[32] Plato, Phædon, pp. 82-84.
[33] Plato, Phædon, pp. 82 A. Οὐκοῦν εὐδαιμονέστατοι καὶ τούτων εἰσὶ καὶ εἰς βέλτιστον τόπον ἰόντες οἱ τὴν δημοτικὴν τε καὶ πολιτικὴν ἀρετὴν ἐπιτετηδευκότες, ἣν δὴ καλοῦσι σωφροσύνην τε καὶ δικαιοσύνην, ἐξ ἔθους τε καὶ μελέτης γεγονυῖαν ἄνευ φιλοσοφίας τε καὶ νοῦ; … Ὅτι τούτους εἰκός ἐστιν εἰς τοιοῦτον πάλιν ἀφικνεῖσθαι πολιτικόν τε καὶ ἥμερον γένος, ἤπου μελιττῶν ἢ σφηκῶν ἢ μυρμήκων, &c.
[34] Plato, Phædon, pp. 82 B, 83 B, 84 B. Compare p. 114 C: τούτων δὲ αὐτῶν οἱ φιλοσοφίᾳ ἱκανῶς καθηράμενοι ἄνευ τε σωμάτων ζῶσι τὸ παράπαν εἰς τὸν ἔπειτα χρόνον, &c. Also p. 115 D.
Special privilege claimed for philosophers in the Phædon apart from the virtuous men who are not philosophers.
Such is the creed which Sokrates announces to his friends in the Phædon, as supplying good reason for the readiness and satisfaction with which he welcomes death. It is upon the antithesis between soul (or mind) and body, that the main stress is laid. The partnership between the two is represented as the radical cause of mischief: and the only true relief to the soul consists in breaking up the partnership altogether, so as to attain a distinct, disembodied, existence. Conformably to this doctrine, the line is chiefly drawn between the philosopher, and the multitude who are not philosophers — not between good and bad agents, when the good agents are not philosophers. This last distinction is indeed noticed, but is kept subordinate. The unphilosophical man of social goodness is allowed to pass after death into the body of a bee, or an ant, instead of that of a kite or ass;[35] but he does not attain the privilege of dissolving connection altogether with body. Moreover the distinction is one not easily traceable: since Sokrates[36] expressly remarks that the large majority of mankind are middling persons, neither good nor bad in any marked degree. Philosophers stand in a category by themselves: apart from the virtuous citizens, as well as from the middling and the vicious. Their appetites and ambition are indeed deadened, so that they agree with the virtuous in abstaining from injustice: but this is not their characteristic feature. Philosophy is asserted to impart to them a special purification, like that of the Orphic mysteries to the initiated: detaching the soul from both the body and the world of sense, except in so far as is indispensable for purposes of life: replunging the soul, as much as possible, in the other world of intelligible essences, real forms or Ideas, which are its own natural kindred and antecedent companions. The process whereby this is accomplished is intellectual rather than ethical. It is the process of learning, or (in the sense of Sokrates) the revival in the mind of those essences or Ideas with which it had been familiar during its anterior and separate life: accompanied by the total abstinence from all other pleasures and temptations.[37] Only by such love of learning, which is identical with philosophy (φιλόσοφον, φιλομαθὲς), is the mind rescued from the ignorance and illusions unavoidable in the world of sense.
[35] Plato, Phædon, pp. 81-82.
[36] Plato, Phædon, p. 90 A.
[37] Plato, Phædon, pp. 82-115. — τὰς δὲ (ἡδονὰς) περὶ τὸ μανθάνειν ἐσπούδασε, &c. (p. 114 E).
These doctrines, laid down by Plato in the Phædon, bear great analogy to the Sanskrit philosophy called Sankhyâ, founded by Kapila, as expounded and criticised in the treatise of M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire (Mémoire sur le Sankhyâ, Paris, 1852, pp. 273-278) — and the other work, Du Bouddhisme, by the same author (Paris, 1855), pp. 116-137, 187-194, &c.
Simmias and Kebês do not admit readily the immortality of the soul, but are unwilling to trouble Sokrates by asking for proof. Unabated interest of Sokrates in rational debate.