Note 15 — Chapter II
Reading edition
It does not distinctly appear what was to become of the rational soul if it finally failed in the conflict with evil, at the lowest end of the transmigration. Being immortal, it could not perish. But in providing for it an opportunity of final success through all the forms of animal life to which it might be condemned, it would seem that Plato was pressed by a reluctance to encounter the idea of endless misery. This point, however, does not obscure his explanation of the process by which species of animals, and a succession of inferior animals, came to exist.