he, there is no harmony between the two theories. Now which do you prefer, that knowledge is recollection or that the soul is a harmony? The former, decidedly, Socrates, he replied. For this other came to me without demonstration; it merely seemed probable and attractive, which is the reason why many men hold it. I am conscious that those arguments which base their demonstrations on mere probability are deceptive, and if we are not on our guard against them they deceive us greatly, in geometry and in all other things. But the theory of recollection and knowledge has been established by a sound course of argument. For we agreed that our soul before it entered into the body existed just as the very essence which is called the absolute exists. Now I am persuaded that I have accepted this essence on sufficient and right grounds. I cannot therefore accept from myself or anyone else the statement that the soul is a harmony. Here is another way of looking at it, Simmias, said he.

Phaedo.Do you think a harmony or any other composite thing can be in any other state than that in which the elements are of which it is composed? Certainly not. And it can neither do nor suffer anything other than they do or suffer? He agreed. Then a harmony cannot be expected to lead the elements of which it is composed, but to follow them. He assented. A harmony, then, is quite unable to move or make a sound or do anything else that is opposed to its component parts. Quite unable, said he. Well then, is not every harmony by nature a harmony according as it is harmonized? I do not understand, said Simmias. Would it not, said Socrates, be more completely a harmony and a greater harmony if it were harmonized more fully and to a greater extent, assuming that to be possible, and less completely a harmony and a lesser harmony if less completely harmonized and to a less extent? Certainly. Is this true of the soul? Is one soul even in the slightest degree more completely and to a greater extent a soul than another, or less completely and to a less extent? Not in the least, said he. Well now, said he, one soul is said to possess sense and virtue and to be good, and another to possess folly and wickedness and to be bad; and is this true? Yes, it is true. Now what will those who assume that the soul is a harmony say that these things—the virtue and the wickedness—in the soul are? Will they say that this is another kind of harmony and a discord, and that the soul, which is itself a harmony, has within it another harmony and that the other soul is discordant and has no other harmony within it? I cannot tell, replied Simmias, but evidently those who make that assumption would say some thing of that sort. But we agreed, said Socrates, that one soul is no more or less a soul than another; and that is equivalent to an agreement that one is no more and to no greater extent, and no less and to no less extent, a harmony than another, is it not? Certainly. And that which is no more or less a harmony, is no more or less harmonized. Is that so? Yes. But has that which is no more and no less harmonized any greater or any less amount of harmony, or an equal amount? An equal amount. Then a soul, since it is neither more nor less a soul than another, is neither more nor less harmonized. That is so. And therefore can have no greater amount of discord or of harmony? No. And therefore again one soul can have no greater amount of wickedness or virtue than another, if wickedness is discord and virtue harmony?

Phaedo.It cannot. Or rather, to speak exactly, Simmias, no soul will have any wickedness at all, if the soul is a harmony; for if a harmony is entirely harmony, it could have no part in discord. Certainly not. Then the soul, being entirely soul, could have no part in wickedness. How could it, if what we have said is right? According to this argument, then, if all souls are by nature equally souls, all souls of all living creatures will be equally good. So it seems, Socrates, said he. And, said Socrates, do you think that this is true and that our reasoning would have come to this end, if the theory that the soul is a harmony were correct? Not in the least, he replied. Well, said Socrates, of all the parts that make up a man, do you think any is ruler except the soul, especially if it be a wise one? No, I do not. Does it yield to the feelings of the body or oppose them? I mean, when the body is hot and thirsty, does not the soul oppose it and draw it away from drinking, and from eating when it is hungry, and do we not see the soul opposing the body in countless other ways? Certainly. Did we not agree in our previous discussion that it could never, if it be a harmony, give forth a sound at variance with the tensions and relaxations and vibrations and other conditions of the elements which compose it, but that it would follow them and never lead them? Yes, he replied, we did, of course. Well then, do we not now find that the soul acts in exactly the opposite way, leading those elements of which it is said to consist and opposing them in almost everything through all our life, and tyrannizing over them in every way, sometimes inflicting harsh and painful punishments (those of gymnastics and medicine), and sometimes milder ones, sometimes threatening and sometimes admonishing, in short, speaking to the desires and passions and fears as if it were distinct from them and they from it, as Homer has shown in the Odyssey when he says of Odysseus:

He smote his breast, and thus he chid his heart:

Endure it, heart, you have born worse than this.

