therefore of the two pairs I just now mentioned to you I will explain and their generations do you shew me the other To sleep and to awake for out of sleep comes waking and out of waking sleep The origins or generatipns of these are of sleep to be in a deep sleep of waking to be raised up from sleep Is this sufficiently explained or not Sufficiently * That death is contrary to life and life to death whence is collected that the dead are out of the living and the living out of the dead and therefore the souls thus passing from body to body still are in Being for otherwise they could not transmigrate Do you then tell me with equal plainess of life and death whether is life contrary to death It is so And are some things generated out of others They are What then is made out of one living A dead one saith he and what out of a dead A living I must confess Of the dead therefore Cebes are made the living Clearly so saith he Are then our Souls in the Mansions below It seems so Of the two generations or orgins therefore which we have demonstrated to be in these things is not one at least perspicuous For to die is manifest to all is it not yes saith he * The same conclusion further explicated thus tho this new life appear not to us yet since no man can doubt of death which is known to all from the nature of contraries that cannot be understood one without the other it is necessary that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or reviving or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 second generation to life be What then shall we do shall we compose some other contrary to this or will this nature rather be maimed and imperfect or shall we determine that some other generation is to be rendred contrary to death yes saith he What shall that be Even to revive that is a new life If then there be a new life will that be a certain generation out of the dead to the living Doubtless That therefore shall be confessed and established betwixt us that the living have existence out of the dead no less than the dead out of the living Which being so is a convenient argument that it is plainly necessary the Souls of the dead be somewhere from whence they may again exist This indeed Socrates seems to me to be proved from Propositions granted and given Observe this also Cebes that we have not confessed that without good cause * Another Argument ab incommodo if contraries were not thus produced out of contraries all Generations would inevitably cease which being absurd he thence collects and evinces that out of the living are made the dead and out of the dead the living Which is the first conclusion For unless those things that are made were composed some of others by turns so as they come round again as in a circle but there were only a generation in a right line from one to its opposite not reflecting again to the first nor making a return or regress assure your self it would come to pass that at length all things would have the same figure be in the same manner affected and consequently would cease to be made How 's that saith he 'T is not difficult answers Socrates to comprehend what I say For Example if this very thing to sleep if I may so speak that is sleep were existent but to awake were not on the reverse composed of the man sleeping we were obliged to conclude that all would at length represent the Fable of Endymion and appear no where because the same would happen to all that hapned to that Endymion namely to sleep And if all things were mixed and compounded into one without discretion or distinction then that of the Anaxagoreans would come to pass all things would be at once In the same manner my Cebes if all things that now participate of life should die and then remain dead in that figure nor revive again is it not clearly necessary that at length all must die and nothing be left alive for if the living have existence out of others and the living should die how could it be possible but all would be consumed by death By no meanes Socrates quoth he for all you say appears to me to be true 'T is even so Cebes saith he Nor do we seem to confess things as being imposed upon and circumvented by error but this is really demonstrated by us that there is a return and restauration of a certain new life that the living are made out of the dead that the Souls of the dead exist and that good Souls are in a better condition and wicked ones in a worse Here Cebes answering A second Reason to prove the Immortality of the Soul drawn from that Hypothesis that to learn is only to remember For if in this body the Soul remember the things it knew before it came into it it hath had a Being before it was married to the same Socrates saith he what you now said ariseth from the reason of that opinion which you frequently have in your mouth if at least it be true that to learn is only to remember And from this opinion indeed it seems to be necessarily concluded that we some time heretofore learned what we now recal into our memory But this could not be unless our Soul were in being before it came into this human form So by this reason also the Soul seems to be a thing immortal But Cebes saith Simmias taking up the Discourse pray recal to our memory those your demonstrations for I do not well remember them at present The thing may be demonstrated by one and that a remarkable Reason * A proof of that Platonic Hypothesis that science is Reminiscense from the effects themselves viz. that men being asked rightly answer fitly of things otherwise than by reminiscense unknown to them yea and of such as are indeed obscure and abstruse as in Mathematics This Plato more copiously explicates in his Dialogue called Menon here touching it only en passant namely because men being asked they deliver the whole matter as it is but this certainly they could not do if there were not Science and right reason in them Again if a man bring a matter to Geometrical Figures or Diagrams or the like evidences this most manifestly proves and demonstrates the same to be true But if by this way saith Socrates that be not proved to you consider well whether when you by this reason seriously examine the matter it seem to you so clear as that you ought to assent thereunto Do you not believe how that which is called to learn is really nothing but to remember I do not indeed refuse to believe it but desire to have recalled into my memory that of which we began to discourse and from those reasons Cebes hath endevoured to alledge I almost remember and believe it already Nevertheless
Those things therefore which are alwaies in one manner and equally comparated 't is highly consentaneous that they be simple or void of composition but those that are sometimes in one manner sometimes in another affected that is subject to alterations 't is consentaneous that they be compounded I think so Let us then return to those we noted in our precedent discourse That very Essence which by the force of questions and answers we have defined to be really existent namely God is that equally the same at all times without alteration or not Third Position God who gives Being to all creatures and is not only Good but Goodness it self not only wise but wisdom it self c. is neither compounded nor subject to any mutation but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 uniform knowing no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shadow of change namely the Equal it self the Beautiful the Single that is what really existeth doth it never receive any the least alteration That Essence saith Cebes must of necessity be ever the same without alteration What shall we determine of many Beautifuls as men or horses or garments or others however the like equal and beautiful or all that are comprehended under the signification of the same name are these alwaies the same or is any thing contrary to them nor they to themselves nor among themselves that I may so speak are they alwaies the same These truly saith Cebes are never exactly the same These therefore you may perceive either by your touch or sight or any other sense but those that are alwaies the same you cannot by any other way but by reasoning of your Mind comprehend for they are invisible and fall not under the power of sense You speak truly saith he in every point * Fourth position there are two kinds of things or as he speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 two forms of Beings Those that are alwaies thesame which are invisible and those that are mutable which are visible Will you therefore that we make two Kinds of things one visible the other invisible Let us lay down these two Kinds for a foundation saith he Let us also put the invisible to be that which is alwaies the same the visible that which is never perfectly the same And that too saith he Now saith he do we consist of any other things but Body and Soul Of no other saith he * Application of all these four positions to the present argument There are in Man two distinct things One visible not alwaies the same but obnoxious to various mutations and so compound and mortal the other invisible alwaies the same and so incompound and immortal namely the Soul whence it is evinced that the Soul is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indissoluble and consequently immortal To which of the two Kinds shall we decree the Body to be more like and more allied 'T is evident to every man saith he that the body is more of Kin to the Visible But the Soul is that visible or invisible Invisible to men saith he certainly But those things that fall under sense and those that do not did we not refer them to the nature of men or are they to be referred to any other nature think you To Human nature And what is to be concluded of the Soul that it is visible or that it is invisible Invisible This therefore is to be fixt that the Soul can by no meanes be perceived by the sight Right Therefore the Soul is more like to that Invisible Kind than the Body is and the Body more like to the Visible Of necessity Socrates * Impediments of the Soul from its so close conjunction with the body We said a while since this also that the Soul when it useth the service of the Body to consider any thing either by seeing or hearing or any other sense for to consider a thing by the body is to consider it by sense is then drawn by the body to those things that are never the same and that it errs and is amused and giddy as a Drunkard is giddy by a vertigo in his brain Altogether so But when the Soul doth contemplate by it self it aspires to what is pure to what alwaies existeth and is immortal to what is ever the same and as being of Kin thereunto is alwaies conversant therewith after it is of its self and by it self and hath power and ceaseth from error and is wholly in those things that are alwaies the same so far forth as they occur to it And this affection of the Soul is called Wisdom You speak rightly Socrates in every word To which Kind therefore both of these we mentioned above and those we now describe is the Soul more like and more allied * Conclusion that the soul is Divine and Immortal the Body gross and mortal Any man in my opinion saith he even the most ignorant will from this way and method of reasoning grant that the Soul is more alike and more cognate to the All and Whole that is to what is ever the same than to what is never exactly the same And what the Body To that which is never the same Thus observe also after the Soul and Body have come together into the same man that nature commands the body to be servant thereunto The Affections and Offices consigned by the institute or law of Nature that is of God acting by his servant Nature to both soul and body that the Soul is to rule the Body to obey and to obey the dictates of its superior the Soul and appoints the Soul to rule and give law to the Body From the reason of these things which of the two seems to you to be like unto the Divine and which to the Mortal being or is that Divine by nature qualified and made to command and govern but the Mortal to be subject and to serve I conceive so To which is the Soul like Truly Socrates the Soul is like to the Divine the Body to the Mortal Observe I pray saith he whether from all we have already alledged it be certainly evinced that the Soul is most like unto the Divine and Immortal and Intelligent and Vniform and Vnalterable but the Body is most like unto the Human and Mortal and Non-intelligent and Multiform and Dissoluble and Alterable Can we oppose any thing to these as if they were not right and convincing We cannot These things then being thus established Grand Conclusion that the Soul being indissoluble by death survives eternally is it not proper and peculiar to the body to be capable of Dissolution and to the Soul to continue indissoluble or somewhat next to this Why not You clearly see therefore saith he that when a man is dead the visible body which we call dead and to which it belongs to be dissolved and to fall asunder and be blown out doth not incontinently suffer any of these but remain some considerable time if a man hath by
