down hardly pressed and hemmed in with the greatest streights immaginable until certain prefixt moments of time arrive which being elapsed it is then by a certain necessity hurried to that place which hath been destined for its habitation But the Soul that hath led a life of purity and moderation having obtained the Gods for both companions and Guides inhabits that place which hath been peculiarly and properly assigned unto it There are many and wonderful places of the Earth Coments of men concerning the mansions of departed souls vain and uncertain which yet is neither such nor so great as it is thought to be by some who are wont to speak of it as I have heard from one And here Simmias interrupting him saith how say you this Socrates for I also have heard many things concerning the Earth but not the same perhaps that that man hath perswaded you to believe and therefore I desire to hear from you his opinion But Simmias saith Socrates the art of Glaucus it self seems insufficient to explain those so great and abstruse things and to prove by convincing arguments that they are true appears to me more difficult than that Glaucus should be able by all his skill to perform To render so great and reserved mysteries intelligible by discourse I perhaps may be unable and if I understood them yet would not the short remainder of my life suffice to so prolix and copious an Argument Yet nothing hinders but I may adventure briefly to describe to you the form of the Earth and its places such as I have received them to be And this saith Simmias will be enough the narrowness of our capacity considered This then saith he I have fixed and established in my belief first if the Earth be placed in the middle of the Universe on all sides encompassed by Heaven equally distant from it then it needs not the defence or guard of any thing either of the Aire or of any other prop or support to secure it from falling but is able to sustain it self since Heaven that environs it is in all its parts the same and the Earth it self equally ballanced and placed in the middle of another thing whose parts are all the same and equidistant can neither more nor less swerve or decline to any side and what is alwaies in the same manner disposed is constantly permanent in the same place without the least or tendency or inclination to any other This I say is my first perswasion And a right one it is saith Simmias My next is that the face of the Earth is broad and large and that we inhabit the places from the River Phasis to Hercules his pillars in a very small spot as Pismires about the extended plain of some wide field or as Froggs about the Sea and various other Nations dwell in other places For that there are through the whole Earth many and various Concavities from both the form it self and bulk of its magnitude into which both Aire and Darkness and Water have followed together But that the pure Earth it self is seated in a pure Heaven wherein are the Stars and what very many of those who are wont to speak of these matters call Aether the dreggs and sediment whereof these things are and flow together into the hollows of the earth Yet that we who inhabit in these Hollows know not that we do so but imagine that we dwell upon the higher parts of the Earth as if a man dwelling at the bottom of the Sea should think he dwelt above upon the Surface and beholding the Sun and other Stars through the Water conceive the Sea it self to be Heaven and by reason of the slowness and infirmity of his understanding having never come up to the top of the Sea nor beheld it nor risen up and put his head above Water into this our place could not know how much more beautiful and pleasant this lightsom Region is than that obscure and deep one is where he resides nor heard from any other who had seen our place This I say is exactly our case For inhabiting in some Hollow of the Earth we conceive that we are seated upon the eminent places thereof and call the Air Heaven as if the Stars really moved through the Air as Heaven and we beheld their motions and wayes And that herein we are so amused and confounded that by reason of our slowness and infirmity we cannot penetrate to the highest air Since if any should arrive at the top of it and as with wings fly up thither when he had gotten his head once above it he would behold all these things clearly just as if Fishes mounting up out of the Sea should behold our places so would he And if he were by nature qualified for contemplation he would soon know that it is the true Heaven and true Light and true Earth for both the Earth and the Stones and all this place are corrupted and eaten away as things in the Sea are by the saltness thereof Nor is any thing of value any thing perfect bred commonly in the Sea but Caverns and Sand and an infinite quantity of mud and filth are in it and where Earth is which are in no respect to be compared to our Beauties But those Above seem to excel ours Now to describe what kind of Countries there are in the Earth I shall think it no trouble to relate to you a Fable pleasant and worthy your attention That saith Simmias would we fain hear In the beginning therefore they say the face of the Earth appeared to the sight such as if a man looked down from on high and survey'd it our little Balls made up of twelve square pieces