“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 separated and commingled, to grow cold and to grow warm, and every thing in the same manner, even though sometimes we have not names to designate them, yet in fact be everywhere thus circumstanced, of necessity, as to be produced from each other, and be subject to a reciprocal generation?”

“Certainly,” he replied.

“What, then?” said Socrates, “has life any contrary, as waking has its contrary, sleeping?”

“Certainly,” he answered.

“What?”

“Death,” he replied.

“Are not these, then, produced from each other, since they are contraries; and are not the modes by which they are produced two-fold intervening between these two?”

“How should it be otherwise?”

“I then,” continued Socrates, “will describe to you one pair of the contraries which I have just now mentioned, both what it is and its mode of production:  and do you describe to me the other.  I say that one is to sleep, the other to awake; and from sleeping awaking is produced, and from awaking sleeping, and that the modes of their production are, the one to fall asleep, the other to be roused. 44.  Have I sufficiently explained this to you or not?”

“Certainly.”

“Do you, then,” he said, “describe to me in the same manner with respect to life and death?  Do you not say that life is contrary to death?”

“I do.”

“And that they are produced from each other?”

“Yes.”

“What, then, is produced from life?”

“Death,” he replied.

“What, then,” said he “is produced from death?”

“I must needs confess,” he replied, “that life is.”

“From the dead, then, O Cebes! living things and living men are produced.”

“It appears so,” he said.

“Our souls, therefore,” said Socrates, “exist in Hades.”

“So it seems.”

“With respect, then, to their mode of production, is not one of them very clear? for to die surely is clear, is it not?”

“Certainly,” he replied.

“What, then, shall we do?” he continued; “shall we not find a corresponding contrary mode of production, or will nature be defective in this?  Or must we discover a contrary mode of production to dying?”