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MOUNTAIN ILLUSTRATION.

in its solitary grandeur, it is an object of interest to all; but its gigantic height and difficulty of access render the idea of scaling its summit a mattter of improbability.

And suppose a throng of eager adventurers, from various motives of interest and pleasure, to be animated with a desire to accomplish the task, and take within the range of their own vision the broad sweep that circleth round this silent monitor of Nature. The pathway is unknown. They have no certain knowledge to guide them. They have never trod these fastnesses, to tell what characterizes them; and of course their views, and consequently their paths, would diverge from the beginning. While one might see that which would invite him in a certain direction, another would consider the opposite path far more alluring. Others still would observe new indications, and there gain their own adherents, and thus would separate groups pursue their own way, yet all bent upon the same object all seeking the same point. A few, perhaps, sink exhausted by the way, but the majority reach the summit; some, it is true, by a more circuitous path than was needful; but, having no established precedent, their own convictions became the guiding-star of action, and some allowance is always necessary for the uncertain rays of mere human

conviction.

It

Something like this was the doctrine of immortality in the early ages. It stood in its own solemn grandeur and sublimity, far above all other truths relating to the history of man, and mankind would fain sound its depths and scale its heights. pierced the skies, and they longed to know what was visible from such a point; if, indeed, "sweet fields" were discovered to lie beyond, exceeding all that was ever presented to the range of ordinary vision. They yearned to possess the true knowledge. They sought it earnestly pursued it; by different ways, it is true, and with different degrees of success. The way was not clearly opened, for the "Star in the East" had not yet appeared; the boundary line between the seen and the

ARGUMENT OF SOCRATES.

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unseen had not been recrossed to tell what was upon the other side. It was a devious way, and they faltered in it; but it is interesting to follow them and catch their words as they proceeded, for it leadeth on and up to the true goal.

Socrates, an Athenian philosopher, the most celebrated of all antiquity, whose name has become almost as familiar as that of a household friend, was deeply interested in this subject. Four hundred years before Christ he gathered about him a band of devoted disciples, and imparted unto them his own superior wisdom-superior for the time in which he lived. His extraordinary mind and genius excited the envy and malice of some, while it elicited the warmest admiration of many. In the groves of Academus, the Lyceum, and on the banks of the Ilissus, he was followed by those who listened with delight as he discoursed of immortal things, and rehearsed the probability of ages "which none but God doth number," and of truth which flowed like a river "fast by the oracle of God." Mingling exhortation with his teaching, he besought them to the consideration of that which, if true, was of infinite moment of the deepest personal interest-worthy of the most profound study and the most faithful investigation. Could it be established, it might be theirs to be acquainted with mysteries of bliss, "high on the hills of immortality," in the future which awaited them. "Whether this be really so," said he, "the Divinity alone knows; but I cannot find it in me to disbelieve so probable and desirable a truth." It was a favorite theory of this philosopher that things are produced by contraries; and in conversation with Cebes, a pupil of his, the latter is made to ask this question:

"Do you now tell me likewise in regard to life and death. Do you not say that death is the contrary of life?"

"And that they are produced from each other?" "Yes."

"What, then, is that which is produced from life?"

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ARGUMENT OF SOCRATES.

"Death," said Cebes.

"And that which is produced from death?"

I must allow," said Cebes, "to be life."

"Then, Cebes, from the dead are living things and living men produced?"

"It seems so," he replied.

"Therefore," said he, "our souls exist in Orcus, after death." "I think so."

"Of their stages of generation, then, is not one, at least, obviously distinct? For dying is surely an intelligible ideais it not?"

"Certainly it is," said he.

"How, then," he continued, "shall we do? Shall we not oppose in turn to this the contrary process of generation, but shall Nature fail in this? Or must we allow some process of generation contrary to dying?"

"By all means."

"What is it, then?" "Reviving."

"Therefore," said he, "if reviving is granted, this should be the process of generation from the dead to the living, viz., reviving?"

"We allow then in this way that the living are produced from the dead, no less than the dead from the living; but, such being the case, it appeared to me to furnish adequate proof that the souls of the deceased exist somewhere, from whence they return again into life."

"Such, Socrates, appears to me to be the necessary result from what has been admitted."

"Observe, now, Cebes, that we have not, in my judgment, made these admissions without reason; for if those things which are produced were not continually to alternate with each other as if revolving in a circle, but the generation were direct from the one (contrary) merely to its opposite, nor should take a

ARGUMENT OF SOCRATES.

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circuit and come round again to the first, are you aware that all things at last should assume the same figure, submit to the same affection, and cease to be produced at all?"

"How say you this?"

"There is no difficulty in comprehending what I say; but if, for instance, falling asleep be granted, and that awaking, which is produced from sleeping, were not to alternate with it, be assured that all things coming to an end would render the fable of Endymion a mere jest, and he no longer would be considered of importance, because all things else would be influenced by an affection such as he was, by sleep; further, if all things were confounded together, and never divided asunder, the theory of Anaxagoras would soon be realizedall would be chaos.

"Thus, my dear Cebes, if all things which had partaken of life should die, and when dead should remain in the same state of death, and not revive again, would there not be an unavoidable necessity that everything should perish at last, and nothing revive?

"For if living things were produced from anything else than what had died, and those living things should die, what remedy would there be against all things being finally destroyed by death?"

"None whatever, Socrates, in my mind," answered Cebes; "but to me you seem to speak the clearest truth."

"Such," said he, "Cebes, the case unquestionably seems to me, and that we do not acknowledge these things under the influence of delusion; but there is in reality a reviving and producing of the living from the dead, a surviving of the souls of the deceased, and happiness for the good, but misery for the evil amongst them."

Upon another occasion, when Simmias, another disciple, was engaged with Cebes in the contemplation of the same subject, the question was proposed, whether two "species of existences might not be supposed," the one visible and the other invisi

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ARGUMENT OF SOCRATES.

ble; the latter always the same, but the former never at any time so.

ee

Come, now," said the philosopher, "is anything else the case than that one part of us consists of body, and the other of soul?"

"To which of the two, then, shall we say that the body bears the greater resemblance, and is the more closely allied?" "To the visible," said Cebes, "as must be plain to every one." "But what of the soul? Is it visible or invisible?"

"It is not visible to mankind, at least, Socrates," was the

answer.

"But we were speaking surely of what is visible, and what is not so, according to the nature of man. Or do you think it was with a view to any other?"

"It was according to the nature of man."

"What, then, do we assert of the soul? That it is visible, or invisible?"

"Invisible."

"Is it then immaterial?"

"Yes."

"Does the soul, therefore, bear a greater resemblance to the immaterial than the body, but the latter resemble more the visible?"

"It is imperatively so, Socrates," was the pupil's response. "Did we not likewise lay this down a short time since, that when the soul makes use of the body to investigate anything, either by the sight, hearing, or any other sense, for to consider any object through means of the senses is the same as through means of the body, it is then indeed forced by the body in the direction of those things which are forever subject to change, upon which it becomes distracted and confused, and reels as if inebriated, because it is involved in matters of this kind?"

"It is certainly so."