hold no intercourse or communion at all with the body, except what
absolute necessity requires, nor suffer ourselves to be polluted by its
nature, but purify ourselves from it, until God himself shall release
us. And thus being pure, and freed from the folly of body, we shall in
all likelihood be with others like ourselves, and shall of ourselves
know the whole real essence, and that probably is truth; for it is not
allowable for the impure to attain to the pure. Such things, I think,
Simmias, all true lovers of wisdom must both think and say to one
another. Does it not seem so to you?"

"Most assuredly, Socrates."

32. "If this, then," said Socrates, "is true, my friend, there is great
hope for one who arrives where I am going, there, if anywhere, to
acquire that in perfection for the sake of which we have taken so much
pains during our past life; so that the journey now appointed me is set
out upon with good hope, and will be so by any other man who thinks that
his mind has been, as it were, purified."

"Certainly," said Simmias.

"But does not purification consist in this, as was said in a former part
of our discourse, in separating as much as possible the soul from the
body, and in accustoming it to gather and collect itself by itself on
all sides apart from the body, and to dwell, so far as it can, both now
and hereafter, alone by itself, delivered, as it were, from the shackles
of the body?"

"Certainly," he replied.