Simmias, speaking for Cebes as well as himself, suggests that only half of what is needed has been achieved: the soul exists before birth, but does it also exist after death? Socrates replies that by combining the argument from Recollection with that which preceded it we find that this has already been established. Yet he recognises that his hearers may still not be wholly convinced; and before the discussion is resumed a short interlude occurs in which they speak of him as a master-charmer, whose loss may be irreparable.

‘And what about Cebes?’ asked Socrates; ‘we must convince him too.’

‘He is satisfied, I think’, said Simmias, ‘though indeed he is the most obstinate sceptic in the world. I think he is fully persuaded that our souls existed before we were born; but will they still exist after we die? That I myself don't think we have proved; we are still left with the ordinary man's misgiving which Cebes voiced a while ago, that when a man dies his soul is simultaneously dissipated and thus comes to the end of its existence. May it not be that, deriving its origin and construction from some external source, it exists before entering into a human body, yet when it quits the body it has entered it too comes to an end and is destroyed?’