through the body, but only in the soul.[24] We see in this separation the essence of the soul not considered in a material category of Being, but as the universal; we see it still more in what follows, by which Plato proves immortality. A principal point in this argument is that already considered, that the soul has existed before this life, because learning is only a recollection,[25] and this implies that the soul is already implicitly what it becomes. We must not think that the bald conception of innate ideas is hereby indicated—such an expression implies the existence of ideas by nature, as though our thoughts were in part already implanted, and had in part a natural existence which did not first produce itself through the movement of the mind. But Plato mainly founds the idea of immortality on the fact that what is put together is liable to dissolution and decay, while the simple can in no manner be dissolved or destroyed; what is always like itself and the same, is, however, simple. The beautiful, the good, the like, being simple, are incapable of all change; that, on the contrary, in which these universals are, men, things, &c., are the changeable. They are perceptible by the senses, while the former is the supersensuous. Hence the soul which is in thought, and which applies itself to this, as to what is related to it, must therefore be held to have itself a simple nature.[26] Here, then, we again see that Plato does not take simplicity as the simplicity of a thing—not as if it were of anything like a chemical ingredient, for example, which can no longer be represented as inherently distinguished; this would only be empty, abstract identity or universality, the simple as an existent. But finally the universal really does appear to take the form of an existent, as Plato makes Simmias assert: a harmony which we hear is none else than a universal, a simple which is a unity of the diverse; but this harmony is associated with a sensuous thing and disappears with it, just as music does with the lyre. On the other hand Plato makes Socrates show that the soul is not a harmony in this sense, for the sensuous harmony first exists after its elements, and is a consequence that follows from them. The harmony of the soul is, however, in and for itself, before every sensuous thing. Sensuous harmony may further have diversities within it, while the harmony of the soul has no quantitative distinction.[27] From this it is clear that Plato receives the reality of the soul entirely in the universal, and does not place its true being in sensuous individuality, and hence the immortality of the soul cannot in his case be understood in the ordinary acceptation, as that of an individual thing. Although later on we come across the myth of the sojourn of the soul after death in another and more brilliant earth,[28] we have seen above (pp. 40, 41) what kind of heaven this would be.