the fourth shall be a lover of
gymnastic toils, or a physician; the fifth shall lead the life of a
prophet or hierophant; to the sixth the character of poet or some other
imitative artist will be assigned; to the seventh the life of an artisan
or husbandman; to the eighth that of a sophist or demagogue; to the
ninth that of a tyrant--all these are states of probation, in which
he who does righteously improves, and he who does unrighteously,
deteriorates his lot.

Ten thousand years must elapse before the soul of each one can return to
the place from whence she came, for she cannot grow her wings in less;
only the soul of a philosopher, guileless and true, or the soul of a
lover, who is not devoid of philosophy, may acquire wings in the third
of the recurring periods of a thousand years; he is distinguished from
the ordinary good man who gains wings in three thousand years:--and they
who choose this life three times in succession have wings given them,
and go away at the end of three thousand years. But the others (The
philosopher alone is not subject to judgment (krisis), for he has never
lost the vision of truth.) receive judgment when they have completed
their first life, and after the judgment they go, some of them to the
houses of correction which are under the earth, and are punished; others
to some place in heaven whither they are lightly borne by justice, and
there they live in a manner worthy of the life which they led here when
in the form of men. And at the end of the first thousand years the good
souls and also the evil souls both come to draw lots and choose their
second life, and they may take any which they please. The soul of a man
may pass into the life of a beast, or from the beast return again into
the man. But the soul which has never seen the truth will not pass into
the human form. For a man must have intelligence of universals, and be
able to proceed from the many particulars of sense to one conception of
reason;--this is the recollection of those things which our soul once
saw while following God--when regardless of that which we now call being
she raised her head up towards the true being. And therefore the mind
of the philosopher alone has wings; and this is just, for he is always,
according to the measure of his abilities, clinging in recollection to
those things in which God abides, and in beholding which He is what He
is. And he who employs aright these memories is ever being initiated
into