the bones, which have also a covering or environment of flesh and skin
which contains them; and as the bones are lifted at their joints by the
contraction or relaxation of the muscles, I am able to bend my limbs,
and this is why I am sitting here in a curved posture: that is what he
would say, and he would have a similar explanation of my talking to you,
which he would attribute to sound, and air, and hearing, and he would
assign ten thousand other causes of the same sort, forgetting to mention
the true cause, which is that the Athenians have thought fit to condemn
me, and accordingly I have thought it better and more right to remain
here and undergo my sentence; for I am inclined to think that these
muscles and bones of mine would have gone off to Megara or Boeotia -- by
the dog of Egypt they would, if they had been guided only by their own
idea of what was best, and if I had not chosen as the better and nobler
part, instead of playing truant and running away, to undergo any
punishment which the State inflicts. There is surely a strange confusion
of causes and conditions in all this. It may be said, indeed, that
without bones and muscles and the other parts of the body I cannot
execute my purposes. But to say that I do as I do because of them, and
that this is the way in which mind acts, and not from the choice of the
best, is a very careless and idle mode of speaking. I wonder that they
cannot distinguish the cause from the condition, which the many, feeling
about in the dark, are always mistaking and misnaming. And thus one man
makes a vortex all round and steadies the earth by the heaven; another
gives the air as a support to the earth, which is a sort of broad
trough. Any power which in disposing them as they are disposes them for
the best never enters into their minds, nor do they imagine that there
is any superhuman strength in that; they rather expect to find another
Atlas of the world who is stronger and more everlasting and more
containing than the good is, and are clearly of opinion that the
obligatory and containing power of the good is as nothing; and yet this
is the principle which I would fain learn if anyone would teach me. But
as I have failed either to discover myself or to learn of anyone else,
the nature of the best, I will exhibit to you, if you like, what I have
found to be the second best mode of inquiring into the cause.
I should very much like to hear that, he replied.
Socrates proceeded: I thought that as I had failed in the contemplation
of true existence, I ought to be careful that I did not lose the eye of
my soul; as people may injure their bodily eye by observing and gazing
on the sun during an eclipse, unless they take the precaution of only
looking at the image reflected in the water, or in some similar medium.
That occurred to me, and I was afraid that my soul might be blinded
altogether if I looked at things with my eyes or tried by the help of
the senses to apprehend them. And I thought that I had better have
recourse to ideas, and seek in them the truth of existence. I dare say
that the simile is not perfect -- for I am very far from admitting that
he who contemplates existence through the medium of ideas, sees them
only "through a glass darkly," any more than he who sees them in their
working and effects. However, this was the method which I adopted: I
first assumed some principle which I judged to be the strongest, and
then I affirmed as true whatever seemed to agree with this, whether
relating to the cause or to anything else; and that which disagreed I
regarded as untrue. But I should like to explain my meaning clearly, as
I do not think that you understand me.
No, indeed, replied Cebes, not very well.
There is nothing new, he said, in what I am about to tell you; but only
what I have been always and everywhere repeating in the previous
discussion and on other occasions: I want to show you the nature of that
cause which has occupied my thoughts, and I shall have to go back to
those familiar words which are in the mouth of everyone, and first of
all assume that there is an absolute beauty and goodness and greatness,
and the like; grant me this, and I hope to be able to show you the
nature of the cause, and to prove the immortality of the soul.
Cebes said: You may proceed at once with the proof, as I readily grant
you this.
Well, he said, then I should like to know whether you agree with me in
the next step; for I cannot help thinking that if there be anything
beautiful other than absolute beauty, that can only be beautiful in as
far as it partakes of absolute beauty -- and this I should say of
everything. Do you agree in this notion of the cause?
Yes, he said, I agree.
He proceeded: I know nothing and can understand nothing of any other of
those wise causes which are alleged; and if a person says to me that the
bloom of color, or form, or anything else of that sort is a source of
beauty, I leave all that, which is only confusing to me, and simply and
singly, and perhaps foolishly, hold and am assured in my own mind that
nothing makes a thing beautiful but the presence and participation of
beauty in whatever way or manner obtained; for as to the manner I am
uncertain, but I stoutly contend that by beauty all beautiful things
become beautiful. That appears to me to be the only safe answer that I
can give, either to myself or to any other, and to that I cling, in the
persuasion that I shall never be overthrown, and that I may safely
answer to myself or any other that by beauty beautiful things become
beautiful. Do you not agree to that?
Yes, I agree.
And that by greatness only great things become great and greater
greater, and by smallness the less becomes less.
True.
Then if a person remarks that A is taller by a head than B, and B less
by a head than A, you would refuse to admit this, and would stoutly
contend that what you mean is only that the greater is greater by, and
by reason of, greatness, and the less is less only by, or by reason of,
smallness; and thus you would avoid the danger of saying that the
greater is greater and the less by the measure of the head, which is the
same in both, and would also avoid the monstrous absurdity of supposing
that the greater man is greater by reason of the head, which is small.
Would you not be afraid of that?
Indeed, I should, said Cebes, laughing.
In like manner you would be afraid to say that ten exceeded eight by,
and by reason of, two; but would say by, and by reason of, number; or
that two cubits exceed one cubit not by a half, but by magnitude? --
that is what you would say, for there is the same danger in both cases.
Very true, he said.
