As an afterthought to the conclusion just reached, Socrates remarks that we can hardly suppose the soul to be less enduring than the bones and sinews of the body, which are virtually indestructible. He then proceeds to contrast the fate of the philosopher's soul, purified by the ‘training for death’, with that of others, whose future incarnations, some in human bodies, some in animal, are determined by the kind of training to which they have been subjected in this present life.

‘Now you are aware that when a man dies his body, the visible part of him which belongs to the visible world, the corpse as we call it, which in the natural course is destroyed, falling to pieces and scattered to the winds, does not undergo any part of this fate immediately, but survives for quite a considerable time, indeed for a very long time if death finds the body in favourable condition and comes at a favourable season: for that matter, a corpse that has been shrunk and embalmed, in the Egyptian fashion, will remain almost entire for ages and ages; and some parts of the body, such as bones, sinews and so forth, even when decomposition has occurred, are virtually immortal. Isn't that so?’

‘Yes.’

'What then of the soul, the invisible thing which passes to an invisible region, a region of splendour and purity, literally the “unseen” world of Hades, into the presence of the good and wise god, whither, if god will, my own soul must shortly pass?