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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: an objection, which like Simmias he expresses in a figure. He is willing
to admit that the soul is more lasting than the body. But the more lasting
nature of the soul does not prove her immortality; for after having worn
out many bodies in a single life, and many more in successive births and
deaths, she may at last perish, or, as Socrates afterwards restates the
objection, the very act of birth may be the beginning of her death, and her
last body may survive her, just as the coat of an old weaver is left behind
him after he is dead, although a man is more lasting than his coat. And he
who would prove the immortality of the soul, must prove not only that the
soul outlives one or many bodies, but that she outlives them all.
The audience, like the chorus in a play, for a moment interpret the
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