"You say well," said Simmias, "and both I will tell you what are my doubts, and he, in turn, how far he does not assent to what has been said. For it appears to me, Socrates, probably as it does to you with respect to these matters, that to know them clearly in the present life is either impossible or very difficult: on the other hand, however, not to test what has been said of them in every possible way, so as not to desist until, on examining them in every point of view, one has exhausted every effort, is the part of a very weak man. For we ought, with respect to these things, either to learn from others how they stand or to discover them for one's self; or, if both these are impossible, then, taking the best of human reasonings and that which is the most difficult to be confuted, and embarking on this, as one who risks himself on a raft, so to sail through life, unless one could be carried more safely, and with less risk, on a surer conveyance, or some divine reason. 79. I, therefore, shall not now be ashamed to question you, since you bid me do so, nor shall I blame myself hereafter for not having now told you what I think; for to me, Socrates, when I consider the matter, both with myself and with Cebes, what has been said does not appear to have been sufficiently proved."
Then said Socrates, "Perhaps, my friend, you have the truth on your side; but tell me in what respect it was not sufficiently proved."
"In this," he answered, "because any one might use the same argument with respect to harmony, and a lyre, and its chords, that harmony is something invisible and incorporeal, very beautiful and divine, in a well-modulated lyre; but the lyre and its chords are bodies, and of corporeal form, compounded and earthly, and akin to that which is mortal. When any one, then, has either broken the lyre, or cut or burst the chords, he might maintain from the same reasoning as yours that it is necessary the harmony should still exist and not be destroyed; for there could be no possibility that the lyre should subsist any longer when the chords are burst; and that the chords, which are of a mortal nature, should subsist, but that the harmony, which is of the same nature and akin to that which is divine and immortal, should become extinct, and perish before that which is mortal; but he might say that the harmony must needs subsist somewhere, and that the wood and chords must decay before it can undergo any change. 80. For I think, Socrates, that you yourself have arrived at this conclusion, that we consider the soul to be pretty much of this kind--namely, that our body being compacted and held together by heat and cold, dryness and moisture, and other such qualities, our soul is the fusion and harmony of these, when they are well and duly combined with each other. If, then, the soul is a kind of harmony, it is evident that when our bodies are unduly relaxed or strained, through diseases and other maladies, the soul must, of necessity, immediately perish, although it is most divine, just as other harmonies which subsist in sounds or in the various works of artisans; but that the remains of the body of each person last for a long time, till they are either burned or decayed. Consider, then, what we shall say to this reasoning, if any one should maintain that the soul, being a fusion of the several qualities in the body, perishes first in that which is called death."