To Cebes and Simmias it seems strange that a philosopher, or indeed any man of intelligence, should be well content to die; for death must mean parting from the gods who have been his kindly masters throughout life. Socrates replies with a declaration of faith that after death he will still be under divine protection; death is not the end: there is a future, and a better one for the good than for the evil.

Called upon to explain and justify his faith, Socrates begins by declaring that the whole life of a true philosopher is a training for death—a doctrine at which, as Simmias remarks, the vulgar will gibe, but only because they do not understand it. They indeed may be ignored; but Socrates must explain it to his friends.

‘I think that is probably right’, said Cebes. 'But to go back to your point, that a philosopher will be ready and willing to die, that strikes me as astonishing, Socrates, if there is good ground for saying, as we did just now, that there is a god who looks after us, and that we are his possessions. That men of high intelligence should not complain at having to leave a service in which theirs were the best of all masters, the gods, is not reasonable; they can hardly suppose that they will look after themselves better than their former masters did.