Superphysics
Proof of Reincarnation
8 minutes • 1618 words
When Socrates had done speaking, for a considerable time there was silence.
He appeared to be meditating, as most of us were, on what had been said. Only Cebes and Simmias spoke a few words to one another.
Socrates asked what they thought of the argument. He said that there are many points still open to suspicion and attack, if any one were disposed to sift the matter thoroughly.
Should you be considering some other matter I say no more, but if you are still in doubt do not hesitate to say exactly what you think, and let us have anything better which you can suggest; and if you think that I can be of any use, allow me to help you.
Doubts did arise in our minds. Each of us was urging and inciting the other ask difficult questions.
[smiling] I am not very likely to persuade other men that I do not regard my present situation as a misfortune, if I cannot even persuade you that I am no worse off now than at any other time in my life.
Do you believe that I have as much of the spirit of prophecy in me as the swans?
When they perceive that they must die, having sung all life long, they sing more lustily than ever. They rejoice in the thought that they are about to go away to the god whose ministers they are.
But men are afraid of death. They slanderously affirm that swans sing a lament in the end.
But they do not think that birds do not sing when cold, hungry, or in pain.
But because they are sacred to Apollo, they have the gift of prophecy, and anticipate the good things of another world, wherefore they sing and rejoice in that day more than they ever did before.
I believe myself to be the consecrated servant of the same God, and the fellow-servant of the swans.
I think that I have received from my master gifts of prophecy which are not inferior to theirs. And so I would not go out of life less merrily than the swans.
Then I will tell you my difficulty, and Cebes will tell you his.
I feel it is impossible to attain any certainty on the questions such as these in the present life.
Yet I should deem him a coward who did not prove what is said about them to the uttermost, or whose heart failed him before he had examined them on every side.
He should persevere until he has achieved one of two things:
- He should discover or be taught the truth about them; or
- He should take the best of human theories, and let this be the raft on which he sails through life
You may be right, but I should like to know in what respect the argument is insufficient.
We could say that:
- harmony is an invisible, incorporeal, perfect, divine thing existing in the harmonized lyre.
- the lyre and the strings are material, composite, earthy, and mortal
When some one breaks the lyre, or cuts and rends the strings, then he who takes this view would argue as you do, and on the same analogy, that the harmony survives and has not perished—you cannot imagine, he would say, that the lyre without the strings, and the broken strings themselves which are mortal remain, and yet that the harmony, which is of heavenly and immortal nature and kindred, has perished—perished before the mortal.
The harmony must still be somewhere, and the wood and strings will decay before anything can happen to that.
The thought, Socrates, must have occurred to your own mind that such is our conception of the soul; and that when the body is in a manner strung and held together by the elements of hot and cold, wet and dry, then the soul is the harmony or due proportionate admixture of them.
But if so, whenever the strings of the body are unduly loosened or overstrained through disease or other injury, then the soul, though most divine, like other harmonies of music or of works of art, of course perishes at once, although the material remains of the body may last for a considerable time, until they are either decayed or burnt. And if any one maintains that the soul, being the harmony of the elements of the body, is first to perish in that which is called death, how shall we answer him?
Socrates looked fixedly at us as his manner was, and said with a smile:
Simmias has reason on his side. Why does not some one of you who is better able than myself answer him? for there is force in his attack upon me.
But perhaps, before we answer him, we had better also hear what Cebes has to say that we may gain time for reflection, and when they have both spoken, we may either assent to them, if there is truth in what they say, or if not, we will maintain our position.
Please to tell me then, Cebes, he said, what was the difficulty which troubled you?
I feel that the argument is still open to the same objections as before.
I believe in the soul existing before entering into the bodily form.
But the existence of the soul after death is still unproven.
I believe that the soul is stronger and more lasting than the body.
People have told me that the more lasting must survive the weaker.
I explain that the soul is like an old weaver who dies. After his death somebody says:
He is not dead, he is alive. There is the coat which he himself wove and wore, and which remains whole and undecayed.
Which lasts longer: a man or the coats that he has made?
A man lasts far longer
This demonstrated the survival of the man, who is the more lasting, because the less lasting remains.
But that, Simmias, is nonsense.
The weaver has woven and worn many such coats and outlived several of them. But he was outlived by the last.
But a man is not proved to be slighter and weaker than a coat.
The relation of the body to the soul is similar. The soul is lasting. The body weak and shortlived in comparison.
He may argue that every soul wears out many bodies, especially if a man live many years.
While he is alive the body deliquesces and decays, and the soul always weaves another garment and repairs the waste.
Whenever the soul perishes, it must have on its last garment. This will survive it.
When the soul is dead, the body will show its native weakness, and quickly decompose and pass away.
I would therefore rather not rely on the argument from superior strength to prove the continued existence of the soul after death.
For granting even more than you affirm to be possible, and acknowledging not only that the soul existed before birth, but also that the souls of some exist, and will continue to exist after death, and will be born and die again and again, and that there is a natural strength in the soul which will hold out and be born many times.
We might be inclined to think that the soul will:
- weary in the labours of successive births
- finally succumb in one of her deaths and utterly perish
This dissolution of the body which brings destruction to the soul may be unknown to any of us, for no one of us can have had any experience of it.
If so, then I maintain that he who is confident about death has but a foolish confidence, unless he is able to prove that the soul is altogether immortal and imperishable.
But if he cannot prove the soul’s immortality, he who is about to die will always have reason to fear that when the body is disunited, the soul also may utterly perish.
All of us had an unpleasant feeling at hearing what they said. When we had been so firmly convinced before, now to have our faith shaken seemed to introduce a confusion and uncertainty, not only into the previous argument, but into any future one; either we were incapable of forming a judgment, or there were no grounds of belief.
What argument can I ever trust again?
For what could be more convincing than the argument of Socrates, which has now fallen into discredit?
That the soul is a harmony is a doctrine which has always had a wonderful attraction for me, and, when mentioned, came back to me at once, as my own original conviction.
Now I must begin again and find another argument which will assure me that when the man is dead the soul survives.
Tell me, I implore you, how did Socrates proceed? Did he appear to share the unpleasant feeling which you mention?
or did he calmly meet the attack? And did he answer forcibly or feebly? Narrate what passed as exactly as you can.
Often, I have wondered at Socrates, but never more than on that occasion.
That he should be able to answer was nothing, but what astonished me was, first, the gentle and pleasant and approving manner in which he received the words of the young men, and then his quick sense of the wound which had been inflicted by the argument, and the readiness with which he healed it. He might be compared to a general rallying his defeated and broken army, urging them to accompany him and return to the field of argument.
