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Updated: May 25, 2025
"But what, Simmias," said he, "if you consider it thus? Does it appear to you to appertain to harmony, or to any other composition, to subsist in any other way than the very things do of which it is composed?" "By no means." "And indeed, as I think, neither to do any thing, nor suffer any thing else, besides what they do or suffer." He agreed.
"You speak justly," said Socrates, "for I think you mean that I ought to make my defence to this charge, as if I were in a court of justice." "Certainly," replied Simmias. "Come then," said he, "I will endeavor to defend myself more successfully before you than before the judges.
Of that upper earth which is under the heaven, I can tell you a charming tale, Simmias, which is well worth hearing. And we, Socrates, replied Simmias, shall be charmed to listen to you.
And thus being pure, and freed from the folly of body, we shall in all likelihood be with others like ourselves, and shall of ourselves know the whole real essence, and that probably is truth; for it is not allowable for the impure to attain to the pure. Such things, I think, Simmias, all true lovers of wisdom must both think and say to one another. Does it not seem so to you?"
As well as I remember, when these things had been granted him, and it was allowed that each several idea exists of itself, and that other things partaking of them receive their denomination from them, he next asked: "If, then," he said, "you admit that things are so, whether, when you say that Simmias is greater than Socrates, but less than Phædo, do you not then say that magnitude and littleness are both in Simmias?"
To-day, he replied, and not to-morrow, if this argument dies and we cannot bring it to life again, you and I will both shave our locks; and if I were you, and the argument got away from me, and I could not hold my ground against Simmias and Cebes, I would myself take an oath, like the Argives, not to wear hair any more until I had renewed the conflict and defeated them.
But that proof, Simmias and Cebes, has been already given, said Socrates, if you put the two arguments together I mean this and the former one, in which we admitted that everything living is born of the dead. For if the soul exists before birth, and in coming to life and being born can be born only from death and dying, must she not after death continue to exist, since she has to be born again?
I cannot tell, replied Simmias; but I suppose that something of the sort would be asserted by those who say that the soul is a harmony. And we have already admitted that no soul is more a soul than another; which is equivalent to admitting that harmony is not more or less harmony, or more or less completely a harmony? Quite true.
"I do not doubt," said Simmias; "but I require this very thing of which we are speaking, to be reminded; and, indeed, from what Cebes has begun to say, I almost now remember, and am persuaded; nevertheless, however, I should like to hear now how you would attempt to prove it."
Whereupon Simmias replied: "But indeed, Socrates, Cebes appears to me, now, to say something to the purpose; for with what design should men really wise fly from masters who are better than themselves, and so readily leave them? And Cebes appears to me to direct his argument against you, because you so easily endure to abandon both us and those good rulers as you yourself confess the gods."
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