Zarathustra's speech "On Free Death" raises questions concerning both freedom and determinism with respect to one's conduct toward finitude. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra and other writings, Nietzsche insists that one should freely choose death in the prime of life as an ultimate act of self-overcoming. He furthermore condemns those who cling to existence at all costs and thereby submit themselves to a biologically determined end. Though Nietzsche's conception of a freely willed death echoes the ideal of suicide upheld by the Stoics, a crucial difference underlies these two outlooks. Whereas the Stoics tend to regard suicide as a liberation from constraint, Nietzsche views death as a freedom unto or a possibility toward self-realization.

It is Plato's doctrine, and none more defensible, that the soul, before it entered the realm of Becoming, existed in the universe of Being. Released [at death] from the region of time and space, it returns to its former abode into communion with itself. After a season of quiet "all alone with the Alone," of assimilation of its earthly experiences and memories, refreshed and invig

orated, it is seized again by the desire for further trials of its strength, further knowledge of the universe [in the physical nature], the companionship of former friends, by the the desire to keep in step and on the march with the moving world. There, it seeks out and once more animates a body, the medium of communication with its fellow travelers, and sails forth in this vessel upon a new venture in the ocean of Becoming.

Plato contended that all true knowledge is recollection. He stated that we all have innate knowledge that tells us about the things we experience in our world. This knowledge, Plato believed, was gained when the soul resided in the invisible realm, the realm of The Forms and The Good. Plato's theory of The Forms argued that everything in the natural world is representative of the ideal of that form. For example, a table is representative of the ideal form Table. The form is the perfect ideal on which the physical table is modeled. These forms do not exist in the natural world, as they are perfect, and there is nothing perfect in the natural world. Rather the forms exist in the invisible realm, the realm of The Good. When the soul resided in the invisible realm, it experienced these perfect forms and retained that knowledge. However, when the soul is born into the natural world, it forgets that knowledge. In this world, the soul has no experience of perfection, and, therefore, cannot remember the forms. Yet, when the soul is confronted with something resembling the forms, it recollects what it once knew. We call this learning, but Plato believed it is actually recollection. For example, when we see two sticks that are the same length, we say that they are equal. Yet, there is nothing in the natura

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