expiration of ten thousand years; for it does not recover its wings for so long a period, except it is the soul of a sincere lover of wisdom, or of one who has made philosophy his favourite[125]. But these in the third period of a thousand years, if they have chosen this life thrice in succession, thereupon depart, with their wings restored in the three thousandth year. But the others, when they have ended their first life, are brought to trial; and being sentenced, some go to places of punishment beneath the earth and there suffer for their sins, but others, being borne upwards by their sentence to some region in heaven, pass their time in a manner worthy of the life they have lived in human form. But in the thousandth year, both kinds coming back again for the allotment and choice of their second life, choose that which they severally please. And here a human soul passes into the life of a beast, and from a beast he who was once a man passes again into a man. 62. For the soul which has never seen the truth, cannot come into this form: for it is necessary that a man should understand according to a generic form, as it is called, which proceeding from many perceptions is by reasoning combined into one. And this is a recollection of those things which our soul formerly saw when journeying with deity, despising the things which we now say are, and looking up to that which really is. Wherefore, with justice, the mind of the philosopher is alone furnished with wings; for, to the best of his power, his memory dwells on those things, by the contemplation of which even deity is divine. But a man who makes a right use of such memorials as these, by constantly perfecting himself in perfect mysteries, alone becomes truly perfect. And by keeping aloof from human pursuits, and dwelling on that which is divine, he is found fault with by the multitude as out of his senses, but it escapes the notice of the multitude that he is inspired. ----- Footnote 124: That is, “an inevitable law.” Footnote 125: παιδεραστήσαντος μετὰ φιλοσοφίας. So in the Gorgias (§ 82) Socrates calls “philosophy his favourite,” τὴν φιλοσοφίαν, τὰ ἐμὰ παιδικά. -----