pleasantness and moderation treated his Body to the time of his death For when the dead Body is fallen and enbalmed â—â—s they who are enbalmed in Egypt it continues almost intire for a very long and indeterminable time and though some members thereof shall have suffered corruption yet the bones nerves and all of the more compact sort endure if I may so say for ever Do they not Certainly * Here he explains the Emigration of the Soul out of the Body at the instant of death subjoyning that Souls after death go thither whither the similitudes of their cogitations affectâ—ons and habits leâ—d them But here the Soul â—n invisible thing goes away into another place a place noble pure not to be seen by the eyes of Mortals among the infernal shades really to a good and provident God whither indeed if God be so pleased my Soul is presently to go For the Soul it self being in this manner qualified and freed from the Body will it think you presently vanish into air and perish as many men say No Cebes and Simmias it is very far from all possibility of being dissolved But truly in that manner we have explained the matter is rather dispar aged than illustrated for the nature of it is more noble if at least the Soul depart pure carrying along with it nothing from the contagion of the body as that which did whilst it remained in this life willingly and of choice hold no communication with the Body but declined and avoided it and retired into it self imployed all its powers by cogitation to avoid it Which is nothing else but to Philosophize rightly and in good earnest to anticipate death by familiar conversation of thoughts Is not this a meditation of death Wholly * From which principle he infers that a good Soul free from the contâ—gion and delusion of the corporeal senses goes immediatly after death to a certain invisible and most blisful place where it is again conjoyn'd to God to whom it is of â—in and like Doth not therefore Felices posthac Animae quas corpora nullis Faedarunt vitiis nullaque libidine morsas Detinuere olim quae dum sub carne latebant Contemplatrices abstracte a carne volarant Saepius ad Caelos Caelis post fata quibuscum Faedera sanxerunt viventes sacra locantur Eternaque illic Laetantes luce fruuntur the Soul being so comparated go to that Divine Being like unto it self Divine I say and Immortal and Wise To which when it comes it becomes perfectly happy being freed and exempted from error from ignorance from terrors wild Loves and all other Human Evils and as men are accustomed to speak of such as have been by solemn expiations purged and initiated to Sacred Rites living eternally with the Gods Shall we speak thus Cebes or otherwise Thus in all points by Jove saith Cebes But if the Soul depart out of the Body polluted and impure as having hitherto conversed wholly with the Body and slavishly served it and being both by its own errors and by the lusts of the Body fascinated esteemed nothing true but what 's corporeal namely that gross matter hat is touched seen drunk and used to Venereal pleasures and on the contrary that which is to the eyes dark and invisible but may by the power of understanding be perceived and by the institutes and discipline of Philosophy be comprehended this I say having been accustomed to hate and abhor and dread can we imagine that a Soul thus disposed and vitiated shall depart pure and intirely collected into it self By no means saith he * From the popular Opinion of Ghosts and Spirits he adds that Souls loaden with gross earthy affections wander in grief about monuments and Sepulchres for a certain time only that is according to the Pythâ—gorean Dream they light upon other Bodies suitable to their former affections inclinations and manners I think we ought rather to decree that such a Soul departs involved in and contaminate with the stains and infection of the corporeal mass which the very conversation and familiarity of the Body because that Soul hath so continually and intirely conversed therewith and with much At tenebrosae animae nimium quae carnibus olim Demerjae jae ueresuis quos tetra libido Atque voluptates solum quas sensus alebat In terris notae posthac de carne solutae Aspectum Caeli cum quo commercia nulla Viventes habuere timent nec luce fruuntur Sed tenebris dilecta nimis prope corpora semper Ferales errant Vmbrae maestaeque Sepulchra Bustaque faedacolunt Hinc noctu spectra videntur Quae terrent homines animae sunt ista malorum Quae quaeniam crassae sunt corporeaque videntur Majus noster in Supplem Lucani lib. 4. care and cogitation imployed it self in pursuit of such things hath as it were ingrafted into it and made a part of its nature Certainly This we are to hold to be with a kind of burden gross heavy terrene visible wherewith when such a Soul is inveloped it is weighed down and carried to a visible place by fear of that invisible one and as it is vulgarly said it wanders about Monuments and Sepulchres where have been seen certain darksom Images of Souls which Apparitions such Souls represent that have not departed pure but yet retain something of that gross and visible matter and are therefore beheld 'T is very probable Socrates Nor is it less probable Cebes that those are not the Souls of good men but of Wicked and Impious that are compelled to hover and flagg about those places suffering the punishment of their former vicious Education and restlesly wandring until by desire of that corporeal following they are again intangled in and bound to a Body And bound they are as is probable to one of such inclinations and manners as they in life had imployed their thoughts upon What are these things you speak Socrates How it is probable that those who have minded gluttony railing wantonness c. nor cautiously abstained from them pâ—â—on the forms of Asses and of other wild Beasts Do not you think it probable You speak with great probability And that they who highly valued and honoured injustice oppression tyranny rapine are turned into the Kindes of Wolves Hawks Kites and other Beasts of Prey or shall we say that their Souls go to some other place Truly saith Cebes to no other We are therefore to hold that all Souls strive to go whither the similitudes of their cogitations and inclinations carry them 'T is very perspicuous truly * A consectary of the former Doctrin that the arme way to that conjunction with God is not by Politic and Theatrical virtues which are but shadows but by the serious study of wisdom and why not Are then they the happiest of men who upon deliberate purpose exercise civil prudence in a popular way of life which they call temperance and justice contracted meerly from conversation and cogitation
ad proximas balneas prius sueto lavacro traditum praefarus Deum veniam purissime circumrorans abluit c. Nor is it to be doubted but this was then done to him de more antiquo according to the most ancient use of that Nation Which while the Israelites remain'd in bondage among them were much more likely to give Examples to them than to receive any from them it being seldom observed that Lords imitate their Slaves But this is confirmed by Tertullian de Baptismo cap. 5. where he writes Nationes sacris quibusdam per lavacrum initiantur Isidis alicujus aut Mithrae summi apud Persas numinis ipsos etiam Deos suos lavationibus efferunt c. And whencesoever Moses borrowed this rite we have it under the hand of Diodorus Siculus lib. 1. that it was traduced from Aegypt to Athens by King Erechtheus Nor is there just cause why the traduction of the like Baptism from the Jews to Christians should be urged to the disparagement of our Mystical Ablution at the font when by the Church we are admitted to Christianism as well because ours was changed from a mere rite to a blessed Sacrament by Christ himself the Author of our faith honored by his Example and sanctified by his Benediction and the Divinity of its constitution confirmed by the miraculous descent of the most Holy Spirit in form of a Dove as because tho the External act of washing continue still the same yet the Signification and Effiacy thereof is become infinitely more noble and excellent Again if it be true as some very learned men have held that those Articles of faith and those religious Rites and Ceremonies that are embraced by men of all Religions and as it were seal'd by universal consent of Mankind in all Ages be less obnoxious to exceptions and dispute than others that are proper and peculiar only to some one Religion Age or Nation then certainly by how much more antique and common to various Religions and Nations this Rite of Expurgation by Water hath been by so much more sacred ought it to be esteem'd But this is only a Digression from my Theme the Lustration of Ethnics and more particularly of the Grecians Whereby those who were legitimately initiated were esteem'd not only more honorable then others in this life but more happy after death For their Wise men taught and the Vulgar therefore believ'd that by virtue of such Lustrations the Souls of men were rendred more defecate and pure from the contagion of the body refined as it were from the dross of sensual affections and made more fit and expedite for contemplation of Divine things Whence Sophocles the Tragedian writing of Mysteries is said by Plutarch de audiendis Poetis to have composed these verses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Felices nimis Initia quotquot ista cum conspexerint Eunt ad Orcum Namque eos solos manet Ibi vita reliquos miserias praeter nihil and the Chorus in Aristophanes's Comedy named the Froggs was made to sing these Solis nobis Sol Et lux hilaris est Qui initiamur Piam degimus vitam c. This persuasion therefore being so universally diffused among the Grecians and rendred so plausible by Superstition no wonder if Plato in this Dialogue put this as an Axiom into the mouth of Socrates Whoever not expiated nor with due rites initiated shall descend to the Mansions of Souls departed shall there lye rowling in mudd but who shall after expurgation and initiation come thither shall for ever dwell with Gods Nor this altogether without reason because the Initiati were both obliged to newness of life and reformation of manners and instructed in Philosophy as well Natural as Moral II. The Antiquity and Traduction of the opinion of the Souls Immortality THough Strabo Geograph lib. 15. pag. 713 speaking of the Indian Brachmans be so rash to say of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they as Plato compose fables of the incorruptibility of the Soul and of judgements in the infernal shades yet to me it seems not to be doubted but the belief of the Immortality of mans Rational Soul is fully as ancient as Mankind it self For methinks the Excellency of its own Faculties and Operations above all Material Agents should be alone sufficient to afford to every contemplative man certain glimpses of both the divine Original and Immortality thereof and the desire of posthume glory an affection congenial and natural Arist 2. de Anima calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most natural to all noble minds together with a secret fear of future unhappiness common to all to give pregnant hints of its sempiternal Existence after death And yet notwithstanding such has been the cruelty of Time in the destruction of Books and other Monuments and so far hath Oblivion swallowed up the Tenents and Doctrines of the yonger World that of this so reasonable and comfortable an opinion we can find no prints remaining but what the Grecian Sages observed among the Aegyptians and from them transmitted down to posterity From them alone therefore we are to trace the tradition thereof Consentaneous it is that the Eleusinian Mysteries and other sacred Rites so solemnly observed and celebrated by the ancient Aegyptians more particularly that of Lustration just now explicated were grounded upon a belief of and had their chief respect unto a future life and the different state of good and bad Souls therein For to what end could that religious Ablution and Expurgation serve but as they were persuaded to rinse away the stains of guilt from the Soul or as Tertullian de Baptismo cap. 5. expresseth it in regenerationem impunitatem perjuriorum suorum if they were not possessed with a belief even to confidence of the Eternal Duration of the Soul after death and that in a condition of Felicity or Misery according to its virtuous or vicious Affections and Actions in this life Had they admitted the extinction thereof by death vain certainly and absurd had been all their care and sollicitude about the purification of it from the pollutions of Sin and from the dreggs of sensual inclinations before death The same may be by like genuine consequence inferred from their most magnificent Sepulchres their exquisite Embalmings of the dead and their Amenthes or subterraneous place into which they held the Souls of the Defunct to be received But what need we range into their Mythologies in search after evidence of their being strongly possessed with this opinion when we have proofs from Authority unquestionable that their Priests and other Learned men expresly taught it Hear then Herodotus lib. 2. cap. 123. saying Aegyptij primi sunt qui Animam hominis immortalem esse dicerent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ejus transmigrationem in alia animalia terrestria marina volueria rursumque in corpus humanum docuerunt hunc circuitum ab ea fieri intra
be instructed rather to seek after virtue than to accumulate riches that if my Sons when they are grown up be troublesome to them in the same matters wherein I have disquieted and offended them they would severely punish them chiefly if they seem to take more care either of riches or the like transitory thing than of virtues they seem to be something when they are nothing I would have ye reprehend and convince them as I have reprehended you if they neglect things necessary to be solicitous about things unnecessary and pretend to be what they are not sharply reprove them Which if ye shall do both I and my Sons shal obtain from you a just and lawful benefit But 't is now time to depart I to my death ye to life and whether of the two is better I think is known only to God The End of Socrates his Apology AXIOMS MORAL Collected out of Socrates his Apology 1. A Judge is to consider not the Elegancy but Truth of what is said before him 2. The good Education of Youth is of very great Importance to the Common-wealth 3. Humane wisdom is not to be much valued because God alone is truly wise and among men he only deserves to be reputed wise who conscious of his own ignorance professeth to know nothing certainly but that he knows nothing 4. The Station and Office that God hath assigned to us in this Life we are to defend and maintain tho we thereby incur the greatest incommodities and dangers and we ought to have no consideration either of death or any other terror when Shame and Dishonour is to be avoided Nor are those things to be feared which we do not certainly know to be Evil but only those which we do certainly know to be Evil namely not to obey the Commands of God and to do unjustly 5. To be conversant in Affairs of State * A precept delivered also by Epicurus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non ad rem publicam accessurum Sapientem and inculcated even by Cicero himself Omnia suâ causâ facere sapientes Remp. capessere hominem non oportere c. Orat. pro Sext. is full of danger 6. It is both indecent and unjust for Judges to be moved and seduced by the Charms of Eloquence or Tears for they ought to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no respecters of persons and without passion and so to give judgment not from their own affections but from the merit of the Cause and according to Law 7. An honorable Death is alwaies to be preferred to a dishonorable Life 8. Since God takes care of human Affairs and chiefly of Good men no Evil can come to Good men neither living nor dead 9. We are not to be immoderately angry with our Enemies nor to hate them although guilty of Crimes against us and certainly to suffer the punishments reserved for them A DIALOGUE Concerning the Immortality of Mans Rational Soul AND Admirable Constancy of SOCRATES at his Death The ARGUMENT Out of SERRANVS PLATO here introduceth Phedo recounting to Echecrates the Philosophical Discourses delivered by Socrates the very day wherein he suffered death by a draught of poyson wherein he shewed both his invincible magnanimity in embracing death with perfect tranquility of mind and his most certain perswasion of the immortality of the Rational Soul By this eminent Example then and from the mouth of that true Hero at that time encountring that Gyant of Terrors death when the judgment and sayings of men much inferior to