opposites exclude one another, but also the opposites in us. I, for
example, having the attribute of smallness remain small, and cannot become
great: the smallness which is in me drives out greatness.

One of the company here remarked that this was inconsistent with the old
assertion that opposites generated opposites. But that, replies Socrates,
was affirmed, not of opposite ideas either in us or in nature, but of
opposition in the concrete--not of life and death, but of individuals
living and dying. When this objection has been removed, Socrates proceeds:
This doctrine of the mutual exclusion of opposites is not only true of the
opposites themselves, but of things which are inseparable from them. For
example, cold and heat are opposed; and fire, which is inseparable from
heat, cannot co-exist with cold, or snow, which is inseparable from cold,
with heat. Again, the number three excludes the number four, because three
is an odd number and four is an even number, and the odd is opposed to the
even. Thus we are able to proceed a step beyond 'the safe and simple
answer.' We may say, not only that the odd excludes the even, but that the
number three, which participates in oddness, excludes the even. And in
like manner, not only does life exclude death, but the soul, of which life
is the inseparable attribute, also excludes death. And that of which life
is the inseparable attribute is by the force of the terms imperishable. If
the odd principle were imperishable, then the number three would not perish
but remove, on the approach of the even principle. But the immortal is
imperishable; and therefore the soul on the approach of death does not
perish but removes.

Thus all objections appear to be finally silenced. And now the application
has to be made: If the soul is immortal, 'what manner of persons ought we
to be?' having regard not only to time but to eternity. For death is not
the end of all, and the wicked is not released from his evil by death; but