hich from seeing Simmias may remember
Cebes, or from seeing a picture of Simmias may remember Simmias. The
lyre may recall the player of the lyre, and equal pieces of wood or
stone may be associated with the higher notion of absolute equality. But
here observe that material equalities fall short of the conception of
absolute equality with which they are compared, and which is the measure
of them. And the measure or standard must be prior to that which is
measured, the idea of equality prior to the visible equals. And if prior
to them, then prior also to the perceptions of the senses which recall
them, and therefore either given before birth or at birth. But all men
have not this knowledge, nor have any without a process of reminiscence;
which is a proof that it is not innate or given at birth, unless indeed
it was given and taken away at the same instant. But if not given to
men in birth, it must have been given before birth--this is the only
alternative which remains. And if we had ideas in a former state, then
our souls must have existed and must have had intelligence in a former
state. The pre-existence of the soul stands or falls with the doctrine
of ideas.

It is objected by Simmias and Cebes that these arguments only prove a
former and not a future existence. Socrates answers this objection by
recalling the previous argument, in which he had shown that the living
come from the dead. But the fear that the soul at departing may vanish
into air (especially if there is a wind blowing at the time) has not yet
been charmed away. He proceeds: When we fear that the soul will vanish
away, let us ask ourselves what is that which we suppose to be liable
to dissolution? Is it the simple or the compound, the unchanging or the
changing, the invisible idea or the visible object of sense? Clearly the
latter and not the former; and therefore not the soul, which in her own
pure thought is unchangeable, and only when using the senses descends
into the region of change. Again, the soul commands, the body serves:
in this respect too the soul is akin to the divine, and the body to the
mortal. And in every point of view the soul is the image of divinity and
immortality, and the body of the human and mortal. And whereas the
body is liable to speedy dissolution, the soul is almost if not quite
indissoluble. (Compare Tim.) Yet even the body may be preserved for ages
by the embalmer's art: how unlikely, then, that the soul will perish and
b