Socrates in point of wisdom are commonly reputed Oraculous Plato proves the Humane Soul to be immortal and declares his opinion concerning the state and condition thereof after its separation from the body The Thesis therefore or capital design of this Dialogue seems to be two-fold first to evince that death ought to be contemned and then that the Soul is by the prerogative of its nature exempt from the power of death And from the latter as the more noble and august part the whole Dialogue borrows its Title 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Animo of the Soul The Contents thereof are partly moral in that it teaches the contempt of death and constant adherence to virtue partly Metaphysical or Theological for that it treats of the excellency of the Soul and of God To these are added also Ornamental parts viz. a decent Introduction and accurate Narration of the remarkable manner and circumstances of Socrates his death Of these so various parts the Oeconomy or Order is concisely this Some Philosophers Friends to Socrates visiting him in the prison the last day of his life and talking familiarly together the clue of their conference oon leads them to this useful question Whether a wise man ought to fear death Of this Socrates first disputing with less cogent Reasons and transiently determining that other doubt Whether it be lawful for a man to kill himself opportunely and after his grave way of arguing resumes proceeds in the former enquiry about despising death Concerning which the summe of his reasoning is this Since the principal duty of a Philosopher is daily to meditate upon Death i. e. to withdraw and divide his Mind or Soul from his body and the exorbitant desires thereof and death is defined to be only a separation of the Soul from the Body and that after this frail and mortal life is at an end there remains a full and solid felicity to be enjoyed by those who have here truly and sincerly embraced the study of Wisdom there is no reason why he should fear death but good cause rather why he should wish and long for it because being thereby freed and secured from all importune and insatiable lusts of the body wherewith the Soul is here intangled and fettered he should instantly pass to a second and better life and therein attain to a full and perfect knowledg of Wisdom Which he now remonstrates he most assuredly expected to enjoy immediatly after his death and so his body being dissolved to become consummately happy So from the consequence of this conclusion there naturally ariseth a new dispute about the Souls surviving the Body For if the Soul exist not after death all dissertation concerning future felicity or infelicity must be vain and absurd Of this most important conference about the immortality of the Soul there are three parts One positively asserts the Soul to be essentially immortal the Second refutes the contrary opinions the Third teaches the use and advantages of the belief of the Souls immortality The FIRST part then of this excellent Doctrine of Plato and of Socrates too from whom he seems to have learned it concerning the Souls immortality is Apodictical or Demonstrative And yet he so prudently and circumspectly manages his forces as to begin the combat with a Forlorn of lighter Reasons and then bring up as it were a phalanx of stronger and more pressing arguments to assure the Victory which indeed is his
come to pass that the draught of poyson must be repeated twice or thrice Wish him good health saith Socrates let him take care only of what belongs to his own duty and provide enough as if he were to give the dose twice and if need be thrice This I knew before answers Crito but the Fellow hath been troublesom to me a good while suffer him saith he But I will render an account to ye my Judges by what right I became possessed of that my opinion that he who truly and seriously addicts himself to Philosophy or the love of wisdom doth die with undaunted courage and stedfast resolution furnished with that noble hope that immediatly after his death he shall certainly attain unto the greatest Goods or supreme felicity How this is Simmias and Cebes I will endeavour to explain to ye They who have rightly embraced the study of Philosophy First argument the great duty and business of a Philosopher is continually to meditate upon death therefore he ought not to dread it when it comes seem to excel in this one thing that living in obscurity and retirement from vulgar conversation they intirely and with all possible contentation of mind devote themselves to the meditation of death If this be true it will be absurd to addict our study and devoirs to the consideration of this one thing all our life long and at last when death it self comes to be offended and preturbed at it after so long and familiar a converse therewith in our thoughts * The popular scoff against Philosophers that they have death alwaies in their thoughts because they are conscious to themselves they deserve to die in respect of their nesarious lives urged to Socrates Here Simmias smiling Socrates saith he by Jove you have forced me to smile who was nothing inclined to such gayety of humor for the vulgar if they had heard this would I believe be of opinion that it is extremely suitable to Philosophers and the greatest part of our men would consequently assent that all Philosophers ought in good earnest to die and that themselves are not ignorant they very well deserve to die * Whereunto he gravely replies that it is no wonder if the ignorant vulgar give a rash and importune judgement of what they understand not This replies Socrates they might say Simmias and truly too this one thing excepted that they themselves are not ignorant how far those who are truly Philosophers both meditate upon death and are worthy of it for the vulgar are really ignorant thereof and cannot judge of what they understand not Wherefore securely pretermitting those vulgar Scoffers let us seriously pursue our discourse A Second and indeed an artificial argument drawn from the nature of death it self which he defines to be a deliverance of the Soul from the Body and puts that for the first proposition of a Syllogysm Do ye think that death is any thing Yes answers Simmias Do ye think death to be any thing else but a freeing of the Soul from the body and that to die is this when the Body being freed from the Soul remains by it self and the Soul likewise freed from the Body hath existence apart by it self or is death any other thing besides this Nothing but that answers Simmias Consider then I beseech ye whether your judgment be not the same with mine for thence I conceive light will be derived to the argument now under our consideration * Assumption but the main care of a Philosopher is to alienate and divorce his Soul from his Body and the cupidities thereof Do ye take them to be Philosophers who imploy themselves in pursuit of those pleasures as they call them of the body as of eating and drinking and other the like sensual delights By no means Socrates saith Simmias What then in Venerial pleasures Neither Hath a Philosopher any care or value for other things that appertain to the delicacy and ornament of the body as of rich cloaths fine shooes and other gaudy ornaments doth he desire to be furnished with store of these toyes Whether do ye think he esteems or contemns those things unless so far as there may be great necessity of using them My opinion is a true Philosopher contemns them all Then your opinion is that the whole study care and labour of such a Philosopher is not in pampering and adorning his body but in with-drawing as much as he can his thoughts from his body and converting them intirely upon his mind I confess it Doth it not then evidently follow from thence that the Office of a Philosopher doth chiefly appear in this that he renders his Mind free and absolute from community of his body It doth so But yet Simmias most men think that he who takes no pleasure from those sensual things deserves not the use of this life but comes nearer to death being insensible and careless of those delights that belong to the body You are in the right The first circumstance of his probation from the effects of the corporeal senses that they being not sufficiently pure and perfect cause the Soul by contagion and sympathy to be dull and pore-blind in the disquisition and discernment of truth What then when wisdom it self is to be acquired will the body prove an impediment if a man take it along as a companion in that disquisition for example the sight it self or hearing have they any truth in men or do Poets speak truth when they say that we neither see nor hear any thing clearly and intirely and if these senses of the body be not perfect or sufficiently quick and perspicuous certainly the others which are all weaker and duller than the sight and hearing must needs be less perfect and sincere Do you not think so I do saith he When then doth the Soul attain truth for when it endeavours to discern any thing clearly and distinctly by the help of the body 't is apparent that then it is seduced and circumvented by the body it self You are in the right Doth not the Soul by reasoning or some other way of discerning comprehend this perspicuously Certainly it doth And then it reasoneth best when no sense of the body offends it whether hearing or seeing or pain or pleasure but it converseth intirely undisturbdly with it self alone contemning and repudiating the body and as much as lies in its power retiring from all community and commerce therewith with certain premeditation and counsel desires things and pursues them No doubt on 't Doth not therefore the Soul of a Philosopher even in this also highly contemn the body and retreat from it and by its self inquire into the nature of things satisfied only with its own conversation So it seems Now this Operation or work of the Soul Another proof from the proper and peculiar operation of the Soul wherein withdrawing it self from commerce with the Senses it is exercised in pure and abstracted Reasoning shall
we say 't is just or not Just without doubt Is it fair and good Why not But have you ever beheld with your eyes any thing of those None saith he Have you with any other of your corporal senses attained to these things I speak of all as of magnitude health strength and in a word the like which are of such a nature as they have all a real being is their most true and certain nature considered and fully discovered by the body Or is it thus that he who is most fitly and exquisitely comparated or disposed to comprehend by cogitation the nature of that very thing in the disquisition whereof he is versed shall come nearest to the knowledge and understanding of the nature thereof No doubt of it He then will perform this most purely and clearly who by that edge of his Wit by that accuteness of Spirit pierceth into everything neither making use of his sight while he thinks nor drawing any other sense into counsel together with his reasoning but imploying only his pure and simple faculty of reasoning endeavours thereby to investigate and discover the naked and true nature of the things themselves free and separated from his ears and eyes and in a word from his whole body as that which may perturb the Soul it self and hinder it from acquiring to it self verity and wisdom when it is imployed in conversation and commerce therewith Will this man think you if any other doth attain to understand the true nature of things you speak truth Socrates over and over saith Simmias Is it not then consequently necessary that to those who are truly Philosophers there be a constant and established Opinion that they may confer among themselves about these things there seems to be a plain way as it were paved to our hands which leads us with reason to the consideration of things but while we carry about this body and our Soul is immersed in so dark and incommodious a sink of evil we shall never attain to what we desire This we affirm to be truth For this body creates to us an infinity of businesses troubles and disquiets meerly for the nourishment and necessary supplies of it Besides if diseases chance to invade us they likewise hinder us from the investigation of various things and that fills us with loves desires fears various imaginations and Chimera's and many foolish whimsies so that it is a very true saying that the body will never permit us to be wise For nothing but the body raiseth wars seditions combats and the like mischiefs by its inordinate lusts and we are forced to provide monies for maintenance of the body being slaves and drudges to the necessary services of it Now while we are thus imployed in these meaner Offices we have no leisure to apply our selves to the study and search of wisdom And what is the greatest of all incommodities if we do by chance get any thing of leisure and vacancy from the cares of the body and address our minds to the serious consideration of any thing presently the body intrudes and while we are busied in that inquiry raiseth commotions and tumult and so disturbs and confounds the mind that it cannot possibly discern truth But we have already demonstrated The former assumption repeated and illustrated by a Dilemma Whence flows a certain conclusion since the grand design of a Philosopher is to discern truth his duty is to separate his Soul from his Body and so as it were to anticipate death in this life that if we desire to perceive any thing purely and clearly we must withdraw from the body and imploy only our mind which alone is capable to discern the nature and properties of Objects in the contemplation thereof for then at length as appears we shall attain to the fruition of what we desire and with love and diligence seek after namely wisdom when we have passed through the refinement of death as our precedent discourse intimates but not whilst we remain in this life For if it be impossible for us to perceive any thing pure and intire in conjunction with the body one of these two propositions must of necessity follow either we shall never attain to sapience or not until we have passed out of this life For then will the Soul be intirely divorced and separate from the Body but not before While we live here we approach indeed never to sapience if we have as little commerce and conversation with the body and be as little infected with the lusts thereof as the condition and necessities of our frail nature will permit but preserve our selves pure from the contagion of the same until God himself shall discharge and free us wholly from it And being once thus delivered and pure from the madness and seducements of the body as is reasonable to believe we shall both be associated to the like pure beings and by our selves know all purity and integrity which perhaps is truth it self For it is not possible for him who is himself impure to touch what is pure These things Simmias I conceive it necessary for all who are possessed with a right desire of understanding things both to hold and to discourse of among themselves Are not you also of the same opinion Altogether Socrates If then these be true proceeds Socrates there is truly great hope The second conclusion from the premises viz. if we then only live well i. e. exercise our faculty of reasoning when we abdicate our senses it necessarily follows that we shall then be happy and perceive truth plainly when we shall be wholly separated from the body i. e. after death that who shall arrive at the place whither I am now going will there if any where abundantly attain to the enjoyment of that for which we have in the whole course of our life past been seeking with extreme labour and study This peregrination therefore now appointed to me is finished with good hope and so it will to any other who shall have once perswaded himself to prepare his mind by rendring it pure and clean No doubt of it saith Simmias Is therefore what we said even now to be held a purification and purging of the Mind viz. as much as is possible to divorce it from the Body and to accustom it to be by it self congregated and retired from the same and to dwell as it were by it self both in this and in the future life single by it self and freed as from the chains of the body Yea certainly saith Simmias Is death then rightly called a solution and separation of the Soul from the Body It is so saith he And do they only who study Philosophy rightly most endeavour to divorce their Souls from their Bodies as we have said is not this the constant meditation of Philosophers It seems to be so What therefore we said in the beginning A third conclusion Since the principal design of a Philosopher is to attain unto truth and
