Phaedo.
Socrates, Cebes.
a fear that when the soul leaves the body, the wind may really blow her away and scatter her; especially if a man should happen to die in a great storm and not when the sky is calm.
Cebes answered with a smile: Then, Socrates, you must argue us out of our fears—and yet, strictly speaking, they are not our fears, but there is a child within us to whom death is a sort of hobgoblin : him too we must persuade not to be afraid when he is alone in the dark.
The fear that the soul will vanish into air must be charmed away. Socrates said: Let the voice of the charmer be applied daily until you have charmed away the fear.
And where shall we find a good charmer of our fears, 78 Socrates, when you are gone?
Hellas, he replied, is a large place, Cebes, and has many good men, and there are barbarous races not a few: seek for him among them all, far and wide, sparing neither pains nor money ; for there is no better way of spending your money. And you must seek among yourselves too; for you will not find others better able to make the search.
The search, replied Cebes, shall certainly be made. And now, if you please, let us return to the point of the argument at which we digressed.
By all means, replied Socrates; what else should I please?
Very good.
What is the element which is liable to be scattered?—Not the simple and unchangeable, but the composite and changing. Must we not, said Socrates, ask ourselves what that is which, as we imagine, is liable to be scattered, and about which we fear? and what again is that about which we have no fear? And then we may proceed further to enquire whether that which suffers dispersion is or is not of the nature of soul—our hopes and fears as to our own souls will turn upon the answers to these questions.
Very true, he said.
Now the compound or composite may be supposed to be naturally capable, as of being compounded, so also of being dissolved; but that which is uncompounded, and that only, must be, if anything is, indissoluble.
Yes; I should imagine so, said Cebes.
And the uncompounded may be assumed to be the same