Theos-Talk Archives (May 2003 Message tt00192)

THE LONG WALLS

Socrates teaches a child about the Soul

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"Do you see the Long Walls?" he said. "They stretch far; but you
saw that they had a beginning, and you know that they have an
end. For all things that have a beginning have an end. Can you
think otherwise?"

"But is there anything like that?" I cried.

"You know the meaning of what men call 'time'," he said. "Can you
think that it had any beginning, or that it will ever have an
end?"

"No; it goes on always. But time-it isn't anything at all," I
persisted.

"Well," he said, "you, at least, are some thing; for you can
think and know. But can you remember when first you began to be?"

"No; I cannot remember."

"Perhaps, then, there is something within you that had no
beginning. And if that is so, it has had plenty of time to learn.
Some think," he said, "that what we call learning is really only
remembering. Already you have much to remember, little son of
Hagnon."

"Yes," I cried, harking back, "and if it had no beginning it
hasn't any end either; for you said so. My mother thought that;
but she did not explain as you do."

"And if there is something within us that was not born and can
never die, but is like time itself, can this be anything else
than that part of us which thinks and knows, which men call the
soul?"

"It must be that," I said; "for they put the rest in the ground
or burn it up. I never understood about the soul before."

"And now," said he, "which part do you think is best worth caring
for, - that part which we cast away like a useless garment when
it is torn by violence or grows old and worn, or that part which
lives always?"

"It is foolish to ask me that; of course it is the part that
doesn't die," I answered.

"I am glad," said he, "that you think this a foolish question.
Yet there are many who do not understand even this; for just as
some care only for clothes, some care only for their bodies. And
that, perhaps, is why people do not remember all at once, but
very slowly and not clearly, just as one would see things through
a thick veil, such as the women some times wear before men. It is
only when this veil, which is our flesh, is woven very light and
fine, or when it has grown old and is worn very thin, that we can
see anything through it plainly; and even then all that we see
looks misty and does not seem real."

"Yes, but the women can peep over," I explained.

"And we, too, doubtless, can peep over sometimes," he answered,
smiling. "It is better then, as you think, and I certainly think
so, to seek the things that are good for the soul, which is your
very self, than to seek what seems good to the body, which we
keep only for a little while."

"And that is why you wear no shoes!" I cried.

"What need have I of shoes?" he said.

Again I pondered. "What are the things that are good for the
soul?" I asked him.

"There is but one thing that is good for the soul," he said. "Men
call it virtue. But it is only doing what is right."



[The "long walls" connected Athens to its port the Piraeus. They
protected and defended the road that linked the two towns.]


[Extract from GORGO, by C. K. Gaines.]
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