Plato attributes to Socrates a very definite view as to future retribution: “In truth,” said Socrates, “if I did not expect to find in another life gods at once good and wise, and men better than those of this life, it would be foolish of me not to be disturbed by the approach of death. But I know that I look to finding myself among just men. I do not fear to die, because I am confident that something still remains after this life, and that, according to the old belief, the good will be treated better than the bad.” As such views were not derived from a body of revealed truth, it was necessary to support them by reasoning. Plato therefore went on to try to convince us of the immortality of the soul by speculative hypotheses. He recalled the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis, and suggested that the souls who had abandoned themselves to injustice, tyranny, and plunder would pass into the bodies of wolves and hawks and falcons, for souls of that nature could not go elsewhere; while the souls of those who had practised the social and civic virtues known as temperance or justice, would inhabit the bodies of peaceful and gentle creatures such as bees and ants, or would even enter other human bodies and again become good men. Plato referred also to the law of contrasts in support of his theory. “As the most strong often springs from the feeblest, or the most swift from the slow, so life gives rise to death, and from death life springs.” “From that which is dead,” said Socrates, “is born all that lives and has life. And so our souls after death pass to the infernal regions.” “As we must grant that the dead are born from the living as much as the living from the dead, it is plain that the souls of dead men exist somewhere, whence they may return to life.” By such arguments Plato tried to prove the immortality of the soul, the fundamental basis of his philosophy, and put them in the mouth of his master Socrates on his deathbed. In the dialogue he tried to refute all kinds of objections. But, in spite of the assurance with which he formulated his doctrine, there may be seen underlying the argument a note of doubt, and it is just this that distinguishes philosophy from religion.