What then is to be the result? Shall we exclude the opposite process? and shall we suppose nature to walk on one leg only? Must we not rather assign to death some corresponding process of generation? Certainly, he replied. And what is that process? Return to life. And return to life, if there be such a thing, is the birth of the dead into the world of the living? 72 Quite true. Then here is a new way by which we arrive at the conclusion that the living come from the dead, just as the dead come from the living; and this, if true, affords a most certain proof that the souls of the dead exist in some place out of which they come again. Yes, Socrates, he said; the conclusion seems to flow necessarily out of our previous admissions. [Sidenote: If there were no compensation or return in nature, all things would pass into the state of death.] And that these admissions were not unfair, Cebes, he said, may be shown, I think, as follows: If generation were in a straight line only, and there were no compensation or circle in nature, no turn or return of elements into their opposites, then you know that all things would at last have the same form and pass into the same state, and there would be no more generation of them. What do you mean? he said. [Sidenote: _The doctrine of recollection._] [Sidenote: The sleeping Endymion would be unmeaning in a world of sleepers.] A simple thing enough, which I will illustrate by the case of sleep, he replied. You know that if there were no alternation of sleeping and waking, the tale of the sleeping Endymion would in the end have no meaning, because all other things would be asleep too, and he would not be distinguishable from the rest. Or if there were composition only, and no division of substances, then the chaos of Anaxagoras would come again. And in like manner, my dear Cebes, if all things which partook of life were to die, and after they were dead remained in the form of death, and did not come to life again, all would at last die, and nothing would be alive—what other result could there be? For if the living spring from any other things, and they too die, must not all things at last be swallowed up in death?[23] There is no escape, Socrates, said Cebes; and to me your argument seems to be absolutely true. Yes, he said, Cebes, it is and must be so, in my opinion; and we have not been deluded in making these admissions; but I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence, and that the good souls have a better portion than the evil. [Sidenote: The doctrine of recollection implies a previous existence.]