of Leather put together various indeed and distinguished by several colours not unlike the colours Painters use as samples here with us That there all the Earth doth consist of these various colours much more splendid bright and pure then ours are one purple exceedingly fair and deep another shining like Gold but that which is white is whiter than Chalk or Snow and composed of other colours also both more and more beautiful than have ever been seen by our eyes Then that those very Cavities of the Earth being full of Water and Air represent a certain kind of colour shining through in a variety of other colours so that the form thereof may be perceived both simple and various at once That herein thus constituted the same things are in the same manner produced Trees Flowers Fruits and Mountains and Stones have the same forms and qualities in perfection in perspicuity and in colours far more beautiful than our pretious Stones are which are but thin particles of those Sardonixes and Jaspers and Emeralds and all others of great price and that there is nothing there but what vastly excells all our finest Rarities of the same sort That the cause of this vast difference is because the Stones there are pure not as ours are fretted and eaten by
Causes to the composition and order of things with conveniency but putting certain Aerial and Ethererial influences and many other absurd Chimera's for the true Causes of things * An Example fitly remonstrating the folly of assigning Second Causes And me thinks the same fortune befalls him that belongs to any other who should say Whatsoever Socrates doth he doth with a Mind and with judgment and then designing to explicate the causes of the particular actions I do should further say first that I sit here because my Body consists of bones and nerves and that my bones are solid and firm and have their differences and intervals of joynts betwixt them and that my nerves are so contrived and formed that they may be extended and relaxed again and environ and bind the bones together with the flesh and skin which contains and invests them When therefore the bones are raised up in their joynts the sinews which are one while upon the stretch and by and by relaxed cause me to have the faculty of moving bowing and extending my limbs and that by this cause I come to sit bowed forwards in this posture And that he might explicate the causes of this my conference with you should affirm them to be certain words or voices formed of aire and hearing and infinite others equally remote but should neglect the true and certain cause namely that the Athenians having been pleased by giving their suffrages to condemn me I am likewise pleased to sit here and it seems more just that I should suffer the punishment they have doomed me to suffer Since by the * This Oath was familiar not only to Socrates but to Zeno also Witness Diogen Laertius in vit Soc. and Serranus in his Annotations on this place Dogg-starr those bones of mine had long ago been carried as I think among the Megarensians or Baeotians * Here Socrates is made to reflect upon and occasionally justifie his refusal to fly to the Megarensians or to the Beotians when Crito would have perswaded him to escape and assisted him therein as at large is recorded by Plato in his Dialogue intitled Crito by order of that Best if I had not judged it more just and honorable to undergo and patiently endure the punishment which the City hath decreed for me than to live a fugitive or exile in another Country But to call these things Causes is extremely impertinent Whereas if one should say that unless I had both bones and sinews I could not do what actions I had a mind to do he would indeed speak truth And yet notwithstanding if any man should affirm that by reason of my bones and nerves I do the actions I do and that I so far do them with understanding and a Mind but not upon choice of the Best truly he would reason but negligently and supinely For this in truth is not to be able to distinguish and discern that really there is another cause and another something without which a cause is not a cause In which error they seem to me to be involved and amused who groping as it were in the dark and abusing the propriety of that name call that Second a Cause Some therefore while they place about the Earth a great gulph of Waters beneath the Heavens will have it that the Earth come thereby to consist and remain firm others prop up the Aire its fundament as with a bâ—â—d Kneading-tubb But that virtue or power which hath been able to constitute things themselves in the best manner what it is and how it doth consist this I say they enquire not nor conceive it to have a Divine force and Energy but imagine they have found a new Atlas stronger than the first and by a kind of immortality much more lasting and more comprehensive of all things and think that that Good and Beautiful Being doth bind together and contain and support nothing For my part I would gladly learn from any man the nature and proprieties of that Cause whatsoever they be But since I have not been able either of my self to find it or to understand from any other what it is are you Cebes willing I should give you an account of the Second Voyage I with exquisite study designed and attempted for the finding of that Cause I vehemently