that he cannot attain unto it until after death it is inconsistent for him to fear death So the whole question is determined that to a wise man death is not only not formidable but also desirable would it not be ridiculous if a man who hath all his life long made it his constant study and principal care to anticipate death by rendring his life as nearly like to it as is possible should yet when death really comes be afraid of and troubled at it Why not In truth then saith he they who Philosophize seriously and rightly meditate most upon death and to them of all men living death is least formidable which is evident from this argument Funera non metuit sapiens suprema nec illi Qui contemplando toties super astra levavit Carnoso abstractam penitus de carcere mentem Corporis atque Animi faciens divortia tanta Quanta homini licuit mors formidanda venire Aut ignota potest Nam mors divortia tantum Plena haec quae sapiens toties optasse videtur Et toties tentasse facit Superosque petenti Libertatem animae claustris concedit apertis Majus noster in Supplemento Lucani lib. 4. For if at all times they contemn and vilifie the Body and strive to have their Soul apart by it self and when the hour of their real and final separation comes fear and be disquieted what could be more alien or remote from reason unless they willingly and freely come thither where there is hope they shall at their arrival obtain whatever they in this life desired and they desired Wisdom and to be delivered from all commerce of the body with which they are offended Have many been willing out of ardent affection to their Friends Wives and Children deceased to descend to the shades below led by this hope that there they should see and converse with those whom they loved and shall he who is really in love with Wisdom and hath conceived a strong and certain hope that he shall no where obtain and enjoy it but in the other world as is decent and consentaneous when he is at the instant of death be vexed and grieved and not rather voluntarily and freely meet and embrace it for so we are to hold that a genuine Philosopher will conceive that he shall never meet with true wisdom but only apud inferos among the dead Which if true how inconsistent with reason were it for such a man to fear death Highly inconsistent saith he by Jove 'T is then a fit argument that he whom you shal see dying with reluctancy and fear is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lover of Wisdom but a lover of his Body not a lover of verity but of Riches and the Pleasures of this life It is just so as you say To those therefore who are in this manner disposed and inclined A new Theorem resulting from the precedents that those who neglecting the study of phylosophy pursue not truth as politicians and the vulgar have not true Virtue but only the shadow and resemblance of it is not that Virtue which is named Fortitude most agreeable and proper It is saith he Is not Temperance which many define to be this not to be disquieted or afflicted With lusts but to despise them and to regulate ones life by moderation does not this properly and peculiarly belong to those who both contemn the Body and continually exercise themselves in the study of Philosophy Of necessity For saith he if you consider the Fortitude and Temperance of other men you will discover them to be nothing but an importune and absurd ostentation of Virtue How so Socrates You know saith he that all other men account death to be one of the greatest Evils They do so indeed replies he Do then men of courage and fortitude endure death bravely for fear of greater Evils They do answers he Then are all except Philosophers said to be Valiant only from fear though it be truly somewhat absurd and a kind of contradiction to call any man valiant upon the account of fear and cowardise I grant it to be so What as for those of the vulgar who are reputed to be Temperate are not they so out of some intemperance Tho we have declared that to be impossible yet the like affection falls upon them in that their senseless and foolish temperance for while they fear to be deprived of some pleasures and still coveting them abstain from others they are carried away by those they covet without restraint Now they call it Intemperance to be governed by the tyranny of pleasures and 't is their case to be overcome by some pleasures whilst they conquer others So that what we said even now of vulgar Fortitude holds true also of these men that they are Temperate from some Intemperance But my Simmias That the firmament of true Virtue is wisdom without which the politic virtues are vizards and disguizes So that to Plato true Virtue is wisdom Wisdom truth and Truth Expurgation this is not the right way to Virtue to exchange pleasures for pleasures pains for pains one fear for another greater for less as we do money That is at last the true money for which all things else are to be exchanged Wisdom for the sake whereof and for which alone all things are to be sold and bought that fortitude and temperance and in summe every true and genuine Virtue may exist with wisdom while pleasures and fears and all of the same Tribe come and go But if they be separated from prudence and exchanged one for another by turns such Virtue will not amount to the shadow of Virtue but be meerly servile and base it will have nothing of true nothing of sound and solid in it Now Truth it self is the expurgation and refinement of all these not temperance nor justice nor fortitude no nor Wisdom it self can be the expurgation And indeed those who first ordain'd our Ceremonies seem not to have been silly and vile men but to have prudently designed that wrapt up in the veyls of words when they said that he who should descend to those below not being initiated and expiated according to the use of Sacrifices Hence that of Virgil Aeneid lib 6 ea prima piacula sunto Sic demum lucos stygios regna invia vivis aspicies c. Concerning which Expiation derived from the antient Egyptians consult Servius Honoratus upon the place should be rowl'd in mudd but he who descended to the shades being first ritely expiated and admitted to the Sacrifices should have his habitation with the Gods For in the Ceremonies themselves as they say you may see * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Multos Thyrsigeros paucos est cernere Bacchos an old Greek a dage many that bear Lances covered with leaves but few Bacchuses * The importance of all the precedent Arguments accomodated by Socrates to his own justification for that rejecting the
counsel and aid of his Friends who strove to perswade him to avoid death as Plato hath left upon Record in a precedent Dialogue intitled Crito he still remained fixed in his judgement that he sought rather to embrace it These are in my opinion no other but they who study Philosophy rightly From which institute I for my part have never in my whole life departed but have with all possible contention of mind laboured to be one of them But if we have done our devoirs rightly and profited any thing in that study when we come thither we shall certainly understand if God be so pleased a little after as I think These then Simmias and Cebes are the reasons I bring for my defense that I leave you and these Lords who are here not only upon just motives but without trouble or regret being fully perswaded within my self that I shall there find as good Lords and Friends as here The things I have said are indeed of that abstruse nature that they may be by very many esteemed incredible but if I shall appear to you to have made now a more pertinent decent defense to engage your assent than I did before those Athenians who were my Judges 't is very well When Socrates had said this A new disputation of the Immortality of the Soul but the basis of the former For if the Soul survive not the body all dispute concerning future felicity or infelicity must be vain and idle Cebes taking up the discourse some things saith he seem indeed to be excellently well said by you but what you have delivered concerning mans Mind or Soul seems wholly abhorrent from Humane belief nay they believe rather * To make way for this dispute first is proposed the contrary opinion of those who held that the Soul dies with the Body but so proposed that in the words of this opinion lie conceled the seeds as it were of more solid Arguments For things compounded are said to be dissipated He therefore being about to demonstrate the Soul to be a things not compound but most simple makes it most evident that a Soul is uncapable of destruction by dissipation as will appear from the dispute it self that the Soul so soon as it goes out of the Body doth no longer exist but in the very day wherein a man dies utterly perish more plainly that departing from the Body as a breath or smoke it is dispersed and flies away nothing of it afterwards remaining Now if it continued intire and had a being apart by it self delivered and freed from the evils you recounted then I confess there would be a noble hope beyond death if the things you have said Socrates be true But this wants no little probation of Arguments to prevail upon belief * The state of the Question Whether after the d ssolution of the Body the Soul be likewise dissolved and hath no longer a being namely that the Soul existeth after a man is dead and what faculty it hath of perceiving and understanding You are in the right Cebes replies Socrates But what do we Will you that we discourse further of this matter whether it be reasonable or not I would gladly hear saith Cebes your opinion concerning these abstruse things Nor do I think saith Socrates again there is any man living though he be a Comedian when he shall hear me disputing about them will say I trifle and speak of things impertinent and undecent If you please therefore that this matter be fully debated among us let us consider it in this manner namely whether the Souls of men deceased be in the infernal habitations or not * The first reason drawn from the Pythagorean opinion of the transmigration of souls For if souls go from bodies into another life and return thence hither to animate other bodies it follows both that they do and will exist hereafter because they are supposed 〈◊〉 pass through many bodies For this is a very antient Tradition which we here commemorate that the Souls of the dead go from hence thither and return from thence hither and are made of the dead Now if it be so that the living are made out of the dead our Souls truly can be no where but there for if they were not men could not be made again of them And this would be a strong Argumeâ—t that the thing is so in case it were manifest that the living are not otherwise animated than by the Souls of the dead But if this be not evident and certain other reasons are to be sought for that may be more convincing They are so saith Cebes * Proof of this Pythagorean Hypothesis that this circulation is performed not only in the bodies of men so that the living are made out of the dead but in all other creatures namely that contraries are made out of their contraries as he teacheth by various examples Do not then saith he consider this in men only if you would easily understand it but in Animals and Plants also in summe in all that have being by Generation that we may enquire whether they be all produced from no other original than as contraries from contraries whatsoever have their contraries as Beautiful or Honorable is contrary to ugly or shameful just to unjust and infinite others in the same manner Let us see therefore if it be necessary that any contrary can have no being in nature unless from its contrary for example that when a greater thing is made it be necessary it should be made of a less first and then greater Let us examine this If a less thing be made out of that which was greater before will it afterward be made less Yes saith he And of a stronger a weaker oâ— a slower a swifter It will so What if any thing worse be made is it out of a better if any thing more just is it out of what is more unjust Why not This then is clear saith he that all things are thus made contraries out of contraries 'T is so What more Is there any medium betwixt two contraries so that where there are two contraries there must be also two generations or originals of being produced first from one to the other and then from that to this again for betwixt a less thing and a greater there is augmentation and diminution of which one we call to increase the other to decrease Right Therefore to separate and compound to grow cold and to grow hot and all in the same manner though we use not names sometimes yet in reality it is necessary that some things be made out of others and that there be a mutual generation and beginning of some to others I grant it saith he Is any thing contrary to life as sleep is contrary to waking Yes What Death saith he Are these then made mutually each out of other seeing they are contraries and their generations made by some thing intermediate betwixt two contraries Why not One
