Men holding so imperfect a belief will still consider the body as the secondary and inferior portion of their nature, and they will despise it even whilst they yield to its influence; whereas they have a natural esteem and secret admiration for the immaterial part of man, even though they sometimes refuse to submit to its dominion.

That is enough to give a lofty cast to their opinions and their tastes, and to bid them tend with no interested motive, and as it were by impulse, to pure feelings and elevated thoughts.
It is not certain that Socrates and his followers had very fixed opinions as to what would befall man hereafter; but the sole point of belief on which they were determined--that the soul has nothing in common with the body, and survives it--was enough to give the Platonic philosophy that sublime aspiration by which it is distinguished.

It is clear from the works of Plato, that many philosophical writers, his predecessors or contemporaries, professed materialism.

These writers have not reached us, or have reached us in mere fragments.

The same thing has happened in almost all ages; the greater part of the most famous minds in literature adhere to the doctrines of a supersensual philosophy.