e dissipated into air while on her way to the good and wise God!
She has been gathered into herself, holding aloof from the body, and
practising death all her life long, and she is now finally released from
the errors and follies and passions of men, and for ever dwells in the
company of the gods.

But the soul which is polluted and engrossed by the corporeal, and has
no eye except that of the senses, and is weighed down by the bodily
appetites, cannot attain to this abstraction. In her fear of the world
below she lingers about the sepulchre, loath to leave the body which
she loved, a ghostly apparition, saturated with sense, and therefore
visible. At length entering into some animal of a nature congenial to
her former life of sensuality or violence, she takes the form of an ass,
a wolf or a kite. And of these earthly souls the happiest are those who
have practised virtue without philosophy; they are allowed to pass into
gentle and social natures, such as bees and ants. (Compare Republic,
Meno.) But only the philosopher who departs pure is permitted to enter
the company of the gods. (Compare Phaedrus.) This is the reason why he
abstains from fleshly lusts, and not because he fears loss or disgrace,
which is the motive of other men. He too has been a captive, and the
willing agent of his own captivity. But philosophy has spoken to him,
and he has heard her voice; she has gently entreated him, and brought
him out of the 'miry clay,' and purged away the mists of passion and
the illusions of sense which envelope him; his soul has escaped from the
influence of pleasures and pains, which are like nails fastening her to
the body. To that prison-house she will not return; and therefore she
abstains from bodily pleasures--not from a desire of having more or
greater ones, but because she knows that only when calm and free from
the dominion of the body can she behold the light of truth.

Simmias and Cebes remain in doubt; but they are unwilling to raise
objections at such a time. Socrates wonders at their reluctance. Let
them regard him rather as the swan, who, having sung the praises of
Apollo all his life long, sings at his death more lustily than ever.
Simmias acknowledges that there is cowardice in not probing truth to the
bottom. 'And if truth divine and inspired is not to be had, then let
a man take the best of human notions, and upon this frail bark let him
sail through life.' He proceeds to state his difficulty: It has bee