Phaedrus — Plato
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p. 398Why, I said, what was ever great in a short time ? The whole period of threescore years and ten is surely but a little thing in comparison with eternity ? Say rather '* nothing,'' he replied. And should an immortal being seriously think of this little space rather than of the whole ? Yes, he said, I think that he should. But what do you mean? Are you not aware, I said, that the soul is immortal and imperishable ?
He looked at me in astonishment, and said : No, indeed ; you do not mean to say that you are able to prove that ? Yes, I said, I ought to be able, and you too, for there is no difficulty. I do not see that, he said ; and I should like to hear this argument of which you make no difficulty. Listen then, I said. [In almost everything there is an inherent evil or disease. For example, the evil of corn is mildew, of iron, rust.
The evil which is inherent in a thing may destroy it ; or if this does not, nothing else can. The soul has its evils, — injustice, intemperance, cowardice, and the like ; but these evils do not destroy the soul as disease destroys the body. Now it is unreasonable to suppose that a thing which cannot be destroyed from within by its own corruption, can be destroyed by some external evil.
Bad food cannot destroy the body unless the corruption of the food is communicated to the body. In this case disease arises and this disease, not the food, destroys the body. On the same principle, unless some bodily evil can produce an evil of the soul, the bodily evil cannot destroy the soul. No bodily evil can infect the soul for no one can prove that even death makes a man more unholy or unjust.
As no bodily evil can infect the soul none can destroy the soul. Now the soul which cannot be destroyed by any evil, whether inherent or external, must exist forever and so be immortal. Socrates continues :] Her immortality may be proven by the previous argument and by other arguments ; and you should also see her original p. 399nature, not as we now behold her, marred by communion with the body and other miseries, but you should look upon her with the eye of reason, pure as at birth, and then her beauty would be discovered, and in her image justice would be more clearly seen, and injustice, and all the things which we have described.
But now, although we have spoken the truth concerning her as she appears at present, we must remember that we have seen her only in a condition which may be compared to that of the sea-god Glaucus, whose original image can hardly be discerned because his natural members are broken off and crushed and in many ways damaged by the waves, and incrustations have grown over them of seaweed and shells and stones so that he is liker to some sea-monster than to his natural form.
And the soul is in a similar condition, disfigured by ten thousand ills. But not there, Glaucon, not there must we look. Where then ? At her love of wisdom.
Let us see whom she affects, and what converse she seeks in virtue of her near kindred with the immortal and eternal and divine ; also how different she would become if wholly following this superior principle, and borne by a divine impulse out of the ocean in which she now is, and disengaged from the stones and shells and things of earth and rock which in wild variety grow around her because she ^ feeds upon earth, and is crusted over by the good things of this life as they are termed : then you would see her as she is, and know whether she have one form only or many, or what her nature is.
Of her form and affections in this present life I have said enough. True, he said.
Thus, I said, have we followed out the argument, putting aside the rewards and glories of justice, such as you were saying that Homer and Hesiod introduced ; and justice in her own nature has been shown to be best for the soul in her nature ; let her do what is just, whether she have the ring of Gyges^ or not, and, besides the ring of Gyges, the helmet of Hades. ^ That is very true. > See Book II. , 359 ' Hades (Roman Pluto), sovereign of the lower world, possessed a helmet or cap, the symbol of his invisible empire, which rendered the wearer invisible.
p. 400And noW; Glaucon^ there will be no harm in further enumerating how many and how great are the rewards which justice and the other virtues procure to the soul from gods and men, both in life and after death. Certainly, he said. Will you repay me, then, what you borrowed in the argument? What was that ?
I granted that the just man should appear unjust and the unjust just : for you were of opinion that even if the true state of the case could not possibly escape the eyes of gods and men, still this ought to be admitted for the sake of the argument, in order that pure justice might be weighed against pure injustice. Do you not remember? You would have reason to complain of me if I had forgotten.
Then, as the cause is decided, I demand on behalf of justice that the glory which she receives from gods and men be also allowed to her by you ; having been shown to have reality, and not to deceive those who truly possess her, she may also have appearance restored to her, and thus obtain the other crown of victory which is hers also. The demand, he said, is just.
In the first place, I said — and this is the first point which you will have to give back — the nature both of just and unjust is truly known to the gods ? I am willing to restore that. And if they are both known to them, one must be the friend and the other the enemy of the gods, as we admitted at first? True.
And the friend of the gods may be supposed to receive from ^ them every good, excepting only such evil as is the necessary consequence of former sins ? Certainly.
Then this must be our notion of the just man, that even when he is in poverty or sickness, or any other seeming misfortune, all things will in the end work together for good to him in life and death ^ : for the gods have a care of any one * " And we know that aU things work together for good to them that love God." — Romans viii 28.
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