desire to hear it saith he When my mind was grown weary and faint with considering things intently I perceived my self obliged to beware lest that might befal me which usually happens to those who gaze upon the Sun in an Eclipse For their faculty of seeing would be taken from them unless they beheld the image of the Sun in Water or in some other the like Diaphanous and Specular body Something like this came into my mind and I feared lest my understanding might be wholly blinded if I looked upon things themselves with my eyes and attempted to touch them with my senses * What way Socrates took in his re-searches of the First cause coming to knowledg thereof by certain degrees viz. by Reasons and Discourses which yet he saith were efficacious and powerful lest we might conceive some imaginary knowledg to be thereby signified Plato therfore affirms that as God is the most potent cause of all things so he is also the sole and most certain Cause of the Soul Which fundament is to be laid down as necessary to this disquisition before we come to other reasons nearer to us I held it therefore very well worth my labour to have recourse to Reason or at least to that discourse which retains the prints of reason and therein to contemplate the nature and verity of things But perhaps this Simile or Example whereby I have endeavoured to represent this matter will not be exactly fit and consentaneous For I do not fully grant that he who contemplates things in the mirror of reason or discourse doth contemplate them rather in images than in works Nevertheless I took this course and laying for a foundation that reason which I judg to be most valid and most firm what things appear to me to have congruity therewith those I put for true both as to Causes and to all others and on the contrary what have no congruity therewith those I conclude to be untrue Which having thus noted in general I will explain it more fully to you for yet I conceive you understand it not Not very well by Jove saith Cebes Yet replies he I here speak nothing a new but the very same I have both at other times and in my precedent disputation perpetually declared For I am going to shew to you the image of that Cause in the re-search whereof I have thus long been versed and I again return to those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 renowned Excellencies and from them deduce my beginning laying this down for a principle That there is a something Beautiful Good and Great and every way perfect in and by it self Which if you grant I hope I shall from
putrefaction and saltness from the things that flow in together hither and that produce diseases and decayes in Stones in Plants and in Animals of our Earth That the Earth it self is every where adorned with such fine productions and moreover with Gold and Silver and other Mettals which naturally shine in a wonderful manner as being both very many very great and dispersed through the whole Earth so that to behold it is a most delightful sight to the happy Spectators That there are in that Earth living Creatures also of very many Kinds and Men too of whom some live in Mediterranean places others about the Air as we about the Sea others in Islands which the Air invirons as scituate in the very Continent In summe in those places the Air is to them what the Sea is to us and serves them for the same uses only this their Air is our Aether And the seasons of the year are with them so admirably constituted in point of temper that the men there live both free from Diseases and much longer than ours and in seeing hearing understanding and other the like faculties they as far excel us as Air excels Water and the Aether Aire in purity That there are likewise Groves and Temples of Gods who reside in them and give Answers and Prophesies from Oracles and the men hold familiar conversation and commerce with Gods themselves That the Sun and Moon and other Stars are behe d by them clearly and distinctly as they are and that they have this one felicity more to accompany them That this is the form and constitution of the Earth and the things that are about it That there are places therein and in the Hollows and in the circumference thereof many some deeper and wider in which we dwell others deeper indeed but of narrower mouths than that wherein we dwell others again less profound than ours but wider That all these Cavities every where perforated one into another and communicating by under-ground passages have both by turnings and diversions as well in narrower as in broader places so that a vast plenty of Water flows out of some into others as into Cisterns and very great currents of Rivers and perpetual springs of Waters both cold and hot Much fire also whole Rivers of fire and many streams of Water Muddy and Pure and Dirty as those Rivers in Sicily which flow from the Torrent called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the muddy River and the Torrent it self That every one of those places are filled according to the quantity of Water every day brought in and that all these are moved up and down like some hanging Vessel upon the Earth But this Pensil Vessel by reason of some such nature is some one of the Gapings or Chasms of the Earth and the very biggest of all piercing from side to side through the whole Earth which