the fall of the soul in platos phaedrus.pdf

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The Fall of the Soul in Plato's Phaedrus

Author(s): D. D. McGibbonSource: The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 14, No. 1 (May, 1964), pp. 56-63Published by: Cambridge University Presson behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/637629.

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THE FALL OF THE SOUL IN PLATO'SPHAEDRUS

IN the myth of the Phaedrus lato sets forth a picture of the life of discarnatesoulsin heaven. He represents hesesoulsby the symbolof a winged charioteerdriving winged horses.In the caseof the souls of the gods (theoi), he charioteersand horses are good (246 a OEv tpv o v'77uTOLE Kal rVaOOL '7 vES a'ToT-E yaOol Kal E' cdyalOv). In the case of the other souls whom Plato callsdaimones,nd among whom our own souls are included, the soul is representedby a charioteer with two horses of which the right one is good but the left oneevil (246 b r S %i-3v 2AAwv /1IELKTaL.at7pcii-OV VI-v ~juiv d pXWVUavvwpISos7)LOXEL,drarWvL7T7TWVIlEVavw- KaAO6sEKatdya0o KaLEKToLvOWV 8' E'Evavl'wv TE Kal Evav7Tlo).It is generally agreed that the right and left horsesrepresent thumos nd passion respectively, while the charioteer symbolizesreason. Plato goes on to describe a processionwhich the gods and daimonesmake up to the outer edge of heaven in orderto contemplatethe Forms whichlie beyond. The gods, we are told, make the ascent easily and when theyreach the edge of heaven have no difficultyin stayingthere and beholding theForms. The daimones,owever, experience difficulty due to the recalcitranceof the evil horse, which all their charioteerspossess (247 b -d dAhhaitody&flptLOELap T7s KaK77St'17T.OSETEXWVMTL7V Y7V PE7TWVE KalfapVvwv&0KaAwV TEvpaOaLppEL7-6v VLdw'xwv).lato divides the daimones nto three maingroups: those who succeed in beholding the Forms though with difficulty;thosewhose visionis only partial; those,finally,who fail to see the Formsat all.'Since contemplation of the Forms provides the nourishment by which thewings of the soul are nurtured,those daimones ho fail to see the Forms at alllose their wings and fall to earth. They have to go through a series of earthlyexistencesfor Io,ooo years,beforethey regaintheirwingsand return to heaven.It has been traditionallyassumed that in this picture Plato is describinganoriginal fall of souls, the theory being taken from the Orphic-Pythagoreantradition and adapted by Plato to his own ends. In order to account for thisfall, he has conceived of the discarnatesoul, in the case of those who are notgods, as containing in the element of passion an intrinsically evil elementwhich may, unless it is perfectlytrained, hinder the soul from attaining a fullvision of Truth, and render it unfit to continue in its divine existence.2 Theview that passion is intrinsically evil is not as such found elsewhere.3The

I They fail because of the KaKta248 b) oftheir charioteers, that is to say because oftheir lack of skill in controlling the evil horse.The use of avY-vXla 248 c) I take to indicatethat Plato does not wish to go into the cir-cumstances which led to the imperfect condi-tion of the soul and its consequent failure inthe vision. For the possible use of avvrvxlawithout any reference to chance see R. S.Bluck, A.J.P. lxxix (1958), I58. It appearsfrom 249 b that all human souls have seensomething of Truth, hence Plato does notstrictly mean that the third category ofdaimones o which our souls belonged in the

precarnate life failed completely in thevision. See, e.g., R. Hackforth, Plato'sPhaedrus(Cambridge, 1952), p. 83-2 The change to the psychology of thePhaedrus s made, it is believed, not neces-sarily because Plato did not previously be-lieve in an original fall, but because in thePhaedrushe takes it upon himself for thefirst time to explain this fall systematically.3 See p. 6o, n. 4, for Hackforth's tentativesuggestion that in the PhaedrusPlato's viewmay be that the lowest part contains an in-trinsic defect rather than that it is to be con-demned as a whole.


