James Adam, Commentary on Plato, Republic, ed. James Adam, 10.611A

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[611A] 611A - 612A It follows that the number of so<*>s is always constant, each of them retaining its individuality throughout. We have hitherto represented soul as a composite s<*>stance; but the composite cannot easily <*>e immortal; and if we would see the mul as it really is, we must view it apart from the body and those material accr<*>ons with which in human life it is clogg<*>d and encumbered. Then and only then shall we be able to see its true nature.

<*>εὶ ἂν εἶεν αἱ αὐταί: ‘it will always be the same souls that are in existence.’ α<*> αὐταί is the subject, not the predicate (as Teichmüller translates Plat. Fr. p. 7). Although οὔτε γὰρ— πλείους justifies ἀεὶ ἂν εἶεν αἱ αὐταί only in so far as concerns the total number of souls, αἱ αὐταί by itself means more than this, and implies the personal identity of each individual soul throughout all the vicissitudes of its endless existence. The conviction that the life of each particular soul is a continuous sequence of cause and effect stretching from eternity to eternity was firmly held by Plato, and he briefly reminds us of it here because the theory of future rewards and punishments, which he will presently describe, rests on that hypothesis and no other. For the history of this belief before the time of Plato see Rohde Psyche^{2} II pp. 134—136.

ὁτιοῦν ‐‐ ἀθάνατα . All things are either mortal or immortal: hence the immortal, if increased at all, must be so at the expense of the mortal, which will accordingly in course of time be exhausted. Cf. Phaed. 70 C —72 E, especially 72 B ff., where a similar train of reasoning is employed to prove ἐκ τῶν τεθνεώτων τοὺς ζῶντας γίγνεσθαι καὶ τὰς τῶν τεθνεώτων ψυχὰς εἶναι.

Commentary on Plato, Republic. James Adam. ed. James Adam. Cambridge. 1926-1929.

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Current edition Perseus

Commentary on Plato, Republic (English) (Plato. The Republic, Vol 1-2. Adam, James, editor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902-1903.)

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Πολιτεία Perseus (Platonis Opera Tomus IV: Tetralogia VIII. Burnet, John, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.) — 10.611 focus

[611]
οὐκοῦν ὁπότε μηδʼ ὑφʼ ἑνὸς ἀπόλλυται κακοῦ, μήτε 611a οἰκείου μήτε ἀλλοτρίου, δῆλον ὅτι ἀνάγκη αὐτὸ ἀεὶ ὂν εἶναι· εἰ δʼ ἀεὶ ὄν, ἀθάνατον.
ἀνάγκη, ἔφη.
τοῦτο μὲν τοίνυν, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, οὕτως ἐχέτω· εἰ δʼ ἔχει, ἐννοεῖς ὅτι ἀεὶ ἂν εἶεν αἱ αὐταί. οὔτε γὰρ ἄν που ἐλάττους γένοιντο μηδεμιᾶς ἀπολλυμένης, οὔτε αὖ πλείους· εἰ γὰρ ὁτιοῦν τῶν ἀθανάτων πλέον γίγνοιτο, οἶσθʼ ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ θνητοῦ ἂν γίγνοιτο καὶ πάντα ἂν εἴη τελευτῶντα ἀθάνατα.
ἀληθῆ λέγεις.
ἀλλʼ, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, μήτε τοῦτο οἰώμεθα—ὁ γὰρ λόγος οὐκ 611b ἐάσει—μήτε γε αὖ τῇ ἀληθεστάτῃ φύσει τοιοῦτον εἶναι ψυχήν, ὥστε πολλῆς ποικιλίας καὶ ἀνομοιότητός τε καὶ διαφορᾶς γέμειν αὐτὸ πρὸς αὑτό.
πῶς λέγεις; ἔφη.
οὐ ῥᾴδιον, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, ἀίδιον εἶναι σύνθετόν τε ἐκ πολλῶν καὶ μὴ τῇ καλλίστῃ κεχρημένον συνθέσει, ὡς νῦν ἡμῖν ἐφάνη ἡ ψυχή.
οὔκουν εἰκός γε.
ὅτι μὲν τοίνυν ἀθάνατον ψυχή, καὶ ὁ ἄρτι λόγος καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι ἀναγκάσειαν ἄν· οἷον δʼ ἐστὶν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ, οὐ λελωβημένον 611c δεῖ αὐτὸ θεάσασθαι ὑπό τε τῆς τοῦ σώματος κοινωνίας καὶ ἄλλων κακῶν, ὥσπερ νῦν ἡμεῖς θεώμεθα, ἀλλʼ οἷόν ἐστιν καθαρὸν γιγνόμενον, τοιοῦτον ἱκανῶς λογισμῷ διαθεατέον, καὶ πολύ γε κάλλιον αὐτὸ εὑρήσει καὶ ἐναργέστερον δικαιοσύνας τε καὶ ἀδικίας διόψεται καὶ πάντα ἃ νῦν διήλθομεν. νῦν δὲ εἴπομεν μὲν ἀληθῆ περὶ αὐτοῦ, οἷον ἐν τῷ παρόντι φαίνεται· τεθεάμεθα μέντοι διακείμενον αὐτό, ὥσπερ οἱ τὸν 611d θαλάττιον Γλαῦκον ὁρῶντες οὐκ ἂν ἔτι ῥᾳδίως αὐτοῦ ἴδοιεν τὴν ἀρχαίαν φύσιν, ὑπὸ τοῦ τά τε παλαιὰ τοῦ σώματος μέρη τὰ μὲν ἐκκεκλάσθαι, τὰ δὲ συντετρῖφθαι καὶ πάντως λελωβῆσθαι ὑπὸ τῶν κυμάτων, ἄλλα δὲ προσπεφυκέναι, ὄστρεά τε καὶ φυκία καὶ πέτρας, ὥστε παντὶ μᾶλλον θηρίῳ ἐοικέναι ἢ οἷος ἦν φύσει, οὕτω καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν ἡμεῖς θεώμεθα διακειμένην ὑπὸ μυρίων κακῶν. ἀλλὰ δεῖ, ὦ Γλαύκων, ἐκεῖσε βλέπειν.
ποῖ; ἦ δʼ ὅς. 611e
εἰς τὴν φιλοσοφίαν αὐτῆς, καὶ ἐννοεῖν ὧν ἅπτεται καὶ οἵων ἐφίεται ὁμιλιῶν, ὡς συγγενὴς οὖσα τῷ τε θείῳ καὶ ἀθανάτῳ καὶ τῷ ἀεὶ ὄντι, καὶ οἵα ἂν γένοιτο τῷ τοιούτῳ πᾶσα ἐπισπομένη καὶ ὑπὸ ταύτης τῆς ὁρμῆς ἐκκομισθεῖσα ἐκ τοῦ πόντου ἐν ᾧ νῦν ἐστίν, καὶ περικρουσθεῖσα πέτρας 612a τε καὶ ὄστρεα ἃ νῦν αὐτῇ, ἅτε γῆν ἑστιωμένῃ, γεηρὰ καὶ πετρώδη πολλὰ καὶ ἄγρια περιπέφυκεν ὑπὸ τῶν εὐδαιμόνων λεγομένων ἑστιάσεων.

