ent, nor on the other hand was I in a
cheerful mood, as is usual during philosophical pursuits, and although
our conversation was of this nature; but I found myself in a wondrous
state of mind and in an unwonted blending of joy and grief when I
reflected that this man was about to die." The dying Socrates
instructs his disciples about immortality. His personality, which had
learned by experience the worthlessness of life, furnishes a kind of
proof quite different from logic and arguments founded on reason. It
seems as if it were not a man speaking, for this man was passing away,
but as if it were the voice of eternal truth itself, which had taken
up its abode in a perishable personality. Where a mortal being is
dissolving into nothing, there seems to be a breath of the air in
which it is possible for eternal harmonies to resound.

We hear no logical proofs of immortality. The whole discourse is
designed to lead the friends where they may behold the eternal. Then
they will need no proofs. Would it be necessary to prove that a rose
is red, to one who has one before him? Why should it be necessary to
prove that spirit is eternal, to one whose eyes we have opened to
behold spirit? Experiences, inner events, Socrates points to them, and
first of all to the experience of wisdom itself.

What does he desire who aspires after wisdom? He wishes to free
himself from what the senses offer him in every-day perception. He
seeks for the spirit in the sense-world. Is not this a fact which may
be compared with dying? "For," according to Socrates, "those who
occupy themselves with philosophy in the right way are really striving
after nothing else than to die and to be dead, without this being
perceived by others. If this is true, it would be strange if, after
having aimed at this all through life, when death itself comes they
should be indignant at that which they have so long striven after and
taken pains about." To corroborate this, Socrates asks one of his
friends: "Does it seem to you befitting a philosopher to take trouble
about so-called fleshly pleasures, such as eating and drinking? or
about sexual pleasures? And do you think that such a man pays much
heed to other bodily needs? To have fine clothes, shoes, and other
bodily adornments,--do you think he considers or scorns this more than
utmost necessity demands? Does it not seem to you that it should be
such a man's whole preoccupation not to turn his thoughts to the body,
but