PHAEDO 55
bcdCertainly, he replied, that is so.
And of these, he said, the happiest, who go to the best place, are those who have
practiced the popular and social virtues which are called temperance and justice, and
which come from habit and practice, without philosophy or reason.
And why are they the happiest?
Because it is probable that they return into a mild and social nature like their own,
such as that of bees, or wasps, or ants; or, it may be, into the bodies of men, and that
from them are made worthy citizens.
Very likely.
But none but the philosopher or the lover of knowledge, who is wholly pure when
he goes hence, is permitted to go to the race of the gods; and therefore, my friends,
Simmias and Cebes, the true philosopher is temperate and refrains from all the plea-
sures of the body, and does not give himself up to them. It is not squandering his sub-
stance and poverty that he fears, as the multitude and the lovers of wealth do; nor again
does he dread the dishonor and disgrace of wickedness, like the lovers of power and
honor. It is not for these reasons that he is temperate.
No, it would be unseemly in him if he were, Socrates, said Cebes.
Indeed it would, he replied, and therefore all those who have any care for their
souls, and who do not spend their lives in forming and molding their bodies, bid farewell
to such persons, and do not walk in their ways, thinking that they know not whither they
are going. They themselves turn and follow whithersoever philosophy leads them, for they
believe that they ought not to resist philosophy, or its deliverance and purification.
How, Socrates?
I will tell you, he replied. The lovers of knowledge know that when philosophy
receives the soul, she is fast bound in the body, and fastened to it; she is unable to con-
template what is, by herself, or except through the bars of her prison house, the body;
and she is wallowing in utter ignorance. And philosophy sees that the dreadful thing
about the imprisonment is that it is caused by lust, and that the captive herself is an
accomplice in her own captivity. The lovers of knowledge, I repeat, know that philoso-
phy takes the soul when she is in this condition, and gently encourages her, and strives
to release her from her captivity, showing her that the perceptions of the eye, and the
ear, and the other senses are full of deceit, and persuading her to stand aloof from the
senses and to use them only when she must, and exhorting her to rally and gather her-
self together, and to trust only to herself and to the real existence which she of her own
self apprehends, and to believe that nothing which is subject to change, and which she
perceives by other faculties, has any truth, for such things are visible and sensible, while
what she herself sees is apprehended by reason and invisible. The soul of the true
philosopher thinks that it would be wrong to resist this deliverance from captivity, and
therefore she holds aloof, so far as she can, from pleasure, and desire, and pain, and
fear; for she reckons that when a man has vehement pleasure, or fear, or pain, or desire,
he suffers from them not merely the evils which might be expected, such as sickness or
some loss arising from the indulgence of his desires; he suffers what is the greatest and
last of evils, and does not take it into account.
What do you mean, Socrates? asked Cebes.
I mean that when the soul of any man feels vehement pleasure or pain, she is
forced at the same time to think that the object, whatever it be, of these sensations is the
most distinct and truest, when it is not.
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