That portion of the soul which Plato regarded as "immortal" and "to be entitled divine," is thus the "offspring of God"--a ray of the Divinity "generated" by, or emanating from, the Deity. He seems to have conceived it as co-eternal with its ideal objects, in some mysterious ultimate unity. "The true foundation of the Platonic theory of the constitution of the soul is this fundamental principle of his philosophy--the oneness of truth and knowledge. [611] This led him naturally to derive the rational element of the soul (that element that knows), that possesses the power of νόησις from the real element in things (the element that is)--the νοούµενον; and in the original, the final, and, though imperfectly, the present state of that rational element, he, doubtless, conceived it united with its object in an eternal conjunction, or even identity. But though intelligence and its correlative intelligibles were and are thus combined, the soul is more than pure intelligence; it possesses an element of personality and consciousness distinct to each individual, of which we have no reason to suppose, from any thing his writings contain, Plato ever meant to deprive it." [612] On the contrary, he not only regarded it as having now, under temporal conditions, a distinct personal existence, but he also claimed for it a conscious, personal existence after death. He is most earnest, and unequivocal, and consistent in his assertion of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. The arguments which human reason can supply are exhibited with peculiar force and beauty in the "Phædo," the "Phædrus," and the tenth book of the "Republic." The most important of these arguments may be presented in a few words.
[Footnote 611: ][ (return) ] See Grant's "Aristotle," vol. i. pp. 150, 151.
[Footnote 612: ][ (return) ] Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 209, note.
1. The soul is immortal, because it is incorporeal. There are two kinds of existences, one compounded, the other simple; the former subject to change, the latter unchangeable; one perceptible to sense, the other comprehended by mind alone. The one is visible, the other is invisible. When the soul employs the bodily senses, it wanders and is confused; but when it abstracts itself from the body, it attains to knowledge which is stable, unchangeable, and immortal. The soul, therefore, being uncompounded, incorporeal, invisible, must be indissoluble--that is to say, immortal. [613]
[Footnote 613: ][ (return) ] "Phædo," §§ 61-75.
2. The soul is immortal, because it has an independent power of self-motion--that is, it has self-activity and self-determination. No arrangement of matter, no configuration of body, can be conceived as the originator of free and voluntary movement.
Now that which can not move itself, but derives its motion from something else, may cease to move, and perish. "But that which is self-moved, never ceases to be active, and is also the cause of motion to all other things that are moved." And "whatever is continually active is immortal." This "self-activity is," says Plato, "the very essence and true notion of the soul." [614] Being thus essentially causative, it therefore partakes of the nature of a "principle," and it is the nature of a principle to exclude its contrary. That which is essentially self-active can never cease to be active; that which is the cause of motion and of change, can not be extinguished by the change called death. [615]
3. The soul is immortal, because it possesses universal, necessary, and absolute ideas, which transcend all material conditions, and bespeak an origin immeasurably above the body. No modifications of matter, however refined, however elaborated, can give the Absolute, the Necessary, the Eternal. But the soul has the ideas of absolute beauty, goodness, perfection, identity, and duration, and it possesses these ideas in virtue of its having a nature which is one, simple, identical, and in some sense, eternal. [616] If the soul can conceive an immortality, it can not be less than immortal. If, by its very nature, "it has hopes that will not be bounded by the grave, and desires and longings that grasp eternity," its nature and its destiny must correspond.
In the concluding sections of the "Phædo" he urges the doctrine with earnestness and feeling as the grand motive to a virtuous life, for "the reward is noble and the hope is great." [617] And in the "Laws" he insists upon the doctrine of a future state, in which men are to be rewarded or punished as the most conclusive evidence that we are under the moral government of God. [618]