much more intimately connected. There would, therefore, have been less injustice inflicted had the posterity of Dionysius been punished by the Syracusans than was perpetrated by their ejection of his dead body from their territories. For the soul of Dionysius had left his body, but the sons of wicked fathers are often dominated by a good deal of their parents' spirit.[1]
We are conscious of some artificial straining of the argument in this place, and shortly perceive that the mention of the soul of Dionysius is intended to prepare the way for a discussion on the immortality of the soul. Plutarch cannot believe that the gods would show so much protective care for man—would give so many oracles, enjoin so many sacrifices and honours for the dead—if they knew that the souls of the dead perished straightway, leaving the body like a wreath of mist or smoke, as the Epicureans believed.[2] He shrinks from the thought that the Deity would take so much account of us, if our souls were as brief in their bloom as the
- ↑ 559 E.
- ↑ 560 C. Wyttenbach quotes Lucretius, iii. 437 and 456: "Ergo
dissolvi quoque convenit omnem animai Naturam ceu fumus in altas
aeris auras." He might have added, iii. 579, sqq.: "Denique, cum
corpus nequeat perferre animai Discidium, quin id tetro tabescat
odore, Quid dubitas quin ex imo penitusque coörta, Emanarit uti
fumus diffusa animæ vis?" Plutarch is probably thinking of Plato's
"intelligent gardener" (Phædrus, 276 B), although, as Wyttenbach
says, "Horti Adonidis proverbii vim habent." The English reader will
think of Shakespeare's beautiful lines—
"Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens,
That one day bloom'd, and fruitful were the next."
Henry VI., Pt. 1, act i. sc. 6.
