3 Plato 4 · On Death. Handed down at the Academy, from his Phaedo
This book records the argument on the day Socrates died. In it Plato sets out to prove that the mind does not perish with the body. This scripture does not take that proof. What it takes is Simmias’ lyre and Cebes’ cloaks — what those two said is the axiom of dispersal. Plato did not strike out their objections, and this scripture does not strike out his proof.
4.1After those two blows, nobody in the room spoke.
4.2Socrates looked at us and said: I have seen your faces.
4.3He said: I must say something else first, or you will take in nothing that is left of today.
4.4There is a kind of man who is the most pitiable there is. He hates arguments.
4.5He was not born hating them. He used to trust.
4.6He trusted a man, and the man deceived him.
4.7He trusted a piece of reasoning, and the reasoning would not stand.
4.8Once, twice, a third time.
4.9And then he says: now I see it — nothing anyone says holds, it is all talk in the end.
4.10From then on he listens to nobody, and thinks himself shrewd for it.
4.11He believes he has grown up. He has broken.
4.12Notice this: he thinks so not because arguments do not hold, but because he cannot yet pick them.
4.13It is as when a man falls in with a few bad friends and says there are no good men anywhere.
4.14The world is not what is wrong. He cannot yet read a face.
4.15If what I say today is refuted, do not come to hate arguments over it.
4.16Say only: this one will not stand, so let us go and find one that will.
4.17This is the most important thing I shall say today. It matters more than anything that comes after it.