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THE FALL OF THE SOUL IN PLATO'S PHAEDRUS 57idea, however, need not be regarded as inherently implausible. The validityaccordedto the lowestpart of the soul in the Republic here it is called a 'many-headed beast' (588 c) and again in the Timaeuswhere it is described as a'savage creature' (70 e) is clearly precarious.Further, it may fairly be saidthat in the Phaedohe type of activity with which the lowest part of the soulis concerned, but which in the Phaedos attributed to the body, is rejected asa constituent of the philosophiclife.'The traditional belief, however, that Plato is describingan original fall ofsouls has been challenged recentlyzby R. S. Bluck,who arguesthat it is morelikely that the soulswho fall have been on earth before.With regardto Plato'sstatementat 247 b, cited above, he makestwo points (I) 'If, as RepublicX tellsus, a soul in its truest nature is not at variance with itself, why should anyhorse be sufferingfrom bad training if it has never been on earth before, andspoilt its nature here ? Does it not seem that the fall which resultsfromthisdiscord is not, in fact, an original fall'-that the soul in question has led animpure life on earth, some of the effects of which still remain with it?' TheRepublic assage,to which Bluck is referring, s at 61I a-b 7jT~E.. ol, EZOa..-'r aO6qErTarTELOLOjVTooVLOVLVX7'v,o rTOAAh9TOLKLALaSaLaKvoLOoc7ros'TE Kat &a gopa5E/IlE v - 7TrpOsTro. (2) Bluckcomparesheheaviness,whichbelongs to the horseof evil nature,3with the heavinesswhich is said to oppresssouls at Phaedo 1 a-d who leave the body in an impurecondition,and suggeststhat in the Phaedrus,s in thePhaedo,he causeof the heaviness s contaminationby the body. Having made these two points,Bluckgoes on to argue that if thepurificationof the soul in the cycle depends upon individual effort, and if allsoulsleave the cycle at the end of Io,ooo years,4as we are told at Phaedrus48 e,then it may be assumedthat some souls leave the cycle in an unpurifiedstate.The souls who fall in the Phaedrusmyth, he believes, are soulsin the last cate-gory. With regard to the question of how souls fell originally, Bluck suggeststhat Plato may not have envisagedan original fall, but regardedman's soul asmade by God for incarnation though, as a reward for philosophic virtue, itmay earn 'promotion'to a higher existence. He compares Timaeus 1 b, 69 c,where the Demiurgos is said to create men's souls, show them the Forms,andthen implant them himself in bodies in order that the universeshould havemortal as well as immortal life and so be complete.s

The order of these dialogues I take to bePhaedoRepublicPhaedrusTimaeus.It has oftenbeen pointed out that Plato's psychologycannot be made to yield a systematic patternof development.2 A.J.P. lxxix (1958), I56 f., 405 f. Seealso Plato's Meno (Cambridge, I961), p. 52.3 Bluck takes gplWOEL247 b 3) as denoting'heaviness', which is probably correct.4 The departure from the cycle everyIo,ooo years, Bluck suggests (art. cit.,p. i6o), is simply to give souls the oppor-tunity to refresh their memories with regardto the Forms.s An immediate difficulty in the applica-tion of this idea to the Phaedrus,which Bluckdoes not discuss, arises from the apparentexistence of souls implied at Phaedrus249 bwho have never seen the Forms (literally

never, as opposed to those souls at 248 cwho in fact have had some vision; seep. 56, n. I above), and have never been inhuman form. Plato, describing the choosingby souls of lives for the second periodos, aysMvaa Kat els r77ptov tov a'vpwclTnv7 kuvx''d0KVEE7aLt, Kal EK 07p'0uV53OTE vporos-qv 7rdaALVEl cOopwrcov.Uyap21ye tj/roITE,1ouc0a T7V aA?'eOELaV ElS rdoE 77geoL -ro anta.Although Plato does not discuss these soulsin the Phaedrus, it seems preferable, inview of the form of the sentence, to believethat he had in mind some souls actuallyexisting, than to take o' yip KTA.as apurely hypothetical statement referring toa case of which there could be no examples.On this question see H. S. Long, A Studyof the Doctrine of Metempsychosis n Greece(Princeton, 1948,) P. 79; L. Robin, Phidre


