by any other.
Yet Plato has acknowledged that the soul may be so overgrown by the
incrustations of earth as to lose her original form; and in the Timaeus
he recognizes more strongly than in the Republic the influence which the
body has over the mind, denying even the voluntariness of human actions,
on the ground that they proceed from physical states (Tim.). In the
Republic, as elsewhere, he wavers between the original soul which has
to be restored, and the character which is developed by training and
education...

The vision of another world is ascribed to Er, the son of Armenius, who
is said by Clement of Alexandria to have been Zoroaster. The tale
has certainly an oriental character, and may be compared with the
pilgrimages of the soul in the Zend Avesta (Haug, Avesta). But no trace
of acquaintance with Zoroaster is found elsewhere in Plato's writings,
and there is no reason for giving him the name of Er the Pamphylian. The
philosophy of Heracleitus cannot be shown to be borrowed from Zoroaster,
and still less the myths of Plato.

The local arrangement of the vision is less distinct than that of the
Phaedrus and Phaedo. Astronomy is mingled with symbolism and mythology;
the great sphere of heaven is represented under the symbol of a cylinder
or box, containing the seven orbits of the planets and the fixed stars;
this is suspended from an axis or spindle which turns on the knees of
Necessity; the revolutions of the seven orbits contained in the cylinder
are guided by the fates, and their harmonious motion produces the music
of the spheres. Through the innermost or eighth of these, which is the
moon, is passed the spindle; but it is doubtful whether this is the
continuation of the column of light, from which the pilgrims contemplate
the heavens; the words of Plato imply that they are connected, but
not the same. The column itself is clearly not of adamant. The spindle
(which is of adamant) is fastened to the ends of the chains which
extend to the middle of the column of light--this column is said to hold
together the heaven; but whether it hangs from the spindle, or is at
right angles to it, is not explained. The cylinder containing the orbits
of the stars is almost as much a symbol as the figure of Necessity
turning the spindle;--for the outermost rim is the sphere of the fixed
stars, and nothing is said about the intervals of space which divide the
paths of the stars in the heavens. The description is both a picture