plies, that if their former admissions are joined to his last
argument, the immortality, as well as the pre-existence, of the soul has
been sufficiently proved. For if it is true that any thing living is
produced from that which is dead, then the soul must exist after death,
otherwise it could not be produced again.

However, to remove the apprehension that the soul may be dispersed by a
wind, as it were, Socrates proceeds, in his third argument,[18] to
examine that doubt more thoroughly. What, then, is meant by being
dispersed but being dissolved into its parts? In order, therefore, to a
thing being capable of dispersion it must be compounded of parts. Now,
there are two kinds of things--one compounded, the other simple The
former kind is subject to change, the latter not, and can be
comprehended by the mind alone. The one is visible, the other invisible;
and the soul, which is invisible, when it employs the bodily senses,
wanders and is confused, but when it abstracts itself from the body it
attains to the knowledge of that which is eternal, immortal, and
unchangeable. The soul, therefore, being uncompounded and invisible,
must be indissoluble; that is to say, immortal.

Still Simmias and Cebes[19] are unconvinced. The former objects that the
soul, according to Socrates's own showing, is nothing but a harmony
resulting from a combination of the parts of the body, and so may perish
with the body, as the harmony of a lyre does when the lyre itself is
broken. And Cebes, though he admits that the soul is more durable than
the body, yet objects that it is not, therefore, of necessity immortal,
but may in time wear out; and it is by no means clear that this is not
its last period.

These objections produce a powerful effect on the rest of the company;
but Socrates, undismayed, exhorts them not to suffer themselves to be
deterred from seeking the truth by any difficulties they may meet with;
and then proceeds[20] to show, in a moment, the fallacy of Simmias's
objection. It was before admitted, he says, that the soul existed before
the body; but harmony is produced after the lyre is formed, so that the
two cases are totally different. And, further, there are various degrees
of harmony, but every soul is as much a soul as any other. But, then,
what will a person who holds this doctrine, that the soul is harmony,
say of virtue and vice in the soul? Will he call them another kind of
harmony and discord? If so, he will contradi