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58 D. D. McGIBBONIt is necessaryto draw attention to one point, which does not clearly emergefrom Bluck's account. On his interpretationnot only those souls who actuallyfall, but all the daimonesmust be regarded as souls who have left earth in an

unpurified state. This supposition is necessary because (i) all the daimoneshave an evil horse which is 'heavy';' and (2) more simply, all the daimoneshave an evil horse. The idea that souls contain an evil element, even wherethe desires of this element may be suppressed,is at variance with Socrates'words at Republic 11 a-b no less than the idea that they contain an elementwhich may assert itself. In the formercase, as in the latter, the soul consistsofdiverse and unlike elements, while a forcible suppressionof the desiresof oneelement cannot be said to constitute a state of agreement or harmony in thesense in which Plato used this concept of the soul. If the horse is evil its wishesin both casesareequallyat variance with those of the charioteer.Consequently,although one could interpret 247 b in such a way that some of the daimonesmight be regarded as having their evil horse well trained,2on Bluck's argu-ment we may make no such distinction.But if we adopt the view that all thedaimonesre unpurifiedsouls fromearth, we must accept, as a corollary, thatsuch souls as have been on earth and have attained philosophic virtue-andthere must be some-are classifiedby Plato in the myth as theoi.3In this paper I do not wish to discuss whether or not souls may leave thecycle in an unpurifiedstate, but only the question of whether the falls in thePhaedrusmyth are original. The latter point may be taken quite independentlyof the former,since we may clearly believe both that the falls are originalandthat soulsmay leave the cycle in an unpurifiedstate. To Bluck's view that thefalls in the myth are not original a series of objectionsmay be made which,taken together, possess,I believe, decisive force.i. It is clear that in arrivingat an interpretationof the myth, we must relateit to context and understand the theory for the sake of which the myth isintroduced-a question which Bluck does not consider at all. In the passageimmediately previous to the Phaedrusmyth, Plato establishesby means of anelaborate proof the positionof all soul as an independent principle, that is tosay as an entity which is sufficientto its own existence.Since, then, soul is anindependent principle, he is faced with the inescapable question-how doessome soul come to be incorporated? It is as an explanation of this questionthat the myth with its account of the fall is introduced,becausehere, in contrastto the Timaeus,Plato does not attribute incorporation to a creator of theuniverse. This view, which has always been that generally held of this sectionof the Phaedrus,eems both satisfactoryand necessary, yet it is set aside byBluck without refutation.(Paris, 1954), p. xcii; Hackforth, op. cit.,p. 91.

flptlO at 247 b 3 explains Ta S lAAaa,/dyL? and refers to a characteristic possessedby the left horse of all the daimones.2 I believe this interpretation to be prob-able. A distinction may be made at 247 b 3-4between PplpEtand AP1rwv,he former re-ferring to a natural tendency to move down-wards (which may be checked by training),and the latter referring to actual motiondownwards.

3 In reply to a query of mine Dr. Bluckvery kindly wrote to say that although hehad not considered the question as such,he believed that this was his assumption. Hereferred me to his view (cf. art. cit., p. I6o)that upon purification souls will be able tosee the Forms when they wish-which isclearly not the case with any of the daimones.I have dwelt upon the point because it seemsthat, on his argument, this must be ourassumption. The two points which I makeare my own.


