to be absolutely true.

Yes, he said, Cebes, it is and must be so, in my opinion; and we have
not been deluded in making these admissions; but I am confident that
there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring
from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence, and that
the good souls have a better portion than the evil.

Cebes added: Your favorite doctrine, Socrates, that knowledge is simply
recollection, if true, also necessarily implies a previous time in
which we have learned that which we now recollect. But this would be
impossible unless our soul had been in some place before existing in the
form of man; here then is another proof of the soul's immortality.

But tell me, Cebes, said Simmias, interposing, what arguments are urged
in favour of this doctrine of recollection. I am not very sure at the
moment that I remember them.

One excellent proof, said Cebes, is afforded by questions. If you put
a question to a person in a right way, he will give a true answer of
himself, but how could he do this unless there were knowledge and right
reason already in him? And this is most clearly shown when he is taken
to a diagram or to anything of that sort. (Compare Meno.)

But if, said Socrates, you are still incredulous, Simmias, I would ask
you whether you may not agree with me when you look at the matter
in another way;--I mean, if you are still incredulous as to whether
knowledge is recollection.

Incredulous, I am not, said Simmias; but I want to have this doctrine
of recollection brought to my own recollection, and, from what Cebes has
said, I am beginning to recollect and be convinced; but I should still
like to hear what you were going to say.

This is what I would say, he replied:--We should agree, if I am not
mistaken, that what a man recollects he must have known at some previous
time.

Very true.

And what is the nature of this knowledge or recollection? I mean to
ask, Whether a person who, having seen or heard or in any way perceived
anything, knows not only that, but has a conception of something
else which is the subject, not of the same but of some other kind of
knowledge, may not be fairly said to recollect that of which he has the
conception?

What do you mean?

I mean what I may illustrate by the following instance:--The knowledge
of a lyre is not the same as the knowledge of a man?

True.

And yet what is the feeling of lovers when they recognize a ly