Hom. Od 20.17-18 Do you suppose that, when he wrote those words, he thought of the soul as a harmony which would be led by the conditions of the body, and not rather as something fitted to lead and rule them, and itself a far more divine thing than a harmony? By Zeus, Socrates, the latter, I think.

Phaedo. Then, my good friend, it will never do for us to say that the soul is a harmony; for we should, it seems, agree neither with Homer, the divine poet, nor with ourselves. That is true, said he. Very well, said Socrates, Harmonia, the Theban goddess, has, it seems, been moderately gracious to us; but how, Cebes, and by what argument can we find grace in the sight of Cadmus? I think, said Cebes, you will find a way. At any rate, you conducted this argument against harmony wonderfully and better than I expected. For when Simmias was telling of his difficulty, I wondered if anyone could make head against his argument; so it seemed to me very remarkable that it could not withstand the first attack of your argument. Now I should not be surprised if the argument of Cadmus met with the same fate. My friend, said Socrates, do not be boastful, lest some evil eye put to rout the argument that is to come. That, however, is in the hands of God. Let us, in Homeric fashion, charge the foe and test the worth of what you say. Now the sum total of what you seek is this: You demand a proof that our soul is indestructible and immortal, if the philosopher, who is confident in the face of death and who thinks that after death he will fare better in the other world than if he had lived his life differently, is not to find his confidence senseless and foolish. And although we show that the soul is strong and godlike and existed before we men were born as men, all this, you say, may bear witness not to immortality, but only to the fact that the soul lasts a long while, and existed somewhere an immeasurably long time before our birth, and knew and did various things; yet it was none the more immortal for all that, but its very entrance into the human body was the beginning of its dissolution, a disease, as it were; and it lives in toil through this life and finally perishes in what we call death. Now it makes no difference, you say, whether a soul enters into a body once or many times, so far as the fear each of us feels is concerned; for anyone, unless he is a fool, must fear, if he does not know and cannot prove that the soul is immortal. That, Cebes, is, I think, about what you mean. And I restate it purposely that nothing may escape us and that you may, if you wish, add or take away anything. And Cebes said, I do not at present wish to take anything away or to add anything. You have expressed my meaning. Socrates paused for some time and was absorbed in thought. Then he said: It is no small thing that you seek; for the cause of generation and decay must be completely investigated.

Phaedo.Now I will tell you my own experience in the matter, if you wish; then if anything I say seems to you to be of any use, you can employ it for the solution of your difficulty. Certainly, said Cebes, I wish to hear your experiences. Listen then, and I will tell you. When I was young, Cebes, I was tremendously eager for the kind of wisdom which they call investigation of nature. I thought it was a glorious thing to know the causes of everything, why each thing comes into being and why it perishes and why it exists; and I was always unsettling myself with such questions as these: Do heat and cold, by a sort of fermentation, bring about the organization of animals, as some people say? Is it the blood, or air, or fire by which we think? Or is it none of these, and does the brain furnish the sensations of hearing and sight and smell, and do memory and opinion arise from these, and does knowledge come from memory and opinion in a state of rest? And again I tried to find out how these things perish, and I investigated the phenomena of heaven and earth until finally I made up my mind that I was by nature totally unfitted for this kind of investigation. And I will give you a sufficient proof of this. I was so completely blinded by these studies that I lost the knowledge that I, and others also, thought I had before; I forgot what I had formerly believed I knew about many things and even about the cause of man’s growth. For I had thought previously that it was plain to everyone that man grows through eating and drinking; for when, from the food he eats, flesh is added to his flesh and bones to his bones, and in the same way the appropriate thing is added to each of his other parts, then the small bulk becomes greater and the small man large. That is what I used to think. Doesn’t that seem to you reasonable? Yes, said Cebes. Now listen to this, too. I thought I was sure enough, when I saw a tall man standing by a short one, that he was, say, taller by a head than the other, and that one horse was larger by a head than another horse; and, to mention still clearer things than those, I thought ten were more than eight because two had been added to the eight, and I thought a two-cubit rule was longer than a one-cubit rule because it exceeded it by half its length. And now, said Cebes, what do you think about them?