Note 139 — Chapter XXXII · PHILEBUS. (continued 2)

Plato, Timæus, pp. 43 A, 44 D, 69 D, 70-71. The same fundamental idea though embodied in a different illustration, appears also in the Phædon; where Sokrates depicts life as a period of imprisonment, to which the immortal rational soul is condemned, in a corrupt and defective body, with perpetual stream of disturbing sensations and emotions (Phædon, pp. 64-65).

Aristotle observes, De Animâ, i. p. 407, b. 2:— ἐπίπονον δὲ καὶ τὸ μεμίχθαι τῷ σώματι μὴ δυνάμενον ἀπολυθῆναι, καὶ προσέτι φευκτόν, εἴπερ βέλτιον τῷ νῷ μὴ μετὰ σώματος εἶναι, καθάπερ εἴωθέ τε λέγεσθαι καὶ πολλοῖς συνδοκεῖ.

We find in one of the Fragments of Cicero, quoted by Augustin from the lost work Hortensius (p. 485, ed. Orelli):— “An vero, inquit, voluptates corporis expetendæ, quæ veré et graviter dictæ sunt à Platone illecebræ et escæ malorum? Quis autem bonâ mente præditus, non mallet nullas omnino nobis à naturâ voluptates esse datas?” This is the same doctrine as what is ascribed to Speusippus.