ged
down again into the visible world, because she is afraid of the
invisible and of the world below--prowling about tombs and sepulchres,
near which, as they tell us, are seen certain ghostly apparitions
of souls which have not departed pure, but are cloyed with sight and
therefore visible.

(Compare Milton, Comus:--

'But when lust,
By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
But most by lewd and lavish act of sin,
Lets in defilement to the inward parts,
The soul grows clotted by contagion,
Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite lose,
The divine property of her first being.
Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp
Oft seen in charnel vaults and sepulchres,
Lingering, and sitting by a new made grave,
As loath to leave the body that it lov'd,
And linked itself by carnal sensuality
To a degenerate and degraded state.')

That is very likely, Socrates.

Yes, that is very likely, Cebes; and these must be the souls, not of the
good, but of the evil, which are compelled to wander about such places
in payment of the penalty of their former evil way of life; and they
continue to wander until through the craving after the corporeal which
never leaves them, they are imprisoned finally in another body. And they
may be supposed to find their prisons in the same natures which they
have had in their former lives.

What natures do you mean, Socrates?

What I mean is that men who have followed after gluttony, and
wantonness, and drunkenness, and have had no thought of avoiding them,
would pass into asses and animals of that sort. What do you think?

I think such an opinion to be exceedingly probable.

And those who have chosen the portion of injustice, and tyranny, and
violence, will pass into wolves, or into hawks and kites;--whither else
can we suppose them to go?

Yes, said Cebes; with such natures, beyond question.

And there is no difficulty, he said, in assigning to all of them places
answering to their several natures and propensities?

There is not, he said.

Some are happier than others; and the happiest both in themselves and
in the place to which they go are those who have practised the civil and
social virtues which are called temperance and justice, and are acquired
by habit and attention without philosophy and mind. (Compare Republic.)

Why are they the happiest?

Because they may be expected to pass into some gentle and socia