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THE FALL OF THE SOUL IN PLATO'S PHAEDRUS 592. That Plato believed in an original fall of souls in the Phaedruss stronglysupported by his use in it of the body/prisonidea,' which implies that incarna-tion is a punishment for some original lapse. Bluck does not mention the

occurrence of this idea in the Phaedrus,hough he does referto its appearancein the Phaedo.With regard to Plato's description of it there (62 b) as pIEyarE -LStalvETraL KaL O p~~08tO&L88EL he comments 'the curious fact that ... herepresents the application of the body-prison idea to suicide as difficult tograsp perhaps indicates that he was not necessarilyprepared to accept theidea literally with all its implications'.2It is more likely, however, that whatPlato has in mind here is not the dubiety of the idea but, what is a differentmatter, its complexity.3The theoryof an original fall is clearly a very complexidea incapable in the last analysisof proof. That Plato should draw attentionto this fact is not 'curious'when the context is considered.His use of the theorytoproveo Cebes the wrongnessof suicide would be a case of proving ignotumerignotius.Plato acknowledges this and passes to a theory more likely to wingeneral acceptance, namely that the gods are our masters and we are theirchattels. This idea is one which Cebes may be representedas holding already,and is clearly therefore much more suitable thai the body/prison idea forSocrates' immediate purpose in the Phaedo. t should be observed that withregard to what is an equally strong, if not stronger,statementby Socratescon-cerningthe difficultyofthe soul's mmortality togetherwith that of reminiscenceand reincarnation at Meno86 b,4 Bluck himself,s rightly, I believe, observesthat the likely meaning of this is simply that Socrates is indicating that he isnot able to prove these ideas, not that he does not believe in their truth. Since,therefore, the acknowledgementby Plato of the complexity of ideas in whichhe believes but cannot prove is a characteristicfeature, his vigorous use ofthe Orphic body/prisonidea must remain importantevidence that he believedin an original lapse or fall.3. In the famous passage describing the soul's vision of the Forms, Platodescribesall thosenow on earthas at the time dealt with by the myth oAo'dKApoLaLv tvTnolE iKala'raOEvs9KaKWV acYq/_z evo-rpcp, XpOvcp 7TE4cLEVEVoAoKAtqpaE, .. Oaa a ... E7orrc7TvovTEsva3ya KaOapa,,

KaOapolVO1E. The central ideaof this powerfulpassageis that the soul and the Formscome together each inthe purity of their own nature. To this idea, and, what is important, to theemotion which lies behind it, the traditionalinterpretationof the imperfectionof the soul in the Phaedruss alone able to dojustice. It is very difficult to believethat, if the idea foremost in Plato's mind was that the souls in question hadbeen on earth and carriedwith them, as the souls in the Phaedo,he ill-effectsof their life there in the body, he should have chosen to dwell upon the viewthat they were untouched (cdraOEs)y the ills of earthlyexistence. It is equallydifficult to believe that, after applying the concept of purity and perfectiontothe Forms on the ground that they are free from earthly alloy, he should use

I Phaedrus250 c. Referring to our statebefore incarnation, during our vision ofthe Forms, Plato describesus as do pavTotTovrov 8 VVV77 awl>a 7rept 'povreES dIvojida'oiEiv,oa-rpeovpowovo eSTOaev/IvYot.For a goodnote on this pointseead loc. W. H. Thomp-son, The Phaedrusf Plato (London, 1868).Alsosee Hackforth,op. cit., p. 95.2 Art. cit., p. 163-

3 Hence jidyag. As Hackforth notes 'in thesequel (8I e, 82 e, 83 d) he seems fully toaccept the symbol of the prison'. Plato'sPhaedo (Cambridge, 1955), P 36.4 Kat 7& tv dAAa (i.e. immortality, re-incarnation, and recollection) O'K vYrdvvlr p r70odyov StLoXvPLOaallv.s Plato'sMeno,p. 318.


