However he is not content to let the matter rest on this argument alone, but he supports the doctrine of immortality by many proofs, as in the Phaedrus where Socrates explains: “The soul through all her being is immortal, for that which is ever in motion is immortal; but that which moves another and is moved by another, in ceasing to move, ceases also to live. Only the self-moving, as it never leaves itself, never ceases to move and is the fountain and beginning of motion to all that moves besides.”[191] In the Phaedo[192] he represents Socrates as offering a number of different arguments to his questioning friends. One of these is that by which he first proves that souls exist before they are domiciled in our bodies, for recollection implies a previous existence, and since men can recall and recognize things which they have never seen or been taught in their present existence, it follows that they have been born with this knowledge, so that what we call learning is after all only a recollection of ideas gained in a previous existence. Socrates concludes his argument with the question: “Then may we not say, Simmias, that if, as we are always repeating, there is an absolute beauty, and goodness, and an absolute essence of all things; and if to this, which is now discovered to have existed in our former state, we refer all our sensations, and with this compare them, finding these ideas to be pre-existent and our inborn possession—then our souls must have had a prior existence, but if not, there would be no force in the argument?” To this his hearers give ready assent. In the Meno this same argument is very adroitly drawn from the realm of mathematics.[193] An untutored slave is made to “recollect” that the square of the hypothenuse of an isosceles right-angled triangle is equal to twice the square of one of its sides. This is the doctrine of recollection to which Wordsworth has given beautiful expression in his familiar lines:
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life’s star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home.
But as Simmias and Cebes in the Phaedo point out, this doctrine only shows that the soul existed before the body; it does not prove that the soul is immortal. Socrates therefore goes on to prove this further point, largely by showing the simple and unchanging nature of the soul which is like that of the ideas, and he therefore concludes that since it cannot admit of change, it must be free from death. Again he argues that since the soul can rule and use the body as it will, it must be anterior to the body and hence have an eternal and never ending existence.[194] The final and apparently most convincing proof to Plato’s mind, in spite of its dialectic character, is that the notion of life cannot be separated from the soul, for the soul is that which gives life; therefore since a dead soul is an impossibility, we must agree that the soul is immortal.[195] To follow out in detail the other arguments would occupy too much time now, interesting as it might prove. Indeed if we were to rehearse all of Plato’s proofs of the immortality of the soul, we should run through practically the entire gamut of the arguments which have ever been offered. His frequent return to the subject indicates the importance which he gave to the belief.
Before we approach Plato’s ethical and religious views we must glance for a moment at his psychology, for on that depends in no small measure his moral system. In the fourth book of the Republic when discussing the different forms of government, Socrates is made to show that the soul has three parts or elements: the first is the divine or rational part (τὸ θεῖον, τὸ λογιστικόν) whose seat is in the head, the second, the courageous or passionate element (τὸ θυμοειδές) residing in the heart, and the third is the appetite (τὸ ἐπιθυμητικόν) which belongs to the diaphragm or liver.[196] In the Phaedrus[197] this same division is set forth in a myth. Now when in an individual all three parts are in accord under the leadership of reason, whose orders are enforced by courage on appetite, the man is virtuous; but if appetite and courage unite against reason, discord results and the man is vicious. As the state is well ordered when harmony exists among its parts, so harmony of the soul, led by the reason, produces the virtuous human being. In the earlier dialogues the soul is evidently regarded as a unit, so that the parts are really forms or manifestations of the soul; all three are immortal. But in the Timaeus only the reason is immortal, the other parts being separable and bound to the body with which they die.[198] Now we have already seen that the soul, or at least its rational part, being divine and immortal, has an affinity for the eternal ideas and is endowed by a natural love for the true, the beautiful, and the good. It is therefore impelled toward the divine world of ideas by a natural passion, and this effort on the part of man’s reason is philosophy. The true philosopher then is the lover of truth and reality, who is absorbed in the pleasures of the soul so that he will hardly be conscious of bodily pleasure; indeed he will not think much of human life or even fear death.[199] The soul, however, in its effort to mount into the realm of the ideas, is held back by the body in which it is imprisoned and fettered in the world of the senses. Thus we find in Plato the Orphic belief that man has a dual nature, made up of a divine soul and a mortal hindering body. We shall presently see how he gave to the emotional belief of that sect a philosophic basis and so transformed it into a reasonable article of morality and religion.
Now we may consider Plato’s moral and religious views. The highest good for man, according to his teaching, is likeness to God—that is, the largest possible participation in the ideas of the Good which are in the Absolute. In direct proportion to the success of the rational soul in appropriating to itself these ideas, the man will practise justice and holiness, that is, be righteous; but inasmuch as the world of ideas cannot be apprehended by the senses, the rational soul of the philosopher must always try to escape from the world of the senses where evils dwell. As Socrates in the Theaetetus[200] assures Theodorus: “Evils, Theodorus, can never pass away; for there must always remain something which is antagonistic to the good. Having no place among the gods in heaven, of necessity they hover around the mortal nature and this earthly sphere. Wherefore we ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, so far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise ... God is never in any way unrighteous—he is perfect righteousness; and he of us who is the most righteous is most like him.... To know this is true wisdom and virtue; and ignorance of this is manifest folly and vice.” The man, then, whose soul strives to become like God will inevitably be righteous. Plato’s philosophy thus results in practical morality.
Furthermore we are assured in the Republic that a seeker after righteousness will not be neglected by the gods, for Socrates there says:[201] “Then this must be our notion of the just man, that even when he is in poverty or sickness or any other seeming misfortune, all things will in the end work together for good to him in life and death: for the gods have a care of any one whose desire is to become just and be like God, so far as man can attain the divine likeness, by the pursuit of virtue.”
The path by which man is to attain to likeness of God, and so to freedom from his lower nature, is that of a noble asceticism which Socrates described to Simmias and Cebes the night before his own death:[202] “No one who has not studied philosophy and who is not entirely pure at the time of his departure is allowed to enter the company of the gods, but the lover of knowledge only. And this is the reason, Simmias and Cebes, why the true votaries of philosophy abstain from all fleshly lusts, and hold out against them and refuse to give themselves up to them, not because they fear poverty or the ruin of their families, like the lovers of money and the world in general; nor like the lovers of power and honour, because they dread the dishonour or the disgrace of evil deeds.”
“No, Socrates, that would not become them,” said Cebes.
“No indeed,” he replied, “and therefore they who have any care of their own souls, and do not merely live moulding and fashioning the body, say farewell to all this; they will not walk in the ways of the blind: and when philosophy offers them purification and release from evil, they feel that they ought not to resist her influence, and whither she leads they turn and follow.”
“What do you mean, Socrates?”