“Certainly.”

“For this appeared to be possible, for one having perceived any thing, either by seeing or hearing, or employing any other sense, to form an idea of something different from this, which he had forgotten, and with which this was connected by being unlike or like.  So that, as I said, one of these two things must follow:  either we are all born with this knowledge, and we retain it through life, or those whom we say learn afterward do nothing else than remember, and this learning will be reminiscence.”

“Such, certainly, is the case, Socrates.”

56.  “Which, then, do you choose, Simmias:  that we are born with knowledge, or that we afterward remember what we had formerly known?”

“At present, Socrates, I am unable to choose.”

“But what?  Are you able to choose in this case, and what do you think about it?  Can a man who possesses knowledge give a reason for the things that he knows, or not?”

“He needs must be able to do so, Socrates,” he replied.

“And do all men appear to you to be able to give a reason for the things of which we have just now been speaking?”

“I wish they could,” said Simmias; “but I am much more afraid that at this time to-morrow there will no longer be any one able to do this properly.”

“Do not all men, then, Simmias,” he said, “seem to you to know these things?”

“By no means.”

“Do they remember, then, what they once learned?”

“Necessarily so.”

“When did our souls receive this knowledge?  Not surely, since we were born into the world.”

“Assuredly not.”

“Before, then?”

“Yes.”

“Our souls, therefore, Simmias, existed before they were in a human form, separate from bodies, and possessed intelligence.”

57.  “Unless, Socrates, we receive this knowledge at our birth, for this period yet remains.”

“Be it so, my friend.  But at what other time do we lose it? for we are not born with it, as we have just now admitted.  Do we lose it, then, at the very time in which we receive it?  Or can you mention any other time?”

“By no means, Socrates; I was not aware that I was saying nothing to the purpose.”

“Does the case then stand thus with us, Simmias?” he proceeded:  “If those things which we are continually talking about really exist, the beautiful, the good, and every such essence, and to this we refer all things that come under the senses, as finding it to have a prior existence, and to be our own, and if we compare these things to it, it necessarily follows, that as these exist, so likewise our soul exists even before we are born; but if these do not exist, this discussion will have been undertaken in vain, is it not so?  And is there not an equal necessity both that these things should exist, and our souls also, before we are born; and if not the former, neither the latter?”