unruly passions, and all other evils of humanity. But the impure soul fears to go down to Hades, and haunts the earth for a time like a restless ghost.[1]
Then, by a further train of reasoning, Socrates concludes that the soul is beyond all doubt immortal and imperishable. This being so, a graver question follows—"What manner of persons ought we ourselves to be?" "If death had been the end of all things, then the wicked would gain by dying; for they would have been happily rid not of their bodies only, but of their own wickedness, together with their souls. But now, as the soul plainly appears to be immortal, no release or salvation from evil can be found except in the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom. For the soul, on her journey to the world below, carries nothing with her but her nurture and education." After death comes the judgment; the guardian angel of each soul conducts her through the road with many windings that leads to the place where all are tried. After this the impure soul wanders without a guide in helpless misery, until a certain period is accomplished, and then she is borne away to her own place. But the pure soul, "arrayed in her proper jewels—temperance, and justice, and courage, and nobility, and truth"—dwells for ever in the glorious mansions reserved for the elect.
- ↑
"Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp,
Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchres,
Lingering, and sitting by a new-made grave,
As loth to leave the body that it loved."
—Milton, "Comus," 470.