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60 D. D. McGIBBONthis same concept of the soul if he was thinking of it in the manner of thePhaedo s 'interpenetratedwith the physical or again as 'carryingthe bodilywith it'.2 The thought which must be uppermostin this point of view, as it isin the Phaedo,s that the state of such a soul is essentiallyas if it was still in abody-and so in the Phaedo he soul in question is specifically described as~Eaau~l Kal'cKcOapT0os09 UCai-os (81 b) which is the opposite idea to thatset out in the Phaedrus. he inference must be that the idea of the Phaedowasnot at all in Plato'smind when he wrote the Phaedrus,nd that the manner inwhich he viewed the imperfectionof the soul in the latter dialogue was quitedifferent to the manner in which he viewed the imperfectionof the impuresouls in the Phaedo.3

4. We have seen that Bluck'sinterpretationcarries in it the view that thenature of the left horseis not intrinsicallyevil but evil only becauseit has beenbadly trained. If it has been properlytrained then it is entirely good like thehorses of the souls of the gods. This view, however, cannot be said to receiveany supportin the Phaedrustself. That the nature of the horse is intrinsicallyevil is indicated by the actual descriptionof its training which we are givenin the case of the philosophic lover upon earth (253 cf.). We are told that,when the left horse afterrepeated discipliningis finally humbled and followsthe charioteer, it is henceforward in a state of 'abject terror' (254 e o6


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THE FALL OF THE SOUL IN PLATO'S PHAEDRUS 61There is nothing in this about any transformation,nothing to suggestthat thehorse is being turned into an active partner for good. The passage ends at256 b on the same hard note of subjectionor enslavementwhen Plato describesthe lover and loved as 8ovAwatLEvoC~IV W lKOKaK~a U EVEY VETO,AEV6EpoCav-rES ~S%C dpEr', the reference being, as the context makes clear, to the lefthorse on the one hand and thumos nd reason on the other.

5. It is only by supposing that in the case of the daimoneshe left horse isintrinsicallyevil that we can give any proper meaning to Plato's descriptionof it in the first place as E'e ivav-rwv Kal vavdros., We may take this in one oftwo ways, either literally or as an intensifiedsuperlative.If we take it literally,we will have the meaning 'evil by nature (lit. composed of evil elements) andstill evil',z which of course is that which Bluckrejects.But can he make muchmore senseof the secondmeaning? When Plato usesthe intensifiedsuperlative,he must be regardedas stressing hat the possessionof evil is complete and en-tire. Yet if the left horse of the daimoness evil only to the degree that the latterfailed to pursuephilosophic goodness upon earth, then it must in fact be in avariety of conditions ranging to one in many cases of near-completegoodness.Is it likely that Plato would have describeda horsein this state as wholly evil?It may be observed that, on the traditional interpretation that the horse isintrinsicallyevil, either meaning of the phrase is satisfactory.6. If the daimonesre souls who have left earth in an impure condition andit is due to their unsatisfactory ife there that the left horse has become cor-rupted, why in some caseshas the right horse not been corruptedalso? It maybe allowed that thumoss less liable to corruptionthan the lowest element, andwe may agree with one commentator who remarks that at one point in thePhaedrushe desireof thumoseemsindistinguishablefromthat of reason.3This,however, is to say no more than the Republic hich stresses,what must be clearin any case, that in the last analysis thumoss a separateelement and may, ifcorrupted, differ from reason.4On the traditional interpretationon the otherhand there is no difficulty. Since the lower element is regarded by Plato asintrinsically evil, the process of corruption starts from it and before it hasadvanced to any significant degree the soul has fallen to earth.

