The true order, both logical and spiritual, is not, first miracles, then the Divinity of Jesus, then the existence of the heavenly Father; but, faith in a righteous Being first, then the incarnation and the resurrection of the Son of God, then the mighty works of Jesus and of the Spirit. If we cling fast to the confession of One above who cares for his human creatures, it will scarcely seem unnatural to us that He should send his Son into the world, or that He should raise Him from the dead. It will be incredible to us that Jesus and his disciples should have built up, by a mixture of delusion and imposture, the most stupendous fiction in human history. Starting from our trust in a true and loving Creator, we shall apply a spiritual calculus to the problems which concern us as spiritual creatures. We shall contemplate the Gospel as a whole, and estimate it by its relations to God. and to man. We call the unbeliever to witness that it is at least a consoling dream, an inspiring idea. But we do not believe that the imagination of man is capable of creating better things than God has provided for those who love Him. We hold, with our forefathers in the kingdom of God, that the idea is a revelation, that the dream is the most solid of realities.

J. LLEWELYN DAVIES.

THE MYTHS OF PLATO.

"They that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country."

HEBREWS xi. 14.

"Truth is related to Faith as Being is related to Becoming."

PLATO.

IT

I.

is an old saying that Plato combined the characteristics of Lycurgus and Pythagoras with those of Socrates. The lawgiver, the mystic, and the dialectician appear by turns in his writings; and according as the eye of the student is turned towards one of these several aspects, that for the time appears to be predominant. But even this triple form fails to include the whole range of his teaching. He was also, as Quintilian says, the rival of Homer in the grandeur of his style, and "inspired by the spirit of the Delphic oracle." He was at times, both in expression and in thought, a prophet.

So much has been done lately to bring out the dialectic and negative elements in the Platonic dialogues that it may not be without use to call attention to this positive and (so to speak) prophetic side of his work, which is now in some danger of being forgotten. Not only will the outline of his philosophic character be thus made more complete, but especially his view of the relations of philosophy and theology will appear in a striking light. For Plato more than any other ancient philosopher acknowledged alike the necessary limits of reason and the imperious instincts of faith, and when he could not absolutely reconcile both, at least gave to both a full and free expression. And so Platonism alone, and Platonism in virtue of this character, was able to stand for a time face to face with Christianity.

The myths of Plato, taken as a whole, offer the most complete and attractive summary of this prophetic positivism. For the present it is assumed that they constitute a whole. The review of their substance will, it is hoped, be a sufficient proof that the assumption is correct. At the same time it will shew that they are not, in essence, simply graceful embellishments of an argument, but venturous essays after truth, embodiments of definite instincts, sensible representations of universal human thoughts, confessions of weakness, it may be, but no less bold claims to an inherent communion with a divine and suprasensuous world. They are truly philosophic, because they answer to innate wants of man: they are truly poetic, because they are in thought creative.

Nothing indeed can be farther from Plato's view of what his myths are than the sense in which the word is now popularly understood. A myth in the common acceptation of the term is something unreal: but Plato claims that his myths are above all things true in spirit. Whatever question there might be about details of form, the central idea of the myth is affirmed absolutely, and in some cases the whole story is distinctly asserted to be historical.* He disclaims, in fact, the title myth in a disparaging sense for the stories to which we now apply it. They are, he says, real narratives (λóyoɩ) and not myths,† and where he does use the word, he still maintains the existence of a substantial basis of fact for such myths as admit of an historical test, and attaches a supreme moral value to their spiritual teaching. §

But though the word myth is commonly misapplied, it is far too valuable in its technical sense to be abandoned to vague use. It is indeed most serviceable, as expressing what the Platonic myths are. A myth in its true technical sense is the instinctive popular representation of an idea. "A myth," it has been said, "springs up in the soul as a germ in the soil: meaning and form are one: the history is the truth." Thus a myth, properly so called, has points of contact with a symbol, an allegory, and a legend, and is distinguished from each. Like the symbol, it is the embodiment and representation of a thought. But the symbol is isolated, definite, and absolute. The symbol, and the truth which it figures, are contemplated apart. The one suggests the other. The myth on the other hand is continuous, historical, and relative. The truth is seen in the myth, and not separated from it. The representation is the actual apprehension of the reality. The myth and the allegory, again, have both a secondary sense. Both half hide and half reveal the truth which they clothe. But in the allegory the

* See Timæus, 20 D; 21 A, D; 26 C. And so Critias invokes Memory to help him in relating the whole story, p. 108 D.

+ Gorgias, 523 A. Compare pp. 527 A; 526 D. Politicus, 268 E; 269 A, B.