from the mixture of these results a certain temperature and consent which is the Soul and this after those Elements or Ingredients have been exactly and in due proportions mixed and tempered together If therefore the Soul be a kind of Harmony namely when our Body shall be infinitely extended and so freed from diseases and other evils that then it is absolutely necessary the Soul how Divine soever should perish as other Harmonies that ' are either in Sounds or in all the works of Artificers and there the reliques of every body endure a long time until it be burned or dissolved by putrefafaction Observe then what we should answer to this discourse if any should affirm that the Soul is a certain temperament arising from the ingredients of the body and that in that dissolution which is called death it first perisheth Here Socrates after he had as he used often to do cast his eye round about and smiled Simmias hath reason saith he If therefore any of ye be more copious and better furnished with arguments than my self why doth he not answer for Simmias seems not lightly or rashly to have touched that discourse Yet before I answer I hold it convenient we first hear Cebes what he also reprehends in my discourse that gaining time for thoughts we may well consider what to reply then that having fully understood their objections we may either yeild to them or by observing their impertinency so defend and make good our own Doctrine But go to Cebes saith he declare to us what troubles you in this argument so that you cannot assent and give credit to my words I will tell you The Second contrary opinion that the Soul tho more firm and lasting than the Body because more excellent doth yet at length after it hath animated and worm out many bodies successively decay and through weakness perish which Cebes illustrates by an example saith Cebes To me your discourse seems to be involved in the incommodity and to be guilty of the same fault I observed before For that our Soul existed before it came into our Body I deny not for that hath been fairly and if it may be said without offence abundantly demonstrated But that any thing remains to us after death seems to me not sufficiently proved For that the Soul is stronger and more lasting than the Body I so hold that I shall not grant that Exception of Simmias to be true because the Soul seems to be far more noble and excellent than all these Why therefore saith Reason it self speaking to me do you yet doubt and refuse to believe since you see that when a man is dead what of him was more infirm and weak yet remains do you not conceive it to be necessary that what is more firm and lasting must at the same time remain conserved But now do you perpend and consider this also if I shall say any thing considerable for I want as much as Simmias did it seems some Image or similitude For to me these things seem to be spoken just as if one should an old Weaver being dead say thus of him the man is not destroyed but remains safe somewhere and should bring this argument for it the garment of his own weaving wherewith he was cloathed which is yet extant And if another should after refusal of assent to that argument ask whether of the two is more lasting man or a garment which may indeed be consumed by the very use of wearing and a third should answer that man is much more lasting and so should think it demonstrated that that man doth by so much the rather remain safe because what is less lasting hath not perished This I conceive not to be so Observe also what I say for any one may think it to be said foolishly and impertinently For this Weaver having worn out and woven many such garments died the last of these many but before the last and yet man is notwithstanding neither worse nor more infirm as for what concerns that matter This very Image I think the Soul shall receive by reason of the Body And he who shall say the same of them may seem to me to speak soberly and moderately if he conclude the Soul to be of long duration but the Body less firm and of shorter duration But I would say rather that the Soul consumes and wears but many Bodies though they all live many years For if the Body be dissolved and perish the man yet surviving and the Soul alwaies weaves a new what is worn out it will be wholly necessary that the Soul at that time when it shall die have the garment it last wove and that it perish before that last garment only But when the Soul once dies the Body then soon demonstrates the imbecility of its nature and quickly rotting vanisheth Wherefore according to this reason it would be highly extravagant for us to grow proud upon this perswasion and to be confident that after we are dead our Soul doth still remain some where For if a man shall grant more than what you affirm namely that our Soul was pre-existent before it entred into the Body yea that nothing hinders but the Souls of some may after they are dead survive and continue and that they are often born and die again that is they often come and go for that such is the virtue and power of the Soul as that it conserves it self through the various moments of its birth though I say a man shall grant all this he would yet be forced to confess this that the Soul doth not only endure vast labour in all those many accessions or approaches of generations but also at length is by one of those decensions or dislodgings that is by some one death wholly destroyed and abolished But this death and this dissolution of the Body which brings destruction at last to the Soul let no man say he understands For it is impossible any of us should comprehend it by sense This being thus it is absurd for any man living who cannot prove it with a certain foolish and ignorant security to be confident that his Soul is immortal and exempt from destruction Besides 't is necessary for a man drawing near to his death to fear for his Soul lest in that very present disjunction of his Body it utterly perish and be abolished When we had heard them speak thus Here Phaedo pauseth a little opportunely intimating that the immortality of the Soul is a thing both so important and so abstruse as that it ought not to be by an empty and unadvised credulity embraced but stedfastly rooted in the mind upon the conviction of solid and convincing arguments we were all cast into very great perplexity of thought as afterwards some confessed to others for that having been strongly perswaded by the precedent discourse of Socrates they seemed to trouble us by destroying that belief and by raising scruples in our minds so that we not only
deplorable calamity if when a discourse is true and certain and such as may be commodiously comprehended and understood yet afterward any man should fall from the truth of it and waver in uncertainty because in those very reasons which being alledged on both parts may seem one while true and another while false he hath been curiously versed Would not he I say accuse himself He would not confess his own dulness but growing at length discontented would transfer his fault upon the discourses themselves and during the remainder of his life pursue them with perpetual hatred and detestation because it had by their fault hapned that he had been deprived of the just power of Verity and Science By Jove answered I it would be very sad and deplorable * Socrates addeth that when in a Philosophical inquisition we come to that point that we cannot understand why a thing is so or so constituted we ought to accuse not the Reasons themselves but our selves and our own infirmity and so in this very Argument First therefore continued he let us avoid this danger and not perswade our selves of the wrong through prejudice as if we thought there were nothing of solidity or soundness in discourses themselves but this rather let us believe that we our selves are not of sound and upright judgment and that we are to endeavour with courage and resolution to render our selves more discerning and judicious you and others for the remainder of your lives and I for my death But methink I am not now treating of this Subject as becomes a Philosopher but rather contentiously and obstinately as the grosly ignorant are wont to argue For they when they doubt of any thing take little care of what properly belongs to the nature and investigation thereof but apply their whole study and diligence only to this to perswade others to think as themselves think And I seem to differ from them only in this I am not solicitous to convince others of the truth of what I say unless so far forth as it comes in my way occasionally and by the by to do it but rather that the same things may appear to my self to be really such as I represented them to be Thus my Phedo I reason and do you look with how great accession of profit and emolument to others For if the things I say be true 't is happy for me that I believe them but if nothing remain to me after death yet at this time that intercedes before it I shall be the less unpleasant to those who are present than otherwise I might be in case I lamented and deplored my death But the ignorance of this matter will now no longer persue me for that would be evil but be soon blotted out And thus prepared Simmias and Cebes I address my self to speak Do ye the while so govern your assent as to have little consideration of Socrates and all you can of truth If I seem to speak truth give me your assent if not oppose me with all your power of reason being chiefly intent upon this that I may not through this my vehement study and ardor of thoughts lead both my self and you into error depart like a Bee leaving my sting behind me To come therefore to the thing in dispute Coming now to the Refutation of the contrary opinions objected for more perpiscuity sake he first rehearseth them faithfully first do ye recal into my memory what things ye have said unless I shal appear to you to remember them of my self Simmias as I think diffident of of what I alleged doubts and fears that the Soul though more divine and excellent than the Body may yet perish before it as arising from and depending upon a kind of Harmony or consent of the organs of the Body But Cebes seems to grant this that the Soul is indeed more lasting than the Body uand yet holds it to remain uncertain whether the Soul after it hath passed through and worn out many Bodies by use doth not at a certain time it self also leaving its last body perish and vanish away and whether that death be not the destruction and abolition of the Soul for as much as the body never ceaseth to perish Are not these your Opinions Simmias and Cebes Both assented that they were * Refutation of the first contrary Opinion that the Soul being only Harmony as it ariseth from the Body so it perisheth with it But saith he whether do ye reject all my precedent discourses or do ye repudiate only some and admit others Some say they we reject some we approve What do ye resolve concerning that part of my discourse wherein I affirmed that Discipline or Learning is Reminiscence which being established it would necessarily follow that our Soul hath existence some where before it is conjoyned to the Body I confess saith Cebes both that when you delivered that Doctrin I suffered my self to be perswaded and that now I wholly adhere to it if to any other opinion But you must be or another judgment replies Socrates if you yet continue in that perswasion of yours that Harmony is a thing compounded and the Soul a certain Harmony constituted of those things that are extended and diffused through the Body For otherwise you would contradict your self as having said that this Harmony was made before those parts and organs of the Body of which it ought to be composed were in being Will you admit this By no means Socrates saith he * An Argument from an Absurdity thus If the Soul were Harmony then would it be necessarily consequent that the Soul was not prae-existent to the Body which yet was before granted and proved And this Argument is indeed firm as to its form but infirm as to its ground namely the supposition of the prae-existence of Souls Do you conceive then saith he that these two affirmations can stand together namely that the Soul hath existence even before it takes possession of a Human Body and that the same Soul consisteth of two things that are not yet in being For you have no such Harmony to which you liken it but first the Harp and the strings and the sounds and so the consonances and tunes by certain Musical modes composed are made and the Harmony as it is last formed so it first perisheth And how can this Opinion of yours agree with your other By no means saith Simmias And yet notwithstanding saith he it is highly reasonable that if it consist and agree with any tenent it must be chiefly with this concerning Harmony It is so saith Simmias That discourse therefore is disagreeable to you but see which of the two you will take this that Discipline is Remembrance or this that the Soul is Harmony Rather the first saith he Socrates For this hath pleased me without any firm demonstration only by indication of a probable and elegant example whence it hath been approved by many others also *
