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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: regard him rather as the swan, who, having sung the praises of Apollo all
his life long, sings at his death more lustily than ever. Simmias
acknowledges that there is cowardice in not probing truth to the bottom.
'And if truth divine and inspired is not to be had, then let a man take the
best of human notions, and upon this frail bark let him sail through life.'
He proceeds to state his difficulty: It has been argued that the soul is
invisible and incorporeal, and therefore immortal, and prior to the body.
But is not the soul acknowledged to be a harmony, and has she not the same
relation to the body, as the harmony--which like her is invisible--has to
the lyre? And yet the harmony does not survive the lyre. Cebes has also
an objection, which like Simmias he expresses in a figure. He is willing
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