Phaedrus — Plato

PH^DO 433 are born again into this world. This generation of the living from the dead is analogous to other processes in nature. Just as sleeping passes into waking and waking into sleeping, as the greater becomes the less and the less grows into 7^" the greater, as all opposites pass, the one into the other, so life passes into death and death again becomes life.

To complete the circle of nature it is necessary that death should generate life.] My dear Cebes, if all things which partook of life were to die, and after they were dead remained in the form of death, \^ and did not come to life again, all would at last die, and nothing would be alive — how could this be otherwise ?

For * if the living spring from any othere who are not the dead, and they die, must not all things at last be swallowed up in death? There is no escape from that, Socrates, said Cebes ; and I think that what you say is entirely true.

Yes, he said, Cebes, I entirely think so too ; and we are not walking in a vain imagination : but I am confident in the belief that there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence, and that the good souls have a better portion than the evil.

Cebes added : Your favorite doctrine, Socrates, that knowledge is simply Recollection, if true, also necessarily implies a previous time in which we learned that which we now recollect. But this would be impossible unless our soul was in some place before existing in the human form ^\ here then is another argument of the soul's immortality. But tell me, Cebes, said Simmias interposing, what proofs are given of this doctrine of recollection ?

I am not very sure at this moment that I remember them. One excellent proof, said Cebes, is afforded by questions. If you put a question to a person in a right way, he will give •' '• Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting ; The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And Cometh from afar.

Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory, do we come From God, who is our home." — Wordsworth's " Intimations of Immortality. 28 2p. 434a true answer of himself, but how could he do this unless there were knowledge and right reason already in him ? And this is most clearly shown when he is taken to a diagram ^ or to anything of that sort.

But if, said Socrates, you are still incredulous, Simmias, I would ask you whether you may not agree with me when you look at the matter in another way; I mean, if you are still incredulous as to whether knowledge is recollection ?

Incredulous, I am not, said Simmias ; but I want to have this doctrine of recollection brought to my own recollection, and, from what Cebes has said, I am beginning to recollect and be convinced : but I should still like to hear what more you have to say. [Socrates gives a proof of the doctrine as follows : What we recollect we must have known at some previous time. This recollection is due to a power of mind called association.

73- For example, a lyre or a garment may remind us of the person who has used the one or worn the other. Simmias may make us think of Cebes because they are frequently in one another's company. Likewise, the imperfect equality of two pieces of wood or stone suggests the idea of perfect equality. Indeed we must have the standard of perfect equality before we can compare two things. Now where did we get our idea of perfect equality.

Surely not through our experience with material objects in this life, for no two material objects are absolutely alike. Their appearance is changing and they serve only to recall the idea of absolute likeness which is ever the same. Moreover the knowledge of perfect equality is not given to us at birth, for all men do not possess it. It comes to none save by a process of remembering, and what we call learning is only recollection.

Clearly then, our knowledge of perfect equality and likewise of perfect beauty, perfect goodness, perfect justice, and the like must have been acquired by us before we came into this world.

Therefore our souls must have existed and had intelligence before birth.] 3^ In a passage from Plato's Meno, which is often quoted in educational journals to illustrate the Socratic method of questioning, a slave boy who cannot read, answers "of himself," a series of simple questions about a geometrical diagram. The boy is led in this way to see for himself the truth of a certain geometrical proposition.

Socrates argues that since the boy has not learned these things m this life, he must be remembering them from a former life.