Phaedo Phaedo. “For if he had knowledge when he dealt with them, he would think that the good 90a and the bad are both very few and those between the two are very many, for that is the case.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean just what I might say about the large and small. Do you think there is anything more unusual than to find a very large or a very small man, or dog, or other creature, or again, one that is very quick or slow, very ugly or beautiful, very black or white? Have you not noticed that the extremes in all these instances are rare and few, and the examples between the extremes are very many?”

“To be sure,” said I.

“And don’t you think,” 90b said he, “that if there were to be a competition in rascality, those who excelled would be very few in that also?”

“Very likely,” I replied.

“Yes, very likely,” he said, “But it is not in that respect that arguments are like men; I was merely following your lead in discussing that. The similarity lies in this: when a man without proper knowledge concerning arguments has confidence in the truth of an argument and afterwards thinks that it is false, whether it really is so or not, and this happens again and again; then you know, those men especially who 90c have spent their time in disputation come to believe that they are the wisest of men and that they alone have discovered that there is nothing sound or sure in anything, whether argument or anything else, but all things go up and down, like the tide in the Euripus, and nothing is stable for any length of time.”

“Certainly,” I said, “that is very true.”

“Then, Phaedo,” he said, “if there is any system of argument which is true and sure and can be learned, it would be a sad thing if a man, 90d because he has met with some of those arguments which seem to be sometimes true and sometimes false, should then not blame himself or his own lack of skill, but should end, in his vexation, by throwing the blame gladly upon the arguments and should hate and revile them all the rest of his life, and be deprived of the truth and knowledge of reality.”

“Yes, by Zeus,” I said, “it would be sad.”

“First, then,” said he, “let us be on our guard against this, 90e and let us not admit into our souls the notion that there is no soundness in arguments at all. Let us far rather assume that we ourselves are not yet in sound condition and that we must strive manfully and eagerly to become so, you and the others for the sake of all your future life, 91a and I because of my impending death; for I fear that I am not just now in a philosophical frame of mind as regards this particular question, but am contentious, like quite uncultured persons. ”

Phaedo. “For when they argue about anything, they do not care what the truth is in the matters they are discussing, but are eager only to make their own views seem true to their hearers. And I fancy I differ from them just now only to this extent: I shall not be eager to make what I say seem true to my hearers, except as a secondary matter, but shall be very eager 91b to make myself believe it. For see, my friend, how selfish my attitude is. If what I say is true, I am the gainer by believing it; and if there be nothing for me after death, at any rate I shall not be burdensome to my friends by my lamentations in these last moments. And this ignorance of mine will not last, for that would be an evil, but will soon end. So,” he said, “Simmias and Cebes, I approach the argument with my mind thus prepared. But you, 91c if you do as I ask, will give little thought to Socrates and much more to the truth; and if you think what I say is true, agree to it, and if not, oppose me with every argument you can muster, that I may not in my eagerness deceive myself and you alike and go away, like a bee, leaving my sting sticking in you.

But we must get to work,” he said. “First refresh my memory, if I seem to have forgotten anything. Simmias, I think, has doubts and fears that the soul, though more divine and 91d excellent than the body, may perish first, being of the nature of a harmony. And, Cebes, I believe, granted that the soul is more lasting than the body, but said that no one could know that the soul, after wearing out many bodies, did not at last perish itself upon leaving the body; and that this was death—the destruction of the soul, since the body is continually being destroyed. Are those the points, Simmias and Cebes, which we must consider?” 91e They both agreed that these were the points.

“Now,” said he, “do you reject all of our previous arguments, or only some of them?”

“Only some of them,” they replied.

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 92a 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. 92b 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 92c 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 92d 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. 92e 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 93a 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 93b 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?” 93c “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, 93d “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 93e 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?”