Timaeus — Plato

Analysis 608-611. cli for the attractions of poetry, any more than for the sake of Republic x. honour or wealth. ' I agree with you. Analysis. And yet the rewards of virtue are greater far than I have described. 'And can we conceive things greater still.'" Not, perhaps, in this brief span of life: but should an immortal being care about anything short of eternity ? * I do not understand what you mean ?

' Do you not know that the soul is immortal ? * Surely you arc not prepared to prove that ? ' Indeed I am. ' Then let me hear this argument, of which you make so light. 60Q Yo'^ would admit that everything has an element of good and of evil. In all things there is an inherent corruption; and if this cannot destroy them, nothing else will. The soul too has her own corrupting principles, which are injustice, intemperance, cowardice, and the like.

But none of these destroy the soul in the same sense that disease destroys the body. The soul may be full of all iniquities, but is not, by reason of them, brought any nearer to death. Nothing which was not destroyed from within ever perished by external affection of evil. The body, which 610 is one thing, cannot be destroyed by food, which is another, unless the badness of the food is communicated to the body.

Neither can the soul, which is one thing, be corrupted by the body, which is another, unless she herself is infected. And as no bodily evil can infect the soul, neither can any bodily evil, whether disease or violence, or any other destroy the soul, unless it can be shown to render her unholy and unjust. But no one will ever prove that the souls of men become more unjust when they die.

If a person has the audacity to say the contrary, the answer is — Then why do criminals require the hand of the executioner, and not die of themselves? 'Truly,' he said, ' injustice would not be very terrible if it brought a cessation of evil ; but I rather believe that the injustice which murders others may tend to quicken and stimulate the life of the unjust. You are quite right.

If sin which is her own natural and inherent evil cannot destroy the soul, hardly will anything else 611 destroy her. But the soul which cannot be destroyed either by internal or external evil must be immortal and everlasting. And if this be true, souls will always exist in the same number.

They cannot diminish, because they cannot be destroyed ; nor yet increase, for the increase of the immortal must come from someclii Aiialysis 611-614. i\epublic X. thing mortal, and so all would end in immortality. Neither is Analysis. the soul variable and diverse ; for that which is immortal must be of the fairest and simplest composition.

If we would conceive her truly, and so behold justice and injustice in their own nature, she must be viewed by the light of reason pure as at birth, or as she is reflected in philosophy when holding converse with the divine and immortal and eternal.

In her present condition we see her only like the sea-god Glaucus, bruised and maimed in the sea which is the world, and covered with shells 612 and stones which are incrusted upon her from the entertainments of earth.

Thus far, as the argument required, we have said nothing of the rewards and honours which the poets attribute to justice ; we have contented ourselves with showing that justice in herself is best for the soul in herself, even if a man should put on a Gyges' ring and have the helmet of Hades too.

And now you shall repay me what you borrowed ; and I will enumerate the rewards of justice in life and after death, I granted, for the sake of argument, as you will remember, that evil might perhaps escape the knowledge of Gods and men, although this was really impossible. And since I have shown that justice has reality, you must grant me also that she has the palm of appearance.

In the first place, the just man is known to the Gods, and he is therefore the friend of the Gods, and he will 613 receive at their hands every good, always excepting such evil as is the necessary consequence of former sins. All things end in good to him, either in life or after death, even what appears to be evil; for the Gods have a care of him who desires to be in their likeness. And what shall we say of men ? Is not honesty the best policy ?

The clever rogue makes a great start at first, but breaks down before he reaches the goal, and slinks away in dishonour; whereas the true runner perseveres to the end, and receives the prize.

And you must allow me to repeat all the blessings which you attributed to the fortunate unjust — they bear rule in the city, they marry and give in marriage to whom they will; and the evils which you attributed to the unfortunate just, do really fall in the end on the unjust, although, as you implied, their sufferings are better veiled in silence. But all the blessings of this present life are as nothing when 614