Translations (1)

Republic Perseus (Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 5-6. Shorey, Paul, translator. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1935-37 (printing).) — 10.611 focus

[611] Then since it is not destroyed by any evil whatever, 611a either its own or alien, it is evident that it must necessarily exist always, and that if it always exists it is immortal. Necessarily, he said.
Let this, then, I said, be assumed to be so. But if it is so, you will observe that these souls must always be the same. For if none perishes they could not, I suppose, become fewer nor yet more numerous.¹ For if any class of immortal things increased you are aware that its increase would come from the mortal and all things would end by becoming immortal.² You say truly. But, said I, we must not suppose this, 611b for reason will not suffer it nor yet must we think that in its truest nature the soul is the kind of thing that teems with infinite diversity and unlikeness and contradiction in and with itself.³ How am I to understand that? he said. It is not easy, said I, for a thing to be immortal that is composed of many elements⁴ not put together in the best way, as now appeared to us⁵ to be the case with the soul. It is not likely. Well, then, that the soul is immortal our recent argument and our other⁶ proofs would constrain us to admit. But to know its true nature 611c we must view it not marred by communion with the body⁷ and other miseries as we now contemplate it, but consider adequately in the light of reason what it is when it is purified, and then you will find it to be a far more beautiful thing and will more clearly distinguish justice and injustice and all the matters that we have now discussed. But though we have stated the truth of its present appearance, its condition as we have now contemplated it 611d resembles that of the sea-god Glaucus⁸ whose first nature can hardly be made out by those who catch glimpses of him, because the original members of his body are broken off and mutilated and crushed and in every way marred by the waves, and other parts have attached themselves⁹ to him, accretions of shells¹⁰ and sea-weed and rocks, so that he is more like any wild creature than what he was by nature—even such, I say, is our vision of the soul marred by countless evils. But we must look elsewhere, Glaucon. Where? said he. To its love of wisdom. 611e And we must note the things of which it has apprehensions, and the associations for which it yearns, as being itself akin to the divine¹¹ and the immortal and to eternal being, and so consider what it might be if it followed the gleam unreservedly and were raised by this impulse out of the depths of this sea in which it is now sunk, and were cleansed and scraped free¹² of the rocks and barnacles which, 612a because it now feasts on earth, cling to it in wild profusion of earthy and stony accretion by reason of these feastings that are accounted happy.¹³

James Adam Commentary on Plato, Republic 10.611A

ed. James Adam

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