standard must be prior to that which is measured, the idea of equality
prior to the visible equals. And if prior to them, then prior also to the
perceptions of the senses which recall them, and therefore either given
before birth or at birth. But all men have not this knowledge, nor have
any without a process of reminiscence; which is a proof that it is not
innate or given at birth, unless indeed it was given and taken away at the
same instant. But if not given to men in birth, it must have been given
before birth--this is the only alternative which remains. And if we had
ideas in a former state, then our souls must have existed and must have had
intelligence in a former state. The pre-existence of the soul stands or
falls with the doctrine of ideas.

It is objected by Simmias and Cebes that these arguments only prove a
former and not a future existence. Socrates answers this objection by
recalling the previous argument, in which he had shown that the living come
from the dead. But the fear that the soul at departing may vanish into air
(especially if there is a wind blowing at the time) has not yet been
charmed away. He proceeds: When we fear that the soul will vanish away,
let us ask ourselves what is that which we suppose to be liable to
dissolution? Is it the simple or the compound, the unchanging or the
changing, the invisible idea or the visible object of sense? Clearly the
latter and not the former; and therefore not the soul, which in her own
pure thought is unchangeable, and only when using the senses descends into
the region of change. Again, the soul commands, the body serves: in this
respect too the soul is akin to the divine, and the body to the mortal.
And in every point of view the soul is the image of divinity and
immortality, and the body of the human and mortal. And whereas the body is
liable to speedy dissolution, the soul is almost if not quite indissoluble.
(Compare Tim.) Yet even the body may be preserved for ages by the
embalmer's art: how unlikely, then, that the soul will perish and be