Absolute ideas and the Soul
Table of Contents
There is an absolute beauty, and goodness, and an absolute essence of all things.
If to this, which is now discovered to have existed in our former state, we refer all our sensations, and with this compare them, finding these ideas to be pre-existent and our inborn possession—then
Our souls must have had a prior existence, but if not, there would be no force in the argument?
There is the same proof that these ideas must have existed before we were born, as that our souls existed before we were born; and if not the ideas, then not the souls.
Yes, Socrates.
I am convinced that there is precisely the same necessity for the one as for the other.
The argument retreats successfully to the position that the existence of the soul before birth cannot be separated from the existence of the essence of which you speak.
For there is nothing which to my mind is so patent as that beauty, goodness, and the other notions of which you were just now speaking, have a most real and absolute existence.
I am satisfied with the proof.
But is Cebes equally satisfied? I must convince him too.
I think that Cebes is satisfied.
He is the most incredulous. Yet I believe that he is convinced of the existence of the soul before birth.
But that after death, the soul’s continued existence is not yet proven even to my own satisfaction.
I cannot get rid of the feeling of the many to which Cebes was referring—the feeling that when the man dies the soul will be dispersed, and that this may be the extinction of her.
I allow that the soul might have been:
- born elsewhere
- framed out of other elements
- in existence before entering the human body
But why after having entered in and gone out again may she not be destroyed and come to an end?
Very true, Simmias.
About half of what was required has been proven, that our souls existed before we were born.
But the soul existing after death as well as before birth is the other half of which the proof is still lacking.
But that proof has been already given.
You should put the 2 arguments together.
We admitted that everything living is born of the dead.
If the soul exists before birth, and in coming to life and being born, then being born comes only from death and dying.
It follows that the soul after death must continue to exist, since it has to be born again.
Still I suspect that you and Simmias would be glad to probe the argument further.
Like children, you are haunted with a fear that when the soul leaves the body, the wind may really blow her away and scatter her.
This is especially if a man dies in a great storm and not when the sky is calm.
[smiling] Then, Socrates, you must argue us out of our fears.
There is a child within us to whom death is a sort of hobgoblin.
We must persuade this child not to be afraid when he is alone in the dark.
We must ask into the soul which we imagine and fear is liable to be scattered.
Can the soul be dispersed?
The compound or composite is naturally capable of being dissolved. But that which is uncompounded is indissoluble.
The uncompounded may be assumed to be the same and unchanging, whereas the compound is always changing and never the same.
In the dialectical process, we define idea or essence as true existence.
The true essence of equality, beauty, etc are unchangeable.
Each of them are always as they are. They have the same simple self-existent and unchanging forms. They do not admit of variation at all at anytime.
The beautiful are always changing – horses, garments, etc.
These you can touch and see and perceive with the senses.
But the unchanging things you can only perceive with the mind—they are invisible and are not seen.
There are 2 sorts of existences:
- Seen: this is the changing
- Unseen: this is the unchanging
One of us is part body, another is part soul. The body is the seen and the soul is the unseen by the human eye.
The soul uses the body as an instrument of perception. It uses sight or hearing.
Perceiving through the body is perceiving through the senses.
The soul too is then dragged by the body into the region of the changeable. It wanders and is confused.
The world spins round her, and she is like a drunkard, when she touches change.
But when returning into herself she reflects, then she passes into the other world, the region of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives, when she is by herself and is not let or hindered.
Then she ceases from her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is unchanging.
This state of the soul is called wisdom.
And to which class is the soul more nearly alike and akin?
I think that the soul will be infinitely more like the unchangeable
The body is more like the changing.
Yet once more consider the matter in another light: When the soul and the body are united, then nature orders the soul to rule and govern, and the body to obey and serve.
Which of these two functions is akin to the divine? and which to the mortal? Does not the divine appear to you to be that which naturally orders and rules, and the mortal to be that which is subject and servant?
The soul resembles the divine. The body resembles the mortal.
The soul is in the very likeness of the divine, and immortal, and intellectual, and uniform, and indissoluble, and unchangeable. The body is in the very likeness of the human, and mortal, and unintellectual, and multiform, and dissoluble, and changeable.
The body is liable to speedy dissolution. The soul is indissoluble.
After a man dies, the body is called a corpse. It would naturally be dissolved, decomposed, and dissipated after some time. For the body when shrunk and embalmed, as the manner is in Egypt, may remain almost entire through infinite ages. Even in decay, there are still some portions, such as the bones and ligaments, which are practically indestructible.
The invisible soul passes to the place of the true Hades which is also invisible.
The pure and noble soul goes to the good and wise God. If God wills it my soul is also soon to go.
The soul, I repeat, if this be her nature and origin, will be blown away and destroyed immediately on quitting the body, as the many say?
That can never be, my dear Simmias and Cebes.
The truth rather is, that the soul which is pure at departing and draws after her no bodily taint, having never voluntarily during life had connection with the body, which she is ever avoiding, herself gathered into herself.
Making such abstraction her perpetual study—which means that she has been a true disciple of philosophy; and therefore has in fact been always engaged in the practice of dying?
For is not philosophy the practice of death?
That soul is itself invisible. It departs to the invisible world—to the divine and immortal and rational. From there, it is secure of bliss and is released from:
- the error and folly of men
- their fears and wild passions and
- all other human ills
It forever dwells, as they say of the initiated, in company with the gods (compare Apol.).
The followiing kind of soul will not depart pure and unalloyed:
- That which has been polluted, and is impure at the time of her departure
- That which is the companion and servant of the body always
- That which is in love with and fascinated by the body and by the desires and pleasures of the body, until it is led to believe that the truth only exists in a bodily form, which can be touched, seen, tasted, and used for its lusts
- That which is used to hate, fear, and avoids the intellectual principle, which to the bodily eye is dark and invisible, and can be attained only by philosophy
She is held fast by the corporeal, which the continual association and constant care of the body have wrought into her nature.
This corporeal element is heavy, weighty, and earthy. It is that element of sight by which a soul is depressed and dragged down again into the visible world.
This is because she is afraid of the invisible and of the world below.