he survival of the man, who is the more lasting, because
the less lasting remains. But that, Simmias, as I would beg you to
remark, is a mistake; any one can see that he who talks thus is talking
nonsense. For the truth is, that the weaver aforesaid, having woven and
worn many such coats, outlived several of them, and was outlived by the
last; but a man is not therefore proved to be slighter and weaker than
a coat. Now the relation of the body to the soul may be expressed in a
similar figure; and any one may very fairly say in like manner that the
soul is lasting, and the body weak and shortlived in comparison. He may
argue in like manner that every soul wears out many bodies, especially
if a man live many years. While he is alive the body deliquesces and
decays, and the soul always weaves another garment and repairs the
waste. But of course, whenever the soul perishes, she must have on her
last garment, and this will survive her; and then at length, when
the soul is dead, the body will show its native weakness, and quickly
decompose and pass away. I would therefore rather not rely on the
argument from superior strength to prove the continued existence of the
soul after death. For granting even more than you affirm to be possible,
and acknowledging not only that the soul existed before birth, but also
that the souls of some exist, and will continue to exist after death,
and will be born and die again and again, and that there is a
natural strength in the soul which will hold out and be born many
times--nevertheless, we may be still inclined to think that she will
weary in the labours of successive births, and may at last succumb in
one of her deaths and utterly perish; and this death and dissolution of
the body which brings destruction to the soul may be unknown to any of
us, for no one of us can have had any experience of it: and if so,
then I maintain that he who is confident about death has but a foolish
confidence, unless he is able to prove that the soul is altogether
immortal and imperishable. But if he cannot prove the soul's
immortality, he who is about to die will always have reason to fear that
when the body is disunited, the soul also may utterly perish.

All of us, as we afterwards remarked to one another, had an unpleasant
feeling at hearing what they said. When we had been so firmly convinced
before, now to have our faith shaken seemed to introduce a confusion and
uncertainty, not only into the previous arg