The works of Plato (Vol. 1 of 6) : $b A new and literal version chiefly from the text of Stallbaum
Plato · en
“And from stronger, weaker? and from slower, swifter?”
“Certainly.”
“What then? if any thing becomes worse, must it not become so from
better? and if more just, from more unjust?”
“How should it not?”
“We have then,” he said, “sufficiently determined this, that all things
are thus produced, contraries from contraries?”
“Certainly.”
“What next? is there also something of this kind in them, for instance,
between all two contraries a mutual twofold production, from one to the
other, and from that other back again? for between a greater thing and a
smaller there is increase and decrease, and do we not accordingly call
the one to increase, the other to decrease?”
“Yes,” he replied.
43. “And must not to be separated and commingled, to grow cold and to
grow warm, and every thing in the same manner, even though sometimes we
have not names to designate them, yet in fact be every where thus
circumstanced of necessity, as to be produced from each other, and be
subject to a reciprocal generation?”
“Certainly,” he replied.
“What then?” said Socrates, “has life any contrary, as waking has its
contrary, sleeping?”
“Certainly,” he answered.
“What?”
“Death,” he replied.
“Are not these, then, produced from each other, since they are
contraries, and are not the modes by which they are produced twofold,
intervening between these two?”
“How should it be otherwise?”
“I then,” continued Socrates, “will describe to you one pair of the
contraries which I have just now mentioned, both what it is and its mode
of production; and do you describe to me the other. I say that one is to
sleep, the other to awake; and from sleeping awaking is produced, and
from awaking sleeping, and that the modes of their production are the
one to fall asleep, the other to be roused. 44. Have I sufficiently
explained this to you or not?”
“Certainly.”
“Do you then,” he said, “describe to me, in the same manner, with
respect to life and death? Do you not say that life is contrary to
death?”
“I do.”
“Yes.”
“And that they are produced from each other?”
“What then, is produced from life?”
“Death,” he replied.
“What, then,” said he, “is produced from death?”
“I must needs confess,” he replied, “that life is.”
“From the dead, then, O Cebes, living things and living men, are
produced.”
“It appears so,” he said.
“Our souls, therefore,” said Socrates, “exist in Hades.”
“So it seems.”
“With respect, then, to their mode of production, is not one of them
very clear? for to die surely is clear? is it not?”
“Certainly,” he replied.
“What then shall we do?” he continued; “shall we not find a
corresponding contrary mode of production, or will nature be defective
in this? Or must we discover a contrary mode of production to dying?”
“By all means,” he said.
“What is this?”
“To revive.”
“Therefore,” he proceeded, “if there is such a thing as to revive, will
not this reviving be a mode of production from the dead to the living?”
“Certainly.”