[99] Plato, Apol. Sokr. pp. 21-23, 31 D; 33 C: ἐμοὶ δὲ τοῦτο, ὡς ἐγώ φημι, προστέτακται ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ πράττειν καὶ ἐκ μαντειῶν καὶ ἐξ ἐνυπνίων καὶ παντὶ τρόπῳ, ᾧπέρ τίς ποτε καὶ ἄλλη θεία μοῖρα ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ ὁτιοῦν προσέταξε πράττειν. p. 37 E: ἐάν τε γὰρ λέγω ὅτι τῷ θεῷ ἀπειθεῖν τοῦτ’ ἐστὶ καὶ διὰ τοῦτ’ ἀδύνατον ἡσυχίαν ἄγειν, οὐ πείσεσθέ μοι ὡς εἰρωνευομένῳ.
[100] Plato, Apol. S. p. 29 B.
In the Xenophontic Apology of Sokrates, no allusion is made to the immortality of the soul. Sokrates is there described as having shaped his defence under a belief that he had arrived at a term when it was better for him to die than to live, and that prolonged life would only expose him to the unavoidable weaknesses and disabilities of senility. It is a proof of the benevolence of the Gods that he is withdrawn from life at so opportune a moment. This is the explanation which Xenophon gives of the haughty tone of the defence (sects. 6-15-23-27). In the Xenophontic Cyropædia, Cyrus, on his death-bed, addresses earnest exhortations to his two sons: and to give greater force to such exhortations, reminds them that his own soul will still survive and will still exercise a certain authority after his death. He expresses his own belief not only that the soul survives the body, but also that it becomes more rational when disembodied; because — 1. Murderers are disturbed by the souls of murdered men. 2. Honours are paid to deceased persons, which practice would not continue, unless the souls of the deceased had efficacy to enforce it. 3. The souls of living men are more rational during sleep than when awake, and sleep affords the nearest analogy to death (viii. 7, 17-21). (Much the same arguments were urged in the dialogues of Aristotle. Bernays, Dialog. Aristot. pp. 23-105.) He however adds, that even if he be mistaken in this point, and if his soul perish with his body, still he conjures his sons, in the name of the gods, to obey his dying injunctions (s. 22). Again, he says (s. 27), “Invite all the Persians to my tomb, to join with me in satisfaction that I shall now be in safety, so as to suffer no farther harm, whether I am united to the divine element, or perish altogether” (συνησθησομένους ἐμοί, ὅτι ἐν τῷ ἀσφαλεῖ ἤδη ἔσομαι, ὡς μηδὲν ἂν ἔτι κακὸν παθεῖν, μήτε ἢν μετὰ τοῦ θείου γένωμαι, μήτε ἢν μηδὲν ἔτι ᾦ). The view taken here by Cyrus, of death in its analogy with sleep (ὕπνῳ καὶ θανάτῳ διδυμάοσιν, Iliad, xvi. 672) as a refuge against impending evil for the future, is much the same as that taken by Sokrates in his Apology. Sokrates is not less proud of his past life, spent in dialectic debate, than Cyrus of his glorious exploits. Ὁ θάνατος, λιμὴν κακῶν τοῖς δυσδαιμονοῦσιν, Longinus, de Subl. c. 9, p. 23. Compare also the Oration of Julius Cæsar in Sallust, Bell. Catilin. c. 51 — “in luctu atque miseriis, mortem ærumnarum requiem, non cruciatum esse: illam cuncta mortalium mala dissolvere: ultra neque curæ neque gaudio locum esse“.
[101] Plato, Apol. S. pp. 40-41.
[102] Plato, Apol. S. pp. 20 C, 29-30. λέγων ὅτι οὐκ ἐκ χρημάτων ἀρετὴ γίγνεται, ἀλλ’ ἐξ ἀρετῆς χρήματα, καὶ τἆλλα ἀγαθὰ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἅπαντα, καὶ ἰδίᾳ καὶ δημοσίᾳ (30 B). Compare Xenophon, Memorab. i. 2, 8-9.
Abundant dogmatic and poetical invention of the Phædon compared with the profession of ignorance which we read in the Apology.
If from the Apology we turn to the Phædon, we seem to pass, not merely to the same speaker after the interval of one month (the ostensible interval indicated) but to a different speaker and over a long period. We have Plato speaking through the mouth of Sokrates, and Plato too at a much later time.[103] Though the moral character (ἦθος) of Sokrates is fully maintained and even strikingly dramatised — the intellectual personality is altogether transformed. Instead of a speaker who avows his own ignorance, and blames others only for believing themselves to know when they are equally ignorant — we have one who indulges in the widest range of theory and the boldest employment of hypothesis. Plato introduces his own dogmatical and mystical views, leaning in part on the Orphic and Pythagorean creeds.[104] He declares the distinctness of nature, the incompatibility, the forced temporary union and active conflict, between the soul and the body. He includes this in the still wider and more general declaration, which recognises antithesis between the two worlds: the world of Ideas, Forms, Essences, not perceivable but only cogitable, eternal, and unchangeable, with which the soul or mind was in kindred and communion — the world of sense, or of transient and ever-changing appearances or phenomena, never arriving at permanent existence, but always coming and going, with which the body was in commerce and harmony. The philosopher, who thirsts only after knowledge and desires to look at things[105] as they are in themselves, with his mind by itself — is represented as desiring, throughout all his life, to loosen as much as possible the implication of his soul with his body, and as rejoicing when the hour of death arrives to divorce them altogether.
[103] In reviewing the Apology (supra, vol. i. ch. ix. p. 410) I have already noticed this very material discrepancy, which is insisted upon by Ast as an argument for disallowing the genuineness of the Apology.
[104] Plato, Phædon, pp. 69 C, 70 C, 81 C, 62 B.
[105] Plato, Phædon, p. 66 E. ἀπαλλακτέον αὐτοῦ (τοῦ σώματος) καὶ αὐτῇ τῇ ψυχῇ θεατέον αὐτὰ τὰ πράγματα.