7. The view entailed by Bluck'sinterpretation,that daimones ho have at-tained to philosophicgoodnesshave been promotedand are classifiedby Platoin the myth as theoi, s clearly not without considerabledifficulty. It is to beexpected that whenever at any single point Plato usesa generic term of divinebeings, he uses it at that point to denote beings who are of similar orders.Whatever be the precise significanceof Zeus and the other Olympians, whoare included in Plato's use of theoi n the Phaedrusmyth, it is clear that theyIn opposition to his description of theright horse as KaA's EKaCLyaO(9SaLEK

TOLOVTJWV.2 We need not translate with Thompson(op. cit., p. 45) 'evil by nature and byconditioning' though this could be the con-trast intended. av-rItog,owever, may mean'still evil' in the sense of 'irremediably evil',and not preclude proper training, as in thetranslation of Thompson.3 Hackforth, op. cit., p. Io7. This is be-cause Plato is primarily concerned with the

opposition of the better parts of the soul tothe lowest part. Their cause for his purposemay be treated as one. At 253 c thumos sdistinguished, as in the Republic,by its loveof honour or glory.4 For a quasi-identification of the desiresof reason and thumossee Republic 440 a-b.For a statement of the possible corruption ofthumos ee ibid. 441 a, 553 c f., 585 c f. Thispoint with regard to thumoss made well byThompson, op. cit., p. 45-


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62 D. D. McGIBBONrepresenta type of being who not only never will be but neverhas been subjectto incarnation'-the type of being representedelsewhereby the 'createdgods'or astral deities. The probability must be that whatever other members areincluded in the class of theoi, hey are of a similar kind.8. That Plato regardsthe theoiand daimoness two classesof beingswho arepermanentlyof different orders is stronglysupported by the manner in whichhe initiallydistinguishes he soulsof the latterfromthoseof the formerat 246 bKa rTprov LLVjPV apXWV vwplos0 yOXE,L 7jVYLTTWV KTA.The pointof distinguishingthe daimonesy the fact that they drive a advwp~smust be, asHackforth says,z that 'Plato while definitely affirming triplicity in the soulsdestined to inhabit human bodies, deliberately leaves vague the number ofparts ... of the gods' souls'. If Plato, then, considersat least the possibilitythatthe souls of the theoi sa class arestructurallydifferentfromthoseof the daimones,how can we believe that such of the latter as have purified themselves wereincluded by him among the former?

9. If all the daimonesare unpurified souls from earth, why does every daimonnot returnto earth immediatelyfter it has refreshedits mind with the vision ofthe Forms? In other words, why do all the daimonesot return to earth in themyth? Apart from the fact that on Bluck's own argument refreshment isthe only reason for their being in heaven in the firstplace,3it is clearlyto theinterest of all souls to return to earth as soon as possible, and free themselvesfrom the bodily contaminationwhich they all carry. Further,if we believe, aswe must on Bluck's argument, that the daimoneswho attain to philosophicgoodness upon earth become theoi,a curious difficulty arises. It is clear notonly that some daimoneso not fall in the myth, but also that some daimonesmay never fall-a possibilitywhich Plato himself underlines at 248 c where,speaking of the daimoneshe says OEac1?ds A4paacr'ElaSOSE. '4- lv /vixv OEvpola YEVOILIVIaTl'7 ' '7Y o IOv, XPttp T'E 77S TepaSrrEpooV ELadtlpova,Kav ' TOrTOsyr7L TOLEV,EL fAafl4EV1atL.re we to believe thatthe superior type of daimon,whom Plato earlierdescribes as most like the gods(249 a), and who in the mythobtains, fwithdifficulty, satisfactoryision ofTruth, permanently remains a daimon,f it continues to avoid a fall, whileinferior daimones ho fall have the opportunityof winning promotion as theoi?It is clear that amplificationis needed on these points.Over against these difficulties lie two factors adduced by Bluck, both ofwhich arise not out of a consideration of the Phaedrusitself but out of a com-parison with other dialogues. The first comparisonwith the Phaedo eems of

I use 'incarnation' here as 'incorpora-tion' in my first objection above to denotethe union of the soul with an earthly body(246 c awotta rgwov).he question of whetherthe theoi are asomatic must clearly be leftopen. Such bodies as they might possesswould not of course limit the powers of theirsouls in the manner in which earthly bodieslimit the powers of our souls.

