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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: connected with the doctrine of ideas. In the Meno the theory of ideas is
based on the ancient belief in transmigration, which reappears again in the
Phaedrus as well as in the Republic and Timaeus, and in all of them is
connected with a doctrine of retribution. In the Phaedrus the immortality
of the soul is supposed to rest on the conception of the soul as a
principle of motion, whereas in the Republic the argument turns on the
natural continuance of the soul, which, if not destroyed by her own proper
evil, can hardly be destroyed by any other. The soul of man in the Timaeus
is derived from the Supreme Creator, and either returns after death to her
kindred star, or descends into the lower life of an animal. The Apology
expresses the same view as the Phaedo, but with less confidence; there the
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