a higher or let down to a lower pitch or repugnant to the passions of the instruments of which it is composed but must inevitably obey their dictates and commands not prescribe and give law to them This we have granted saith he why should we not Now then doth not the Soul appear to do quite contrary when it exerciseth Dominion over and dispenseth commands to the various members and organs of the body out of whose combination and system you suppose it to result and when for the most part during life it strives to control all their inclinations and appetites with absolute Soveraignty ruling and moderating them more severely chastising some by the rules of strict Diet and Medicine and more gently and mildly correcting others with menaces and advices composing the lusts anger and fears of the Body as if in man himself there were two distinct natures or as it were persons one speaking to the other as Prince and Subject as Homer also imagined in his Odysses where he saith of Vlisses Knocking his breast to 's Heart he thus did speak Be not thou Heart in these afflictions weak But bear them bravely in thy self secur'd Thou heretofore hast greater ills endur'd Think you that the Poet feigned this out of opinion that the Soul it self was an Harmony and such a frail thing as to be at the will and conduct of the corporeal affections and unable to lead and rule them or rather out of a full perswasion that the Soul was a thing much more noble and divine than a Harmony He seems to me by Jove Socrates to have signified that the Soul is not a Harmony but something incomparably more Noble and more excellent * Conclusion that the opinion of the Souls being Harmony is to be exploded as many waies absurd We cannot therefore believe me hold the Soul to be an Harmony for manifest it is that if we do we shall both dissent from that Divine Poet and contradict even our selves You are in the right saith Simmias Well then saith Socrates we have commodiously I think appeased and silenced the reasons of the Theban Harmony but Cebes how shall we in the next place solve those of the * Both Simmias and Cebes being Thebans it seems that Socrates here facetely alluded to the fable of Cadmus the Thehan of armed men growing out of the earth because Cebes had many times contradicted and opposed him with fresh forces Cadmean You saith Cebes are most likely to find out that for you have admirably and beyond our expectation discoursed against that Harmony which Simmias defended For when I heard him proposing his doubts I thought it strange even to wonder if it were possible for any man living to find a reasonable solution of them and it seemed admirable to me that he was not able to sustain the very first charge of your speech 'T wil therefore be less admirable if the Cadmean opinion proposed by me meet with the same fate Good Cebes saith Socrates speak not those magnific things of me I beseech you lest envy rise up and disturb our following discourse But let God alone with that care also while we encountring as Homer saith hand to hand try the force of what you can allege He first recites and sta e the second contrary opinion Of all your Enquiries this is the grand and capital one You judge it fit to be demonstrated that the Soul of man is free and exempt from destruction and death and this lest a Philosopher when at the near approach of death he is of a resolved and undaunted courage and believes that after death he shall be far happier than in the short race of this life should out of an ignorant and foolish confidence triumph and exsult Now to affirm both that the Soul is a thing firm and divine and that it existeth of it self before we are born this I say hinders not but all your arguments may come short of the main question in hand they may serve to evince indeed not the immortality of the Soul but only the duration of it for that an immense time before its entrance into the Body it hath existed and then both knew and did many things and yet notwithstanding all this we are under no necessity of concluding from thence that it is immortal nay rather on the contrary it seems reasonable that its very entrance into and conjunction with the Body is the beginning of its destruction and a kind of sickness so that it lives a sad and miserable life here tormenting it self with the sense of various calamities and at last perisheth by that end which is called death But you say that as to our security from fear of death it makes no difference whether the Soul come only once into one Body or into many successively For in truth no just cause of fear is given to any unless he be very silly and unable to give a reason why the Soul is immortal And this I take it is the summ of what you said Cebes which I industriously recite and more than once inculcate that nothing may escape us and you may add and detract what you please But I saith Cebes at present demand neither to detract nor to add any thing and you have faithfully recounted what I said Then Socrates after he had a pretty while recollected himself from intent and fixed thoughts the thing you seek saith he is not to be contemned Cebes as being that for the sake whereof it may concern us exquisitely to enquire into the causes of Generation and Corruption I will therefore if you please pursue my discourse declaring what are my sentiments concerning the same Let it be so saith Cebes Attend you then diligently while I explain my thoughts * Accomodating his Answer to the order and method of the opinion he designs to refute he first removes the prejudices upon which it was grounded and then teacheth that the true cause of the Souls immortality is to be sought in God who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very form and fountain of life I have saith he even from my Youth been strangely enamour'd and inflamed with the study of that part of Wisdom which they call the History of Nature It seemed a magnific and noble thing to understand the causes of all things why this or that particular was made why it should be again destroyed and by what reason it had existence and I very often turned my self up and down first revolving these things in my mind Why Animals after hot and cold have undergone a certain sort of putrefaction as some say are nourished and whether the Blood be that by which we have the power of Vnderstanding and growing Wise or Aire or Fire or none of all these but rather the Brain which gives us the senses of hearing seeing smelling c. Whether out of these Memory be made and Opinion and from memory and opinion setled by quiet Knowledg be made in the
is not contrary to the number Three It is not truly Therefore not only contrary Species admit not the accession of one to another mutually but some other contraries also abhor and are incapable to suffer that mutual accession You speak with great probability saith Cebes Will you then saith he that if we be able we define of what quality these things are With all my heart saith he Will they not be such Cebes which so conform whatsoever they possess as not only to force it to retain its own Species of form but also suffer it not to admit and put on the Species or form of any Contrary whatsoever How say you to this saith Cebes As we said a little before for you know it to be necessary that that which contains the Species of Three is not only Three but also Odd. Right For this reason we said that the Species contrary to that form which makes this can never be induced By no means Hath the Species of Odd perfected that form Certainly And is the Species of Even contrary to the Species of Odd. It is Therefore the species of Even shall never force it self upon Three Never Are Three then free from she ration of Even Free Therefore tste number Three is odd Certainly What therefore I undertook to define I have now defined namely * He repeateth what he had above distinctly applicated viz. that contrary qualities cannot be together in the same subject but one of necessity expelleth the other But the subjects themselves admit contraries successively that of what sort those things are which being contrary to none yet admit not a Contrary as now the number Three is not at all contrary to Even and yet is nevertheless incapable thereof For the number Two alwaies infers a contrary to Odd and Fire a Contrary to Cold and the like of very many others But consider whether you agree that the matter ought to be defined thus That a Contrary doth not only not receive its contrary but that also which may adfer any contrary to that to which it self may come namely that which adfers it doth never admit a form contrary to the form of that which is adferred But again rub up your memory for 't is no incommodity to hear the same again The number Five never admits the ration of Even nor the number of Ten the duple of five the ration of Odd. This therfore being it self contrary to another will yet never admit the ration of Odd. Nor will that number and half that number or half a number admit the ration of the whole nor a third part c. at least if you comprehend my meaning and assent unto me I both understand your sense saith he and assent without the least doubt or scruple * Here recomodating his precedent Suppositions and treating of second Causes he first evinceth this that we are to seek not remote but proxime causes not as his Interpreters speak Accidentary but substantial ones as he teaches by the Examples alleged But tell me again reflecting upon our precedent positions yet I would not have you answer to the questions I ask expresly and in the same prints of words as before For besides that certain way of answering of which I have treated before I find another naturally arising from the things said by us just now and this certain and firm for example if you ask me what that is which if it be in a body the body will be hot I will not give that gross and ignorant answer that it is Heat but a more elegant and polite one from our last conclusions namely that it is fire Nor if you ask what that is which if it invade the body the body will be sick will I answer that it is a disease but more precisely that it is a Feaver and if you ask me what is that which if it intervene to a number the number will be Odd I will not say it is imparity or Oddness but Vnity and of others in the same manner But look if you sufficiently understand me Very clearly saith he Answer me then what is that which if it be in the body * First Theorem the Soul is the proxim cause of life in man the body will be alive The Soul saith he And is not that alwaies so Why not saith he The Soul therefore alwaies brings life to the Body it embraceth whatsoever the Body be It doth alwaies bring life saith he Is any thing contrary to Life or not Yes saith he * Second Theorem death is contrary to life and therefore contrary to the Soul which is the cause of life and conclusion therefore the Soul admits not death from the conceded supposition that one Contrary never admits of another What Death The Soul therefore shall never receive the contrary to that which it self alwaies induceth as hath been granted from our late conclusions True saith Cebes What then That which admits not the Species or ration of Even by what name do we now call it Odd saith he And what do we call that which admits not Justice or Music That we call Vnjust this Immusical * Consummation of that Conclusion from adjuncts the Soul receives not death therefore it is immortal What do we call that which is incapable of Death Immortal saith he Is not the Soul capable of Death No. Therefore the Soul is a thing immortal It is immortal Well then saith he shall we acknowledg this to be thus demonstrated or what think you of it Demonstrated perfectly Socrates saith he * Another Theorem of the same Conclusion If what is Immortal be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exempt from destruction then certainly the Soul is also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exempt from destruction because proved to be Immortal What therefore saith he if it were necessary that Odd be free and exempt from all destruction would not Three also be free and exempt from all destruction Why not Therefore if it were necessary that that which is wholly void of Heat be likewise free and exempt from all destruction when a man should induce Hot upon Snow would the Snow go out safe and unmelted for it would not then perish when it had once admitted and received heat You say true quoth he In the same manner I opine if that which is void of Cold were free from all destruction when any cold thing should be brought to fire it would not be destroyed or perish but go away safe and intire Of necessity saith he We are therefore by necessity obliged to conclude the same of an Immortal For if what is immortal be free and exempt from all destruction 't is impossible the Soul should perish when death comes to it For from our late Positions it will not suffer or undergo death and so not dye as a Ternary will never as we have said be Even nor will Odd be by any means Even nor Fire be Cold nor the Heat which is in
Purgatory of the antient Heathens described with their Repentance in Hell and three parts thereof Contrition Confession Satisfaction all which they saw to be necessary by the light of Nature i. e. Sorrow These things being thus constituted when Ghosts have arrived whither the tutelar Demon of every one conducts them first they are examined tryed and judged both they who have lived well righteously and justly and they who have lived in vice injustice and impiety they also who have lived in a middle way going on to Acheron and mounting into Waggons prepared for them are therein carried to the Marish where they both remain and suffer punishments appointed for the expiation and expurgation of their sins After they are thus expiated they are absolved and quitted and every one receives rewards for their good deeds according to their merits But if for the greatness of their Crimes they be found incurable having committed either many or great Sacriledges or unjust and unlawful Homicides or such execrable Wickednesses a just lott casteth them into Tartarus from whence they never get out Whereas they who stand convicted of and obnoxious to sins great indeed but not inexpiable as they who have in heat of anger committed any violence against Father or Mother and truly repented of it all their life after or who have been Homicides through immoderate passion upon these is imposed a necessity of falling into Hell But when they have been there a year in Torments the Waves cast them forth Homicides by Cocytus Killers of Father or Mother by the Burning River And when they come to the Acherusiad Marish then with a loud voice they by name call some those whom they have killed others those whom they have wronged and begg and beseech them to be satisfied with their unfeigned penitence and grievous sufferings and to give them leave to depart out of that Marish If they prevail they retire thence and are freed from those miseries if not they are carried back again into Tartarus and so returned to the other rivers not ceasing to suffer their renewed torments untill they have obtained pardon from those to whom they have been injurious for this punishment is appointed for them by the decree of the Judges Now they who have been rightly purged by Philosophy live ever after without bodies and come into other habitations fair and delightful which to describe is too difficult for my understanding and too long for the short remainder of my life Commodious admonitions concluding the description of Hell that we are not obliged to give credit to those Poetic fictions and yet it is useful to reflect upon them that we may be incited to aim at felicity after death and to follow the only path that leads to it viz. Wisdom and Virtue But as for the concernment and importance of what we have here related Simmias we ought to labour with all possible study and care that we may follow the conduct of Virtue and Wisdom in this life For the reward is great and the hope good That the descriptions I have recounted to you of the places and conditions of Souls after death are true becomes not a wise man to affirm But that there are some such or the like as for what concerns the state and condition of our Souls and the places whither they are to go for habitation seeing it is evident that our Souls are immortal this also seems both consentaneous and worthy the danger to believe they are such For the danger is honorable and glorious and we are obliged to inculcate and as it were inchant these things into our minds wherefore I have been the more prolix in commemorating that Fable But yet as to what concerns a mans own Soul he ought to be with full confidence perswaded of these things who while he hath lived hath repudiated corporeal pleasures and outward Ornaments as alien and unnecessary and so