Again, would you not be cautious of affirming that the addition of one
to one, or the division of one, is the cause of two? And you would
loudly asseverate that you know of no way in which anything comes into
existence except by participation in its own proper essence, and
consequently, as far as you know, the only cause of two is the
participation in duality; that is the way to make two, and the
participation in one is the way to make one. You would say: I will let
alone puzzles of division and addition -- wiser heads than mine may
answer them; inexperienced as I am, and ready to start, as the proverb
says, at my own shadow, I cannot afford to give up the sure ground of a
principle. And if anyone assails you there, you would not mind him, or
answer him until you had seen whether the consequences which follow
agree with one another or not, and when you are further required to give
an explanation of this principle, you would go on to assume a higher
principle, and the best of the higher ones, until you found a
resting-place; but you would not refuse the principle and the
consequences in your reasoning like the Eristics -- at least if you
wanted to discover real existence. Not that this confusion signifies to
them who never care or think about the matter at all, for they have the
wit to be well pleased with themselves, however great may be the turmoil
of their ideas. But you, if you are a philosopher, will, I believe, do
as I say.
What you say is most true, said Simmias and Cebes, both speaking at
once.
Ech. Yes, Phaedo; and I don't wonder at their assenting. Anyone who has
the least sense will acknowledge the wonderful clear. of Socrates'
reasoning.
Phaed. Certainly, Echecrates; and that was the feeling of the whole
company at the time.
Ech. Yes, and equally of ourselves, who were not of the company, and are
now listening to your recital. But what followed?
Phaedo. After all this was admitted, and they had agreed about the
existence of ideas and the participation in them of the other things
which derive their names from them, Socrates, if I remember rightly,
said: --
This is your way of speaking; and yet when you say that Simmias is
greater than Socrates and less than Phaedo, do you not predicate of
Simmias both greatness and smallness?
Yes, I do.
But still you allow that Simmias does not really exceed Socrates, as the
words may seem to imply, because he is Simmias, but by reason of the
size which he has; just as Simmias does not exceed Socrates because he
is Simmias, any more than because Socrates is Socrates, but because he
has smallness when compared with the greatness of Simmias?
True.
And if Phaedo exceeds him in size, that is not because Phaedo is Phaedo,
but because Phaedo has greatness relatively to Simmias, who is
comparatively smaller?
That is true.
And therefore Simmias is said to be great, and is also said to be small,
because he is in a mean between them, exceeding the smallness of the one
by his greatness, and allowing the greatness of the other to exceed his
smallness. He added, laughing, I am speaking like a book, but I believe
that what I am now saying is true.
Simmias assented to this.
The reason why I say this is that I want you to agree with me in
thinking, not only that absolute greatness will never be great and also
small, but that greatness in us or in the concrete will never admit the
small or admit of being exceeded: instead of this, one of two things
will happen -- either the greater will fly or retire before the
opposite, which is the less, or at the advance of the less will cease to
exist; but will not, if allowing or admitting smallness, be changed by
that; even as I, having received and admitted smallness when compared
with Simmias, remain just as I was, and am the same small person. And as
the idea of greatness cannot condescend ever to be or become small, in
like manner the smallness in us cannot be or become great; nor can any
other opposite which remains the same ever be or become its own
opposite, but either passes away or perishes in the change.
That, replied Cebes, is quite my notion.
One of the company, though I do not exactly remember which of them, on
hearing this, said: By Heaven, is not this the direct contrary of what
was admitted before -- that out of the greater came the less and out of
the less the greater, and that opposites are simply generated from
opposites; whereas now this seems to be utterly denied.
Socrates inclined his head to the speaker and listened. I like your
courage, he said, in reminding us of this. But you do not observe that
there is a difference in the two cases. For then we were speaking of
opposites in the concrete, and now of the essential opposite which, as
is affirmed, neither in us nor in nature can ever be at variance with
itself: then, my friend, we were speaking of things in which opposites
are inherent and which are called after them, but now about the
opposites which are inherent in them and which give their name to them;
these essential opposites will never, as we maintain, admit of
generation into or out of one another. At the same time, turning to
Cebes, he said: Were you at all disconcerted, Cebes, at our friend's
objection?
That was not my feeling, said Cebes; and yet I cannot deny that I am apt
to be disconcerted.
Then we are agreed after all, said Socrates, that the opposite will
never in any case be opposed to itself?
To that we are quite agreed, he replied.
Yet once more let me ask you to consider the question from another point
of view, and see whether you agree with me: There is a thing which you
term heat, and another thing which you term cold?
Certainly.
But are they the same as fire and snow?
Most assuredly not.
Heat is not the same as fire, nor is cold the same as snow?
No.
And yet you will surely admit that when snow, as before said, is under
the influence of heat, they will not remain snow and heat; but at the
advance of the heat the snow will either retire or perish?
Very true, he replied.
And the fire too at the advance of the cold will either retire or
perish; and when the fire is under the influence of the cold, they will
not remain, as before, fire and cold.
That is true, he said.
And in some cases the name of the idea is not confined to the idea; but
anything else which, not being the idea, exists only in the form of the
idea, may also lay claim to it. I will try to make this clearer by an
example: The odd number is always called by the name of odd?
Very true.
But is this the only thing which is called odd? Are there not other
things which have their own name, and yet are called odd, because,
although not the same as oddness, they are never without oddness? --
that is what I mean to ask -- whether numbers such as the number three
are not of the class of odd. And there are many other examples: would
you not say, for example, that three may be called by its proper name,
and also be called odd, which is not the same with three? and this may
be said not only of three but also of five, and every alternate number
-- each of them without being oddness is odd, and in the same way two
and four, and the whole series of alternate numbers, has every number
even, without being evenness. Do you admit that?
Yes, he said, how can I deny that?
Then now mark the point at which I am aiming: not only do essential
