n
argued that the soul is invisible and incorporeal, and therefore
immortal, and prior to the body. But is not the soul acknowledged to
be a harmony, and has she not the same relation to the body, as the
harmony--which like her is invisible--has to the lyre? And yet the
harmony does not survive the lyre. Cebes has also an objection, which
like Simmias he expresses in a figure. He is willing to admit that the
soul is more lasting than the body. But the more lasting nature of the
soul does not prove her immortality; for after having worn out many
bodies in a single life, and many more in successive births and
deaths, she may at last perish, or, as Socrates afterwards restates the
objection, the very act of birth may be the beginning of her death, and
her last body may survive her, just as the coat of an old weaver is left
behind him after he is dead, although a man is more lasting than his
coat. And he who would prove the immortality of the soul, must prove not
only that the soul outlives one or many bodies, but that she outlives
them all.

The audience, like the chorus in a play, for a moment interpret the
feelings of the actors; there is a temporary depression, and then the
enquiry is resumed. It is a melancholy reflection that arguments, like
men, are apt to be deceivers; and those who have been often deceived
become distrustful both of arguments and of friends. But this
unfortunate experience should not make us either haters of men or haters
of arguments. The want of health and truth is not in the argument, but
in ourselves. Socrates, who is about to die, is sensible of his own
weakness; he desires to be impartial, but he cannot help feeling that he
has too great an interest in the truth of the argument. And therefore he
would have his friends examine and refute him, if they think that he is
in error.

At his request Simmias and Cebes repeat their objections. They do not
go to the length of denying the pre-existence of ideas. Simmias is of
opinion that the soul is a harmony of the body. But the admission of the
pre-existence of ideas, and therefore of the soul, is at variance with
this. (Compare a parallel difficulty in Theaet.) For a harmony is
an effect, whereas the soul is not an effect, but a cause; a harmony
follows, but the soul leads; a harmony admits of degrees, and the soul
has no degrees. Again, upon the supposition that the soul is a harmony,
why is one soul better than another? Are they more or less harm