hath resolved to addict himself to any thing rather than to lusts of the body and hath made it the grand business of his life to furnish his mind with learning and to render it polite and brave not with strange but it s own proper ornaments namely with Temperance Justice Fortitude Liberty Truth Thus armed let him expect the time when he is to take his Journey ad inferos to the Mansions of Souls departed and let him so prepare and address himself as to set forward redily and chearfully whensoever Fate shall call him And for your parts Simmias and Cebes and the rest that are here ye shall all go this Journey each in his appointed time Fate as the Tragedian saith calls me now But perhaps it is time for me to go and wash my self for I think it more decent to be washed before I drink the poyson that I may give the Women no trouble in washing my Body after death Be it so then saith Crito to him An Historical Narration of the manner of Socrates his death which was perfectly agreeable to his Life and Doctrine But do you Soorates give to those here or to me any command either concerning your Children or about any other matter wherein we may chiefly gatifie you No truly saith he Crito I leave no new command with you besides what I have alwaies told you namely that if ye take due care of your selves you will perform your duty to me and to mine and to your selves also whatever ye do though now ye make no promises nor enter into new engagements but if ye neglect your selves and will not order your life according to the prints as it were of what I now remonstrate to you what I have heretofore enjoyned ye though ye should even with vehement asseveration promise to do many and great things for my sake ye will do I am sure nothing more This saith Crito we will with courage and alacrity of mind endevour to perform But in what manner shall we Bury you Even how ye please saith he at least if ye can catch me and I not fly out of your reach And when he had sweetly smiled and turned his eyes upon us my Friends saith he I cannot perswade Crito here that I am that Socrates who just now disputed and pursued all parts of the discourse in order but he thinks me to be the same whom after a few hours ye shall behold dead and asketh me how I desire to be Buried not remembring that a good while since I made a long discourse to this very purpose that after I have drank the poyson I shall be no longer with you but go away to the Felicities of the Blessed This seems to have been spoken by me in vain while yet I endevoured to consolate both you and my self Do ye therefore undertake for me to Crito in an obligation quite contrary to what he entred into on my behalf before my Judges He was surety for me that I should remain but be ye my sureties to him that I shall not remain after I am
abundance Socrates himself only excepted Who said what do ye my Friends truly I sent away the Women for no other reason but lest they should in this kind offend For I have heard that we ought to die with good mens and gratulation But recompose your selves and resume your courage and resolution Hearing this we blush'd with shame and suppressed our tears But when he had walked awhile and told us that his thighs were grown heavy and stupid he lay down upon his back for so he who had given him the poyson had directed him to do Who a little time after returns and feeling him looked upon his leggs and feet then pinching his foot vehemently he asked him if he felt it and when he said no he again pinched his leggs and turning to us told us that now Socrates was stiff with cold and touching him said he would die so soon as the Poyson came up to his heart for the parts about his heart were already grown stiff Then Socrates putting aside the Garment wherewith he was covered we ow saith he a Cock to * Intimating that death was most grateful to him for which and for his deliverance now granted to him he would have a Sacrifice offered to Aesculapius See Erasmus Chiliad 3. cent 3. pag. 1. Aesculapius but do ye pay him and neglect not to do it And these were his last words It shall be done saith Crito but see if you have any other Command for us To whom he gave no answer but soon after fainting he moved himself often as if suffering Convulsions Then the Servant uncovered him and his eyes stood wide open which Crito perceiving he closed both his mouth and his eyes * A most august testimony given by Plato of his Master Socrates to vindicate both his person and Doctrine from the prejudice of an ignominious death This Echecrates was the end of our Friend and Familiar a man as we in truth affirm of all whom we have by use and experience known the Wisest and most Just. Quid dicam de Socrate cujus morti illachrimari soleo Platonem legens Cicero de natura Deor. lib. 3. Quidni ego narrem ultima illa nocte Catonem Platonis librum legentem posito ad caput gladio Duo haec in rebus extremis inst umenta prospexerat alterum ut vellet mori alterum ut posset c. Seneca Epist 24. Sic longa virtute fuit mens sancta Catonis Purgata atque illi vitae immortalis honorem Jam contemplanti divini fata Platonis Phaedonem tradunt Cum laetus talia fatur Salve sancte liber superis demisse Catoni Dirige tu cursum vitaeque extrema meantis Instrue non alium moriturus quaero magistrum Nec restare alias voluerunt Numina curas c. Tho. Maius in Supplemento Lucani lib. 4. Quid Ambraciotes ille Cleombrotus videlicet qui cum Platonis illum Phaedonem perlegasset praecipitem se dedit nullam aliam ob causam nisi quod Platoni credidit Lactantius Certain General AXIOMS Collected out of the Precedent Dialogue concerning the Soul 1. Axioms Moral 1. PAin and Pleasure are of Kin and so linked together that they closely succeed each other by turns 2. No man ought upon what account soever to desert the station wherein God hath placed him but to persist in the duties thereof contemning all opposition 3. Self-murder is a great Crime * Ac donec Deus ille Creator Qui terrena Animam primò statione locavit Evocat haud illa statione excedere fas est 4. A Wise man ought not only not to fear Death but also to desire it with submission to to the Divine Will 5. Philosophy is the perpetual meditation of Death that is to recal and divorce the Soul from commerce with the Senses and alienate it from Corporeal lusts and pleasures Which is an anticipatton of Death that is defined to be a solution and separation of the Soul from the Body 6. The Virtues of Politicians are not true Virtues but only faint resemblances of the true 7. Philosophy is the way to true Felicity and the two grand Duties of it are 1 To contemplate the perfections of God and 2 to alienate the Soul from the allurements of the Senses and from indulgence to the Body 8. Hope of future Felicity is a very great Reward that is the best way of passing through both the Temptations and Adversities of this Life with satisfaction of Mind 9. Decent Burial such as is ordained and prescribed by good Laws of the Country ought not to be neglected by a Wise man nor Funeral Pomp affected * So Epicurus in his last Will and Testament Sepeliunto nos quà videbitur in hortis commodissimum nihilq interim sumptuosiùs quod sivo ad sepulturam sive ad monumentum pertineat agunto Diog. Laert. lib. 80. II. Axioms Natural 1. COntraries are produced out of Contraries but cannot possibly subsist the same in one subject at the same time 2. To learn is to remember what the Soul knew before it came into the Body or there are naturally and congenially in the Soul the seeds of all Sciences which are only cultivated and matured by method of Discipline not implanted or ingraffed at first as Aristotle taught III. Axioms Theological 1. GOd takes care of Men for that they are his own Possession 2. God according to Plato's definition here is not only the Cause of his own Being but gives both Being and Well-being to all things else 3. The Soul of Man is the Off-spring of God in a peculiar manner participant of the Divine Nature incompound without figure or shape Incorruptible immortal as God 4. The Soul in this Life doth indeed use the service of the Body yet is not composed organically of the Senses and other Faculties thereof but simple and existeth apart by it self after separation by Death whereby the Body being compound is dissolved but the Soul goes away untouched and void of all Corruption into another Life and there lasteth Eternally 5. Of our Souls departed there is a Twofold state some are happy others unhappy 6. Seeing that in this Life things are carried on intemperately and in confusion there must be in the next Life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a certain and just Judgement of God the Supreme and Vniversal Judge whereby Good men may be distinguished from Wicked this being an Axiom evident by the very Light of Nature that God will reward every man according to his works in this life * Deus ipse sequendam Proposuit Virtutem praemia debita justis Haec quoniam justos injusta potentia fraudat Saepiùs in terris gens humanu rebellat Solvere post mortem justissimus ipse tenetur 7. Positively and with confidence to describe the places whither the Souls of the Dead go and to define what are the Rewards and Punishments they there receive is the part of a man extremely ignorant and superstitious though it be most
3000 annos c Upon which he elsewhere reflecting hath this pertinent remark Hinc tantum condiendi cadaveris studium tantae in struendis repositorijs impensae This Doctrin being brought from the Aegyptian Schools by Orpheus and from him descended to Homer he thence taught that Eternal Souls are from Heaven conveyed into human bodies and that after death they return to the Gods for a Symbol of this region of Corruption feigning his Antrum Nympharum wherein 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Janua duplex Haec Boream spectans homines demittit Odyss 13. v. 109 at illa Respiciens Austrum divinior invia prorsus Est homini praebetque viam immortalibus unis Of which Poetical fiction Porphyrius giving the Mythology wrote an excellent Book published by Holstenius de Antro Homerico wherein he tells us that the Cave it self carries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an image and symbol of the world that the Naiades or Nymphs are Souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 entered into bodies newly generated that one Gate is for the admittance of Souls descending into bodies the other for not Gods but Souls ascending from bodies to the Gods again Wherefore he call'd it the road or way not of the Gods but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Souls which are by their very Essence Immortal From this commonly embraced Existence of Souls departed arose the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Image-making of the Ancient Ethnics whereby they attributed to Souls separated from their bodies Effigies quasi Corporeas whereunto Virgil seems learnedly to allude where he makes Dido as she was dying say Et nunc magna mei sub terras ibit imago and Lucretius lib. 1. in these verses Esse Acherusia templa Quo neque permanent Animae neque corpora nostra Sed quaedam Simulacra modis pallentia miris From the same fountain and at the same time also were derived into Grece the Comments concerning the Mansions of Souls delivered from their bodies and the Rewards and Punishments to come For Diodorus Siculus lib. 1. pag. 61. hath left this record thereof Dicunt Orpheum dum impiorum palmas apud inferos piorum prata pervulgatas spectrorum fictiones introduxit funebres Aegyptiorum ritus imitatum fuisse adding that from the old institute of the Aegyptians Mercury was made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Conductor of Souls ad inferos Wherein Homer long after carrying on the tradition of Orpheus promotes the credit of the fiction by inserting it into his immortal Poem in initio Odyss ῶ. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Souls of Hero's Mercury the God Calls forth and guides t' Elysium with his rod. But leaving the most ancient Grecian Poets who yet were then the only Theologues let us persue this tradition of the Souls Immortality among their most eminent Philosophers as men less prone to Credulity and therefore more worthy of credit Of these the eldest we can find is Thales Milesius who as Plutarch de placitis lib. 4. cap. 2. attesteth first defined the Soul to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a nature perpetually moving and self-moving Which argument Cicero indeed afterward borrowing from Plato's Phaedrus most judiciously explained in the first book of his Tusculan Questions but fathers the opinion it self upon Pherecydes Syrius in these words Credo equidem etiam alios sed quod literis exstet Pherecydes Syrus Syrius rather from Syros an Island of the Aegean Sea the place of his birth primum dixit Animos hominum esse sempiternos hanc opinionem discipulns ejus Pythagoras maxime confirmavit But by Cicero's favour Pythagoras who seems to have been yonger then Homer by almost 400 years for he was among the Aegyptians carried away captive by Cambyses as appears from that place in Apuleius Florid. lib. 2. Pythagoram aiunt inter captivos Cambysae Regis doctores habuisse Persarum Magos ac praecipue Zoroastrem omnis divini arcani antistitem drew this Doctrin not out of the streams of either Orpheus or Homer or Phercydes but from the very spring-head of Aegypt And he taught that the Soul was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a self-moving Number and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 incapable of destruction returning after its departure from the body to its original the Universal Soul of the world as we find in the records of Plutarch de placit lib. 4. cap. 2. Next comes Heraclitus the Ephesian whom Porphyrius de Antro pag. 257. makes the Author of that memorable sentence concerning our Souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that this our life is the Souls death and our death the Souls life that the Soul descended from Heaven to animate the body suffers Exile in this lowest and darksom region and remains as it were dead during its imprisonment in flesh Then Empedocles Agrigentinus a Pythagorean who as Plutarch de Exilio commemorates speaking likewise of the descent of his Soul as a Banishment from its Celestial home Ego jamdudum saith he eo exul a Deo vagus and of the Eternal Society of the just that they should be after death immortalium aliorum contubernales convivae expertes humanarum miseriarum incorruptibiles immortales Whence it may be with good probability conjectured that Pindar took the main argument of his 2 d. Olympic ode wherein he sings that the Just enjoy eternal light and life exempt from cares and labour among the Gods whereupon Plutarch excellently descanteth de facie in luna And at length our Plato whom our best Antiquaries and Chronologists agree to have flourished about the 100 Olympiad in the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon over the Persians This Father of the Academics though he would have Homer ejected out of his Common-wealth as a Poet yet both embraced his doctrin of the immortal Existence of the Soul and added no little authority to his description of the Infernal Mansions especialy in this Dialogue where he introduceth Socrates discoursing most profoundly of the Immortality of the Soul Whereupon Cicero perhaps reflecting in lib. 1. Tusculan saith Platonem ferunt ut Pythagoraeos cognosceret in Italiam venisse in ea cum alios multos tum Architam Timaeumque cognovisse didicisse Pythagorae omnia primumque de Animorum aeternitate non solum sensisse idem quod Pythagoras sed rationem etiam attulisse From Plato down to his Disciples and Successors the Academics we need not further deduce this constant Doctrin it being of it self sufficiently manifest to all men not inconversant in the writings of the ancient Philosophers devolved to our late hands that whatsoever either the Author of that laudable Dialogue entitled Axiochus vulgarly adscribed to Plato and inserted into his works or Cicero in his noble Dialogue de Senectute Contemnenda morte or Seneca in his Epistles and elsewhere or indeed St. Augustin and Tertullian or any other hath written of this Subject either ex professo or only in transitu hath been borrowed from him And yet notwithstanding