Homer himself intimated in that Verse Far hence in th' Earth there gapes a pit immense Which both he elsewhere and other Poets call Tartarus and into which all Rivers have their confluence re-flowing out of it by turns But all Rivers are of the same nature as the Region is through which they run and this is the cause why all both issue from thence and return thither again because that Humid hath neither bottom nor foundation but is lifted up and wavers upward and downward and the air and breath about it doth the same but follows it both when it ascends and when it descends to us And as in living Creatures endowed with Respiration the Spirit or Breath is inspired and expired alternately so here the Breath being raised up with moisture yeilds winds strong in ungoverned force almost infinite while it rusheth in and out But the Water when stirred up by some impulse it runs to that place which is called Below both flows into those gushing Lakes and fills them as those who drink full bowls and when it runs out from thence in its circulation tending thither again it replenishes the places here They thus replete it flows on through passages and channels of the Earth When all Fountains and Streams arrive at those places whither Seas have more expeditely and opportunely flowed they produce Lakes Rivers and Fountains Thence going under ground again some when they have travelled and compassed greater and more places precipitate themselves again into Tartarus or the bottomless Gulph some more deeply than whence they were exhausted others less deeply but all flow in more deeply than whence they flowed out Some pour in themselves through a part contrary to and disparate from that out of which they had their efflux others through the same Some wheeled about in a circle and once or often in serpentine windings Sires and spiral Meanders infolding the Earth as much as was possible bowing downwards impel themselves forward to descend where way is given them to the very middle on each side and no farther for at each extreme Confluence each part is impervious There are besides these many other Confluents of Waters great and various among all which are four whereof the greatest and deepest flowing in a round is called the Ocean By a motion contrary to this flows Acheron which comes in through other desert places and indeed running under ground passes on to the Acherusiad Marish where crowds of departed Souls have their common rendezvous and whence after certain periods of time predestined by Fate to some longer to others shorter they are remitted hither again to the generation of Animals Betwixt these two runs the third River and not far from its Sours disembogues it self into a certain great place that burns with much fire and there stagnating makes a Mere or Lake greater than the Sea with us and perpetually boyling with water and mudd hence it gusheth forth with violence running into a round troubled and full of filth and having often fetched a compass under ground pours it self into the deepest part of Tartarus passing to the Extremes of the Acherusiad Marish but not mixing with the Waters thereof This is that River which they yet call Pyriphlegethon the Burning River of Hell whose Rivulets with violent force making way through the broaken Earth rise up wheresoever they can drill themselves a vent Opposite to this the Fourth River falls first into a place horrid with mouldiness and stinking damps wild and savage as they say of a blew colour which they call the Stygian place that is the dismal seat of hate fear and grief and the River flowing into it makes the Stygian Lake and falling in there with mighty strength re-inforcing its Torrent and thrusting it self under ground with a contrary flood and various eddies it throws it self against the Burning River and goes forward till it meets it in the Acherusiad Marish but mixes streams with no other Waters and here revolved in a circle dischargeth it self into Tartarus just opposite to the Burning River and the name of it is as Poets say Cocytus The
Purgatory of the antient Heathens described with their Repentance in Hell and three parts thereof Contrition Confession Satisfaction all which they saw to be necessary by the light of Nature i. e. Sorrow These things being thus constituted when Ghosts have arrived whither the tutelar Demon of every one conducts them first they are examined tryed and judged both they who have lived well righteously and justly and they who have lived in vice injustice and impiety they also who have lived in a middle way going on to Acheron and mounting into Waggons prepared for them are therein carried to the Marish where they both remain and suffer punishments appointed for the expiation and expurgation of their sins After they are thus expiated they are absolved and quitted and every one receives rewards for their good deeds according to their merits But if for the greatness of their Crimes they be found incurable having committed either many or great Sacriledges or unjust and unlawful Homicides or such execrable Wickednesses a just lott casteth them into Tartarus from whence they never get out Whereas they who stand convicted of and obnoxious to sins great indeed but not inexpiable as they who have in heat of anger committed any violence against Father or Mother and truly