2 Op. cit., p. 69. The clear implication isthat the clause introduced by rrp6orovarallelsthat introduced by cdra and like the latterexpresses a distinction, possible or probable,which is a class distinction. The distinctionmay be that the souls of the theoi contain

more than three parts (Hackforth, op. cit.,p. 76, n. 4). or it may be that they have onlyone part, viz. reason. By drawing our atten-tion to the fact that in the case of the soulsof the theoi he has no definite number ofhorses in mind, Plato may be indicating thatin their case the horses have no symbolicvalue, and are present only to accord withthe imagery with which he chooses to expressthe prenatal vision of our souls. This pos-sibility that in the case of the souls of thetheoithe horses have no symbolic value is infact considered by Hackforth, op. cit., p. 76.3 See p. 57, n. 4, above.


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THE FALL OF THE SOUL IN PLATO'S PHAEDRUS 63its nature a rather tenuous basis upon which to argue. All that is establishedis that in both the Phaedo nd the Phaedruslato uses the very naturalmetaphorof weight to denote evil in order to emphasizethe fact that evil draws the soulfrom heaven to earth. The value of this as evidence that the cause of evil inboth cases is the sameis in itselfslight,and, as I have argued,is furtherreducedby the fact that in relation to the idea of freedomfromthe impurityof body thesouls in the Phaedrus re said to be KaOapolwhile in the Phaedohe impure soulin question is specifically characterized as &KdcOap0os.ut can any greaterreliance be placed upon Bluck's second comparison with the Republic?Thenecessarypresuppositionof this is that Plato's views on the subject must haveremained unaltered. This presupposition,however, is clearly dubiouswhen itis consideredthat Plato's psychologyis one of the most unstableelementsof histhought. This might be illustratedby the Republicassage n question.The mostcommon view of Socrates'statement, that the soul in its truestnature is not atvariance with itself, is that it is by way of a preamble to the position that thediscarnate soulconsistsonly of reason. This whole passagein theRepublic,here-fore, might conceivably be used as a basisupon whichto arguethat if Platodidcome to assume,aslater,that the discarnate humansoul was tripartite,he mighthave regardedit as subjectto possibledisharmony,'or at any rate would havefelt himself obliged to reconsider the question. We can, however, come on tomore certainground. If we supposethat Plato never believedthatthe discarnatesoul in its own nature could be subjectto disharmony,what are we to make ofthe PX-7KaKYovheory in the Laws? Does this not necessarily mply that somesoulz in its own nature may contain a disharmonious element? If, however,Plato modified his position in the Laws for a special purpose, then there canbe no bar to supposingthat he did so again fora specialpurpose n the Phaedrus.We may believe that he did not adopt the idea lightly, and if we can take theessentialdetails of the Timaeus t face value, as I believe we may do with someprobability, he presentlyabandoned it. This, however, was a natural step totake. The idea of an original fall, with its view of human existence as contin-gent and in itself evil, was unsuited to the teleological hypothesiswhich, inthe Timaeus,Plato for the first time systematically expounded.3University f Canterbury,ew Zealand D. D. McGIBBON

x The lowest part of the soul is given alegitimate function in the Republic.It causesdiscord, however, by trying on occasion togo beyond this function.2 It does not matter for the purpose of theargument which kind of soul Plato has inmind, since Socrates' point at Republic611 a-b is that no soul can be subject to dis-cord if it is to be immortal. M. Meldrumn(J.H.S. lxx [1950], 71), however, makes

the interesting, though tentative, suggestionthat we should consider the possibility thatPlato may be referring to human souls.3 In dealing with this topic I have beencompelled to take a negative attitude to-wards Dr. Bluck's two articles in A.J.P.There are, however, many valuable pointsin these articles, and I have received greatbenefit from his scholarly and extremelylucid discussion.

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