“To me it does so.”

“Which, then, does the soul resemble?”

“It is clear, Socrates, that the soul resembles the divine; but the body, the mortal.”

“Consider, then, Cebes,” said he, “whether, from all that has been said, these conclusions follow, that the soul is most like that which is divine, immortal, intelligent, uniform, indissoluble, and which always continues in the same state; but that the body, on the other hand, is most like that which is human, mortal, unintelligent, multiform, dissoluble, and which never continues in the same state.  Can we say any thing against this, my dear Cebes, to show that it is not so?”

“We can not.”

67.  “What, then?  Since these things are so, does it not appertain to the body to be quickly dissolved, but to the soul, on the contrary, to be altogether indissoluble or nearly so?”

“How not?”

“You perceive, however,” he said, “that when a man dies, the visible part of him, the body, which is exposed to sight, and which we call a corpse, to which it appertains to be dissolved, to fall asunder and be dispersed, does not immediately undergo any of these affections, but remains for a considerable time, and especially so if any one should die with his body in full vigor, and at a corresponding age;[31] for when the body has collapsed and been embalmed, as those that are embalmed in Egypt, it remains almost entire for an incredible length of time; and some parts of the body, even though it does decay, such as the bones and nerves, and every thing of that kind, are, nevertheless, as one may say, immortal.  Is it not so?”

“Yes.”

68.  “Can the soul, then, which is invisible, and which goes to another place like itself, excellent, pure and invisible, and therefore truly called the invisible world,[32] to the presence of a good and wise God (whither, if God will, my soul also must shortly go)—­can this soul of ours, I ask, being such and of such a nature, when separated from the body, be immediately dispersed and destroyed, as most men assert?  Far from it, my dear Cebes and Simmias.  But the case is much rather thus:  if it is separated in a pure state, taking nothing of the body with it, as not having willingly communicated with it in the present life, but having shunned it, and gathered itself within itself, as constantly studying this (but this is nothing else than to pursue philosophy aright, and in reality to study how to die easily), would not this be to study how to die?”

“Most assuredly.”

“Does not the soul, then, when in this state, depart to that which resembles itself, the invisible, the divine, immortal and wise?  And on its arrival there, is it not its lot to be happy, free from error, ignorance, fears, wild passions, and all the other evils to which human nature is subject; and, as is said of the initiated, does it not in truth pass the rest of its time with the gods?  Must we affirm that it is so, Cebes, or otherwise?”