Meno, 81 D, E,

De Republica, x. 621 B, C.

thought is grasped first and by itself, and is then arranged in a particular dress. In the myth, thought and form come into being together: the thought is the vital principle which shapes the form; the form is the sensible image which displays the thought. The allegory is the conscious work of an individual fashioning the image of a truth which he has seized. The myth is the unconscious growth of a common mind, which witnesses to the fundamental laws by which its development is ruled. The meaning of an allegory is prior to the construction of the story: the meaning of a myth is first capable of being separated from the expression in an age long after that in which it had its origin. The myth and the legend have more in common. Both spring up naturally. Both are the unconscious embodiments of popular feeling. Both are, as it seems, necessary accompaniments of primitive forms of society. The legend stands in the same relation to history and life as the myth to speculation and thought. The legend deals with a fact as outward, concrete, objective. The myth deals with an idea or the observation of a fact as inward, abstract, subjective. The tendency of the legend is to go ever farther from the simple circumstances from which it took its rise. The tendency of the myth is to express more and more clearly the idea which it foreshews. in many cases it seems almost impossible to draw a distinct line. between the myth and the legend. The stories of St. Christopher, of St. Bonaventura and his speaking Crucifix, of Whittington and his Cat, and generally those which may be called interpretative myths, will be called myths or legends according as the thought or the fact in them is supposed to predominate.

Yet

The Platonic myths,* while they are varied in character, and present points of similarity with the legend and the allegory, yet truly claim for the most part to be regarded as essentially genuine myths. If they are individual and not popular, they are still the individual expression of a universal instinct. Plato speaks not as Plato but as man. If at times they are conscious, yet more frequently they are taken from earlier and traditional sources. And in that which is especially characteristic of the myth, the relation between the lesson and the form, the idea is not prior to and distinct from the representation, but coincident with it. The Platonic myth is, in short, a possible material representation of a speculative doctrine, which is affirmed by instinct, but not capable of being established by a scientific process. The myth is itself the doctrine so far as it is at present capable of apprehension by men.

There are, however, some Platonic stories commonly included among

I regret that I have been unable to see Deuschle's essay, "Ueber die Platonischen Mythen," which, from Zeller's brief references ("Die Philosophie der Griechen," ii., 363, anm.), appears to be full of interest.

the myths, of which this description will not hold true. Though Plato stands alone in the adoption of the myth as the natural expression of a common human instinct, others before him had made use of allegory as a graceful and agreeable vehicle of popular instruction. Every one will recall the exquisite story of the choice of Hercules, in which Prodicus painted for all ages the rival charms of Virtue and Pleasure, as they meet man when he enters on the journey of life; and the myth in the "Protagoras" indicates that this form of illustration was also employed by the Sophists in the discussion of political subjects. It was natural, then, that in this as in many other points of form, Plato should avail himself of the example of his predecessors. We may even say, without exaggeration, that the labours of the Sophists made a Soerates and therefore a Plato possible; and it is probably more than a mere fancy which traces the artificial elegance of the Sophistic style in the earlier Platonic dialogues. One example of allegory modelled on this earlier type-the Birth of Love -will serve as an instructive contrast, in spirit and conception and application, to the genuine myths which follow. Fruitful and expressive as we feel the story to be, yet it is evident that the whole conception precedes the imagery in which it is clothed, and transcends it, and gains nothing from it but a momentary distinctness.

The narrative is given by the "sage Diotima" in answer to Socrates, who had spoken of Love as a glorious god. She said,*

"He is no god, Socrates, but a spirit (Aaiμwr), a great spirit, one of those beings who occupy a middle place between gods and men; for God himself can hold no intercourse with man, and all the fellowship which exists between heaven and earth is realized through this intermediate order, which bridges over the chasm between them. These spirits, then, are many and manifold, and Love is one of them. It is a long tale to give the history of his parentage, but I will tell it you. At the birth of Aphrodite the gods held a feast, and among them was Resource, the son of Counsel. So after the banquet began, Poverty, knowing of the good cheer, came there to beg, and lingered about the doors. As the day crept on, Resource, having drunk freely of the nectar-for wine, the drink of men, was not yet discoveredwent into the garden of Zeus and sank overpowered to sleep. Poverty, when she saw it, thinking on her own resourcelessness, sought his company, and according to her desire, bore him, in due time, a son, who was called Love. And so it is that Love is the attendant and squire of Aphrodite, because it was on her birthday that Poverty first met Resource, and he is also naturally an enthusiast for the beautiful. Love, then, as being the child of Poverty and Resource, has a strange fate. He is always poor; and so far from being delicate and fair, as most people suppose, is rough and squalid, unsandaled and homeless, sleeping upon the bare earth beneath the open sky, and, according to his mother's nature, is always mated with want. But on the other hand, as he takes after his father, he

* Symposium, 203 A, et seq. It must be remarked, once for all, that the renderings of the myths are not close translations. Condensation and paraphrase have been freely used when either seemed desirable for the sake of space or clearness.