Other persons, Menexenus, Ctesippus, Lysis, are old friends; Evenus has been already satirized in the “Apology”; Aeschines and Epigenes were present at the trial; Euclid and Terpsion will reappear in the Introduction to the “Theaetetus,” Hermogenes has already appeared in the “Cratylus.” No inference can fairly be drawn from the absence of Aristippus, nor from the omission of Xenophon, who at the time of Socrates’ death was in Asia. The mention of Plato’s own absence seems like an expression of sorrow, and may, perhaps, be an indication that the report of the conversation is not to be taken literally.
The place of the Dialogue in the series is doubtful. The doctrine of ideas is certainly carried beyond the Socratic point of view; in no other of the writings of Plato is the theory of them so completely developed. Whether the belief in immortality can be attributed to Socrates or not is uncertain; the silence of the Memorabilia, and of the earlier Dialogues of Plato, is an argument to the contrary. Yet in the Cyropaedia Xenophon (VIII 7, 19 following) has put language into the mouth of the dying Cyrus which recalls the “Phaedo,” and may have been derived from the teaching of Socrates. It may be fairly urged that the greatest religious interest of mankind could not have been wholly ignored by one who passed his life in fulfilling the commands of an oracle, and who recognized a Divine plan in man and nature. (Xenophon Memorabilia 1, 4) And the language of the “Apology” and of the “Crito” confirms this view.
The “Phaedo” is not one of the Socratic Dialogues of Plato; nor, on the other hand, can it be assigned to that later stage of the Platonic writings at which the doctrine of ideas appears to be forgotten. It belongs rather to the intermediate period of the Platonic philosophy, which roughly corresponds to the “Phaedrus,” “Gorgias,” Republic, “Theaetetus.” Without pretending to determine the real time of their composition, the “Symposium,” “Meno,” Euthyphro, “Apology,” “Phaedo” may be conveniently read by us in this order as illustrative of the life of Socrates. Another chain may be formed of the “Meno,” “Phaedrus,” “Phaedo,” in which the immortality of the soul is connected with the doctrine of ideas. In the “Meno” the theory of ideas is based on the ancient belief in transmigration, which reappears again in the “Phaedrus” as well as in the Republic and “Timaeus,” and in all of them is connected with a doctrine of retribution. In the “Phaedrus” the immortality of the soul is supposed to rest on the conception of the soul as a principle of motion, whereas in the Republic the argument turns on the natural continuance of the soul, which, if not destroyed by her own proper evil, can hardly be destroyed by any other. The soul of man in the “Timaeus” (42 following) is derived from the Supreme Creator, and either returns after death to her kindred star, or descends into the lower life of an animal. The “Apology” expresses the same view as the “Phaedo,” but with less confidence; there the probability of death being a long sleep is not excluded. The “Theaetetus” also describes, in a digression, the desire of the soul to fly away and be with God—“and to fly to him is to be like him” (176 B). The “Symposium” may be observed to resemble as well as to differ from the “Phaedo.” While the first notion of immortality is only in the way of natural procreation or of posthumous fame and glory, the higher revelation of beauty, like the good in the Republic, is the vision of the eternal idea. So deeply rooted in Plato’s mind is the belief in immortality; so various are the forms of expression which he employs.
As in several other Dialogues, there is more of system in the “Phaedo” than appears at first sight. The succession of arguments is based on previous philosophies; beginning with the mysteries and the Heracleitean alternation of opposites, and proceeding to the Pythagorean harmony and transmigration; making a step by the aid of Platonic reminiscence, and a further step by the help of the nous of Anaxagoras; until at last we rest in the conviction that the soul is inseparable from the ideas, and belongs to the world of the invisible and unknown. Then, as in the “Gorgias” or Republic, the curtain falls, and the veil of mythology descends upon the argument. After the confession of Socrates that he is an interested party, and the acknowledgment that no man of sense will think the details of his narrative true, but that something of the kind is true, we return from speculation to practice. He is himself more confident of immortality than he is of his own arguments; and the confidence which he expresses is less strong than that which his cheerfulness and composure in death inspire in us.
Difficulties of two kinds occur in the “Phaedo”—one kind to be explained out of contemporary philosophy, the other not admitting of an entire solution. (1) The difficulty which Socrates says that he experienced in explaining generation and corruption; the assumption of hypotheses which proceed from the less general to the more general, and are tested by their consequences; the puzzle about greater and less; the resort to the method of ideas, which to us appear only abstract terms—these are to be explained out of the position of Socrates and Plato in the history of philosophy. They were living in a twilight between the sensible and the intellectual world, and saw no way of connecting them. They could neither explain
