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Section 105

"Tell me again from the beginning," he said. "And do not answer exactly what I ask, but imitate me. I see a different safe answer beyond the first one I mentioned, derived from what has just been said. If you were to ask me, 'What must come into a body for it to be hot?' I will not give you the safe, ignorant answer, 'Heat,' but a more sophisticated one from our current discussion: 'Fire.' And if you ask, 'What must come into a body to make it sick?' I will not say 'Disease,' but 'Fever.' If you ask what makes a number odd, I will not say 'Oddness,' but 'Oneness.' Do you understand sufficiently what I mean?" "Sufficiently," he said. "Answer me then," he said, "what must come into a body for it to be living?" "Soul," he said. "Is this always so?" "How could it not be?" he said. "Therefore, soul always brings life to whatever it occupies?" "It does indeed," he said. "Is there an opposite to life, or not?" "There is," he said. "What is it?" "Death." "Then soul will absolutely never admit the opposite of what it always brings with it, as we agreed from our previous arguments?" "Most emphatically," said Cebes. "What then? What did we just call the thing that does not admit the idea of the Even?" "Uneven," he said. "And the thing that does not admit the Just, or the Musical?" "Unmusical, and Unjust." "Well then. What do we call that which does not admit death?" "Immortal," he said. "Does the soul not admit death?" "No." "Therefore, the soul is immortal." "It is immortal." "Very well," he said. "Can we say this has been proven? What do you think?" "Very adequately, Socrates."