repented of it all their life after or who have been Homicides through immoderate passion upon these is imposed a necessity of falling into Hell But when they have been there a year in Torments the Waves cast them forth Homicides by Cocytus Killers of Father or Mother by the Burning River And when they come to the Acherusiad Marish then with a loud voice they by name call some those whom they have killed others those whom they have wronged and begg and beseech them to be satisfied with their unfeigned penitence and grievous sufferings and to give them leave to depart out of that Marish If they prevail they retire thence and are freed from those miseries if not they are carried back again into Tartarus and so returned to the other rivers not ceasing to suffer their renewed torments untill they have obtained pardon from those to whom they have been injurious for this punishment is appointed for them by the decree of the Judges Now they who have been rightly purged by Philosophy live ever after without bodies and come into other habitations fair and delightful which to describe is too difficult for my understanding and too long for the short remainder of my life Commodious admonitions concluding the description of Hell that we are not obliged to give credit to those Poetic fictions and yet it is useful to reflect upon them that we may be incited to aim at felicity after death and to follow the only path that leads to it viz. Wisdom and Virtue But as for the concernment and importance of what we have here related Simmias we ought to labour with all possible study and care that we may follow the conduct of Virtue and Wisdom in this life For the reward is great and the hope good That the descriptions I have recounted to you of the places and conditions of Souls after death are true becomes not a wise man to affirm But that there are some such or the like as for what concerns the state and condition of our Souls and the places whither they are to go for habitation seeing it is evident that our Souls are immortal this also seems both consentaneous and worthy the danger to believe they are such For the danger is honorable and glorious and we are obliged to inculcate and as it were inchant these things into our minds wherefore I have been the more prolix in commemorating that Fable But yet as to what concerns a mans own Soul he ought to be with full confidence perswaded of these things who while he hath lived hath repudiated corporeal pleasures and outward Ornaments as alien and unnecessary and so hath resolved to addict himself to any thing rather than to lusts of the body and hath made it the grand business of his life to furnish his mind with learning and to render it polite and brave not with strange but it s own proper ornaments namely with Temperance Justice Fortitude Liberty Truth Thus armed let him expect the time when he is to take his Journey ad inferos to the Mansions of Souls departed and let him so prepare and address himself as to set forward redily and chearfully whensoever Fate shall call him And for your parts Simmias and Cebes and the rest that are here ye shall all go this Journey each in his appointed time Fate as the Tragedian saith calls me now But perhaps it is time for me to go and wash my self for I think it more decent to be washed before I drink the poyson that I may give the Women no trouble in washing my Body after death Be it so then saith Crito to him An Historical Narration of the manner of Socrates his death which was perfectly agreeable to his Life and Doctrine But do you Soorates give to those here or to me any command either concerning your Children or about any other matter wherein we may chiefly gatifie you No truly saith he Crito I leave no new command with you besides what I have alwaies told you namely that if ye take due care of your selves you will perform your duty to me and to mine and to your selves also whatever ye do though now ye make no promises nor enter into new engagements but if ye neglect your selves and will not order your life according to the prints as it were of what I now remonstrate to you what I have heretofore enjoyned ye though ye should even with vehement asseveration promise to do many and great things for my sake ye will do I am sure nothing more This saith Crito we will with courage and alacrity of mind endevour to perform But in what manner shall we Bury you Even how ye please saith he at least if ye can catch me and I not fly out of your reach And when he had sweetly smiled and turned his eyes upon us my Friends saith he I cannot perswade Crito here that I am that Socrates who just now disputed and pursued all parts of the discourse in order but he thinks me to be the same whom after a few hours ye shall behold dead and asketh me how I desire to be Buried not remembring that a good while since I made a long discourse to this very purpose that after I have drank the poyson I shall be no longer with you but go away to the Felicities of the Blessed This seems to have been spoken by me in vain while yet I endevoured to consolate both you and my self Do ye therefore undertake for me to Crito in an obligation quite contrary to what he entred into on my behalf before my Judges He was surety for me that I should remain but be ye my sureties to him that I shall not remain after I am