Phaedrus — Plato
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p. 442servant of the same God, and the fellow-servant of the swans, and thinking that I have received from my master gifts of prophecy which are not inferior to theirs, would not go out of life less merrily than the swans.
Cease to mind then about this, but speak and ask anything which you like, while the eleven magistrates of Athens allow. [Since Socrates is so willing to continue the discussion, Simmias and Cebes state their difficulties, — Simmias first as follows : One may say that harmony is invisible, ing|* corporeal, perfect, and divine; yet when the lyre is destroyed, the harmony ceases.
How then can the soul which has the same relation to the body as harmony to the lyre, survive the body ? Cebes also uses a figure to express his doubt. It is reasonable to say that a man lasts longer than the garment which he wears. And yet a wearer, though he may make and wear out many coats is himself outlived by the last.
Now the body is the garment of the soul ; and the soul may wear out many bodies in one life and many more in the successive Hves into which it is bom. But how can we prove that the soul may not become weary and at last utterly perish in one of its deaths, and so be outlived by the last body ?
Here Phaedo interrupts the narration of his story to say to Echecrates :] All of us, as we afterwards remarked to one another, had an unpleasant feeling at hearing them say this. 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 not good judges, or there were no real grounds of belief.
Ech, There I feel with you — indeed I do, Phsedo, and when you were speaking, I was beginning to ask myself the same question : 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. And now I must begin vnjEt>o 443 again and find another argument which will assure me that when the man is dead the soul dies not with him. Tell me, I beg, how did Socrates proceed ? Did he appear to share the unpleasant feehng which you mention ? or did he receive the interruption calmly and give a sufficient answer ? Tell us, as exactly as you can, what passed. F/iced, Often, Echecrates, as I have admired Socrates, I never admired him more than at that moment.
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 regarded the words of the young men, and then his quick sense of the wound which had been inflicted by the argument, and his ready application of the healing art. He might be compared to a general rallying his defeated and broken army, urging them to follow him and return to the field of argument. JSch.
How was that ? Phad. You shall hear, for I was close to him on his right hand, seated on a sort of stool, and he on a couch which was a good deal higher. Now he had a way of playing with my hair, and then he smoothed my head, and pressed the hair upon my neck, and said : To-morrow, Phaedo, I suppose that these fair locks of yours will be severed.^ Yes, Socrates, I suppose that they will, I replied. Not so, if you will take my advice.
What shall I do with them ? I said.
To-day, he replied, and not to-morrow, if this argument dies and cannot be brought to life again by us, you and I will both shave our locks : and if I were you, and could not maintain my ground against Simmias and Cebes, I would myself take an oath, like the Argives, not to wear hair any more until I had renewed the conflict and defeated them.® Yes, I said, but Heracles himself is said not to be a match for two.^ «» As a token of mourning, according to the custom.
32 Argives (ar'jivz) : a branch of the Greek p>eople inhabiting a small district of Greece, south-west of Athens. Herodicus tells how once when the Argives were defeated, and lost a city in war, they took an oath not to cut their hair till their loss had been retrieved. »« See Euthydemus, note 20. One of his labors was the destroying of the Hydra, a monstrous water-snake.
While fighting with this he was attacked by a crab and was compelled to call on lolaus fTo-Uus), his nephew, for help. Hence the proverb — Heracles is not a match lor two.
444 t^LATO TMfi tEACHER Summon me then, he said, and I will be your lolaus until the sun goes down. I summon you rather, I said, not as Heracles summoning lolaus, but as lolaus might summon Heracles. That will be all the same, he said. But first let us take care that we avoid a danger. And what is that? I said. The»danger of becoming misologists, he replied, which is one of the very worst things that can happen to us.
For as there are misanthropists or haters of men, there are also misologists or haters of ideas, and both spring from the same cause, which is ignorance of the world.
Misanthropy arises from the too great confidence of inexperience ; you trust a man and think him altogether true and good and faithful, and then in a little while he turns out to be false and knavish ; and then another and another, and when this has happened several times to a man, especially within the circle of. his own most trusted friends, as he deems them, and he has often quarreled with them, he at last hates all men, and believes that no one has any good in him at all.
I dare say that you must have observed this. Yes, I said. And is not this discreditable? The reason is, that a man, having to deal with other men, has no knowledge of them ; for if he had knowledge, he would have known the true ^ state of the case, that few are the good and few the evil, and that the great majority are in the interval between them. How do you mean? I said.
I mean, he replied, as you might say of the very large and very small, that nothing is more uncommon than a very large or very small man ; and this applies generally to all extremes, whether of great and small, or swift and slow, or fair and foul, or black and white : and whether the instances you select be men or dogs or anything else, few are the extremes, but many are in the mean between them. Did you never observe this ? Yes, I said, I have.
And do you not imagine, he said, that if there were a competition of evil, the first in evil would be found to be very few? Yes, that is very likely, I said. Yes, that is very likely, he replied ; not that in this respect
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