Note (return) — Chapter XI

How is it, then, it may be asked, that men become evil? The answer of Plato is, that the soul has in it a principle of change, in the power of regulating the desires--in indulging them to excess, or moderating them according to the demands of reason. The circumstances in which the soul is placed, as connected with the sensible world by means of the body, present an occasion for the exercise of that power, the end of this temporal connection being to establish a state of moral discipline and probation. The humors and distempers of the body likewise deprave, disorder, and discompose the soul. 672 "Pleasures and pains are unduly magnified; the democracy of the passions prevails; and the ascendency of reason is cast down." Bad forms of civil government corrupt social manners, evil education effects the ruin of the soul. Thus the soul is changed--is fallen from what it was when first it came from the Creator's hand. But the eternal Ideas are not utterly effaced, the image of God is not entirely lost. The soul may yet be restored by remedial measures. It may be purified by knowledge, by truth, by expiations, by sufferings, and by prayers. The utmost, however, that man can hope to do in this life is insufficient to fully restore the image of God, and death must complete the final emancipation of the rational element from the bondage of the flesh. Life is thus a discipline and a preparation for another state of being, and death the final entrance there. 673