at do not concern me. If you please, then, we
will examine into it. Let us consider it in this point of view, whether
the souls of men who are dead exist in Hades, or not. This is an ancient
saying, which we now call to mind, that souls departing hence exist
there, and return hither again, and are produced from the dead. 41. And
if this is so, that the living are produced again from the dead, can
there be any other consequence than that our souls are there? for surely
they could not be produced again if they did not exist; and this would
be sufficient proof that these things are so, if it should in reality be
evident that the living are produced from no other source than the dead.
But if this is not the case, there will be need of other arguments."

"Certainly," said Cebes.

"You must not, then," he continued, "consider this only with respect to
men, if you wish to ascertain it with greater certainty, but also with
respect to all animals and plants, and, in a word, with respect to every
thing that is subject to generation. Let us see whether they are not all
so produced, no otherwise than contraries from contraries, wherever they
have any such quality; as, for instance, the honorable is contrary to
the base, and the just to the unjust, and so with ten thousand other
things. 42. Let us consider this, then, whether it is necessary that all
things which have a contrary should be produced from nothing else than
their contrary. As, for instance, when any thing becomes greater, is it
not necessary that, from being previously smaller, it afterward became
greater?"

"Yes."

"And if it becomes smaller, will it not, from being previously greater,
afterward become smaller?"

"It is so," he replied.

"And from stronger, weaker? and from slower, swifter?"

"Certainly."

"What, then? If any thing becomes worse, must it not become so from
better? and if more just, from more unjust?"

"How should it not?"

"We have then," he said, "sufficiently determined this, that all things
are thus produced, contraries from contraries?"

"Certainly."

"What next? Is there also something of this kind in them; for instance,
between all two contraries a mutual twofold production, from one to the
other, and from that other back again? for between a greater thing and a
smaller there are increase and decrease, and do we not accordingly call
the one to increase, the other to decrease?"

"Yes," he replied.

43. "And must not to be separa