it may not be thought impertinent nor vulgar if we observe that among the Jews the Pharises whose original our universally learned Sir John Marsham hath most plainly traced out in pag. 151. of his Chronic. Canon imposing only new terms upon the Philosophy of the Academics consented to the common opinion of the Greeks concerning the Soul as Josephus himself attesteth Belli Judaici lib. 2. cap. 7. who there delivers the belief of the Essens concerning the happy state of Good Souls separated from their bodies in the very words of Homer Nor is it obscure that the Jews themselves believed the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Transmigration of Souls from one human body into another when some thought our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ to be St. John the Baptist some Elias others Jeremias or one of the Prophets Math. 16 v. 14. DIGRESSION How far the Souls Immortality may be proved by human Reason BUT is it not of more importance to know how strong and reasonable this Opinion of the perpetual duration of separate Souls appears to be than to investigate the age and tradition of it Certainly yes and should my Reader here require my estimate of the force and validity of the various Arguments or pretended Demonstrations brought by Plato in the precedent Dialogue to evidence the verity thereof I might justly enough make use of the licence thereby given me to examine what I designed only to translate But because it may be thought an indecency if not ingratitude in a mere Interpreter to censure the power and extent of the reasonings used and the conclusions thence drawn by his Author and because this laudable curiosity of the Reader whom I presume to be possessed with such may perhaps be more fully gratified by a frank communication of my sentiments concerning that more general Enquiry viz. How far the Immortality of the Soul may be proved by simple reason or the sole light of Nature without the illumination of sacred Writ or revelation Divine I shall therefore with the freedom belonging to a Philosopher and due submission to more elevated Wits adventure to acquaint him briefly with those my thoughts choosing rather to expose them to his severest scrutiny than by animadversions upon the arguments of Plato in particular to shew the least umbrage or irreverence towards his memory I confess then that tho I have read and with due attention of mind considered the utmost rigor of many Discourses professedly composed for and speciously promising a sufficient eviction of the sempiternal Existence of the Rational Soul after death by reasons drawn only from her own excellent nature faculties affections operations c. yet I could not perceive that any one of them taken single or all put together had the force of a perfect Demonstration so that were not the Light of the Holy Scriptures infinitely more clear and convincing as to that among many other important truths concerning the Soul I should still remain unassured of the endless Duration of my noblest part For First as to the Origine of this excellent Being the Doctrines of Natural Philosophers concerning this are no less various then their Sects and all but darksom opinions or precarious conjectures Nay even those few among them who held it to be of Divine Original tho therein they hit the very white of truth appear notwithstanding to have shot wide when they conceived it to have been Eternal ex parte ante a particle of the Divine Essence it self and pre-existent to its conjunction with the body Whereas that sacred Oracle the Word of God plainly teaches that the Soul of the first man was created immediately by God himself and united to the body then already perfectly formed and prepared to receive it Secondly As to the grand Difficulty the natural Exemption of it from the power of Death when thereby divorced from the body the Arguments brought from Physical Mediums for probation hereof do indeed suffice to convince us of the Spirituality and Seperability of the Soul but suffice not in my judgement at least to demonstrate the impossibility of its destruction or that absolutely it shall survive the dissolution of the body for ever the same I grant that some and chiefly that most rigid of Physico-Mathematicians Des Cartes in meditat Metaphysic de Anima respon ad object secund have gone so far as fairly to convince any man of competent understanding that the Soul tho in this life obliged to act for the most part by the Organs of the Senses doth yet discover its excellency by actions proper and peculiar to her spiritual nature wholly independent upon and distinct from the Senses and thence by genuine consequence inferred that the same Soul tho by a strict and intimate conjunction with the body united into one Compositum therewith is yet nevertheless a thing or substance distinct from the body I grant also that by this very Argument the Immortality of the Soul may be sufficiently proved against Epicureans and Atheists For these men taking the Soul to be not formally and truly a Substance but only a certain Modisication of body thereupon concluded that it must of necessity perish or cease to be the same when the fabrique or frame of the body from whence it resulted is destroyed by Death If therefore from some intellectual operations of this Soul such to which matter or body however modified or organized cannot possibly reach it be made appear and Des Cartes seems to have done it that she is a Substance distinct from and independent upon the body there will remain no reason much less an absolute necessity why the dissolution of the body should infer the destruction of the Soul as they imagine more especially if the latter be conceived to be what most certainly it is a simple and spiritual substance as incapable of destruction as themselves hold matter to be But I dare not grant that this Cartesian Demonstration holds good as against Epicureans and Atheists who exclude God from having any hand in the creation and conservation of the Soul so likewise against those who acknowledge God to be the sole Creator and preserver of all things For admitting the Soul to be both a substance distinct from the body and immediately created and continualy conserved by God yet can we not lawfully infer from thence that it is not possible for such a Soul ever to cease to be For what assurance can simple reason give us that God hath not ordained that this Soul as it had a beginning when it was created to be infused into the body so at the time of its separation from the body shall lose its being and vanish into its primitive nothing That the duration thereof necessarily depends upon Gods conserving power and influence is undeniable and it seems consentaneous that as the Union or Association of the Soul to the Body was at first made not by any Agents meerly Natural but upon conditions depending solely upon Gods free and arbitrary institution so
for ought we can learn from the weak light of Nature to the contrary one of the Conditions may be that at the dissolution of that Union both Body and Soul should cease to be Especially since to the Souls relapsing into its first nothing no more is required but Gods withdrawing his conserving influence by which alone all his Creatures are supported and their Being is preserved Here then we find our selves left in the dark by human reason so that were it not for the brighter beams of Revelation Divine how fair soever our hopes might be of Immortality we should want a full assurance of it To conclude therefore this Parergon with the concordant judgement and in the most elegant words of that most excellent Philosopher and Christian the noble Mr. Boyl In Pag. 30. of his Book concerning the Excellency of Theology all that meer Reason can demonstrate concering this Subject may be reduced to these two things One That the Rational Soul being an Incorporeal substance there is no necessity that it should perish with the body so that if God hath not otherwise appointed the Soul may survive the body and last for ever The Other That the Nature of the Soul according to Des Cartes consisting in its being a Substance that thinks we may conclude that tho it be by death separated from the body it will nevertheless retain the power of thinking To more then this Des Cartes was both too circumspect and too conscious of the dimness of human reason to pretend tho some of his Sectators mistaking the design and scope of that his discourse have conceived it to extend even to an eviction also of the Souls absolute Immortality For in artic 7. respon ad object 2. he makes this ingenuous profession Cur de immortalitate animae nihil scripserim jam dixi in Synopsi mearum meditationum quod ejus ab omni corpore distinctionem satis probaverim supra ostendi Quod vero additis ex distinctione animae a corpore non sequi ejus immortalitatem quia nihilominus dici potest illam a Deo talis naturae factam esse ut ejus Duratio simul cum duratione vitae corporeae finiatur fateor a me refelli non posse Neque enim tantum mihi assumo ut quicquam de ijs quae a libera Dei voluntate dependent humanae rationis vi determinare aggrediar Docet quidem naturalis cognitio mentem a corpore esse diversam ipsamque esse substantiam c. Sed si de absoluta Dei potestate quaeratur an forte decreverit ut animae humanae iisdem temporibus esse desiuant quibus corpor a quae illis adjunxit destruuntur solius est Dei respondere Cumque jam ipse nobis revelaverit id non futurum nulla plane vel minima est occasio dubitandi III. Of the Comments of the ancient Ethnics concerning the infernal Mansions of Souls departed THo the description of Tartarus and Elysium here in the latter part of this grave Dialogue made by Plato be by himself declared to have been borrowed for the most part from the Fictions of others chiefly Poets and that he expresly affirms that to deliver any thing positively concerning the future state of Souls and the qualities of Rewards and Punishments in the next life is the part of a rash not a wise man yet forasmuch as the design and utility of those fictions is not more conspicuous than the first invention of them is to men inconversant in the monuments of Antiquity obscure and because there are even at this day not a few who entertain and promote as gross and in many things the like superstitious conceipts of Hell I think it worth the expence of a few vacant minutes to deduce them briefly from their original as high at least as my little reading reacheth The first Natural Philosophy whereof the envy of Time hath spared some little fragments to be handed down by tradition to this our so distant age seems to be that which supposed two Contrary Principles of all things that had beginning Of these one was God the Maker in the Grecian Theology named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning the Etymology of which name t' will be no lost labour nor impertinent to consult the most learned Vossius in Etymologico Linguae Latinae in verbo Juvo and the Author of Life The other Matter call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which hath the power of Dissolution or Death To the First was ascribed Light and Day to the Latter Darkness and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non-apparence for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth privation of Light Under the Empire of Zeus or Jove was placed the upper part of the World the inferior was assigned to the dominion of Pluto the middle betwixt these two contrary Principles was imagined to be agitated by perpetual reciprocations or alternate changes so that Life and Death Light and Darkness Good and Evil rule by turns Congruous whereunto is that assertion of the Prince of Physicians Hippocrates lib. de Diaeta nihil gigni neque prorsus interire That as to Matter nothing is either generated or destroyed and that to be generated is to grow out of Hade into light men thinking that to perish which from light decreased into Hade or darkness again For it hath been an universal Axiom of ancient Philosophers nihil ex nihilo fieri aut in nihilum redigi and therefore they who allowed the World to have had a beginning held the Matter of it to have been pre-existent from all Eternity Now this which the Grecians named Hades the Aegyptians call'd Amenthes which signifies a place giving and receiving viz. Souls as Plutarch de Iside interpreteth it Which notion together with the opinion of the Souls Immortality and future rewards and punishments being by the Aegyptian Priests communicated to Orpheus he from thence after his return into Greece feigned a Hell in imitation of the Funeral Rites he had observed among them as is expresly averred by Diodorus Siculus lib. 1. pag. 71. formerly quoted who addeth that the other Comments of the Grecians de inferis were in most things conformable to the manner and place of Obsequies performed by the Aegyptians even in his own time For saith he the boat wherein dead bodies are usually carried to burial is call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and a half-penny is given for a fare to the Boatman who in the tongue of that Nation is call'd Charon not far from the Ferry there stands they say a Temple of Hecate the Darksom and the gates of Cocytus and Lethe made fast with brasen barrs and other gates of Verity by which stands an image or statue of Justice without a head c. And Servius in Virgil. lib. 6. ad hunc versum sic demum lucos Stygios regna invia vivis aspicies delivers that Seneca in a certain book he wrote de ritu sacris Aegyptiorum reports that about Sienes an extreme part of Aegypt is a certain