This remarkable myth, which finds no parallel to its central conception in the Platonic writings, appears to derive its form simply from the popular traditions of "earth-born" races, and changes in the courses of the heavenly bodies.* So far it is simply an interpretative myth. But its proper mythical meaning lies deeper. In this respect it is an attempt to work out the moral consequences of a paradisiacal life as contrasted with our present life. A universal instinct has led men to imagine a golden age of peace and wealth and happiness, before the stern age of struggle and freedom in which they now live. Plato draws out the picture at length. We might be tempted to think that he has a vision of Eden before him when he describes the intercourse of man and animals, the maturity of each new-formed being, the rural ease of a life which is a gradual disrobing of the spirit from its earthly dress. But even so he shews that the perfect order of a Divine government, and boundless plenty, may leave man's highest nature undisciplined. It may be that when God has left the world to the action of a free will, not as forgetting or neglecting, but only ceasing to control it, man, by remembering the precepts of the Great Father which he bears within him, and battling with opposing powers, may yet live a noble and a godlike life, even if year by year he gathers round him the material chains of earth. His highest strength lies in the right exercise of the freedom of his will, and not in the circumstances of his condition..

In another dialogue, Plato has traced out somewhat more fully the progress of our present human society, which is very rapidly sketched in the “Politicus." The myth is attributed to Protagoras, and there is very much in the elaborate elegance of its form which seems to have been derived from him t:

"There was a time when the gods only existed; but when the appointed time came that mortal creatures should come into being, the gods moulded them within the earth, compounding them of earth and fire, and when they were about to bring them to the light, they bade Forethought (Prometheus) and Afterthought (Epimetheus) array them severally with suitable powers. Afterthought begged Forethought to allow him to make the distribution alone: When I have made it,' he said, 'do you come to see.' And so his wish was granted; and he proceeded with his task, providing for the safety, the comfort, and the support of the different tribes. Some he protected by size, others by speed, others by weapons of offence. One kind he clothed in fur, another he covered with thick hides. And he appointed to each their proper food. But when his store of endowments was exhausted, he found to his dismay that man was left unarrayed, naked and unarmed, and the fated day was already close at hand on which man must enter on the upper world. Forethought, when he saw the fatal error, found but one way to remedy it. He stole the craftsman's skill of Hephaestus and Athene, and fire with it-without which art is valueless,-and gave this to man. Thus

The well-known passage in Herod., ii. 142, is a remarkable example of these strange traditions. + Protagoras, 320 C, et seq.

man was furnished with all he needed for his separate life; but he had not yet the wisdom by which society is formed. This wisdom was kept in the citadel of Zeus, and into that awful sanctuary Forethought could not enter. As time went on, the power and weakness of man were seen.' *He established ordinances of worship; he defined language; he invented clothing, and procured food for himself. But he lived in isolation, and he was unfit for social union. Thus, if men were scattered, they were in danger of perishing from wild beasts. If they tried to combine, they were scattered again by mutual violence. Thereupon Zeus, fearing for the safety of our race, sent Hermes with self-respect (aicus) and justice, that their presence among men might establish order and knit together the bonds of friendship in society. 'Must I distribute them,' said Hermes, 'as the various arts have been distributed aforetime, only to certain individuals, or must I dispense them to all?' 'To all,' said Zeus; and let all partake of them. For states could not be formed if they, like the arts, were confined to a few. Nay more, if any one is incapable of self-respect and justice, let him be put to death, such is my will, as a plague to the state.""

So it is, according to the myth, that states are framed. The essential bond by which they are held together is that which is common to all, while their efficiency depends upon the diversity of gifts with which their members are endowed. But the contemplation of any special state blinds us to the enormous scale on which the life of man is exhibited in the world. And so it was that the priest of Sais said to Solon,+

"You Greeks are always children. I never saw an aged Greek. You are young in soul-lost in the contemplation of your little fragments of history, over which your own records reach: you cherish no ancient belief, borne down by primeval tradition: you preserve no lesson gray with the growth of time. Your fable of Phaethon-for at first sight it seems a fable-is but a dim recollection of one of the periodic catastrophes by fire to which the earth is subject. Your history of Deucalion is but the story of one cataclysm out of many by which nations have been and will be submerged. Thus it happens that the memory of the untold ages of the past is lost, through these crises of secular ruin by fire and water, which few survive, unless, as with us in Egypt, the character of the country averts from some favoured spot the general desolation."

With this prelude Plato opens his discussion on the Universe, on which we have already touched. It is as if he wished to extend his view as widely in time as in space. The outline is bold and clear, and there is something strangely grand in this conception of æons of human life, bounded by the result of the accumulated action of natural causes, whose tendency we can trace even in the little period of our own existence. Moreover, just at present the theory is of universal interest, because recent speculations lend some support to the belief in secular physical catastrophes on which it rests. But Plato uses the myth to illustrate a moral truth. Revolutions of the Timæus, 22 B.

* Protagoras, p. 322 A.

earth recur, and history also tends to repeat itself. The day before the dialogue of the "Timæus" was supposed to be held, Socrates had developed his view of a perfect state. Having done this, he feels, as he says, like one who has seen animals only in painting or at rest; he wishes now to see them in vigorous action. For this pleasure he looks to the young statesmen, Timæus and Critias and Hermocrates, who have invited him to be their guest. Nor in vain: Critias tells the story of what had befallen Solon in Egypt, and Socrates hears, in what professes to be an authentic record, the achievements of a primitive Athenian state, constituted like his own. "Your Greek traditions," so the priest continues, in his address to Solon,* "are little better than children's tales; and

Its

"You do not know that the noblest and bravest race upon the face of the earth once lived in your land. Yes, Solon, before the last great flood, that which is now Athens was the best and the best governed of all states. exploits were the most glorious, and its institutions the noblest, of all whose fame has reached us. What I speak of happened nine thousand years ago, and I will now simply indicate briefly the laws of the commonwealth and the greatest of its triumphs. We will afterwards examine at our leisure, with the help of the original documents, the exact details of its history. For its laws, then, you will find many parallels here in Egypt, as in the division of castes (priests and craftsmen and warriors), and in the style of arming, and in the provisions for learning. All these ordinances your patroness Athene (who is the same as our Neith) gave you, and she chose the spot in which your forefathers dwelt, being herself devoted to war and wisdom, because she saw that it was likely to bear men most closely resembling her own character. Many, therefore, and great are the marvellous deeds of your city which are recorded, but one deed surpasses all for grandeur and courage. For our records tell of the mighty power from the Atlantic which it checked in its proud advance against all Europe and Asia. For at that time the Ocean was accessible. In front of the Pillars of Hercules, as you call them, lay an island larger than Libya and Asia, from which you might reach the other islands, and from these the mainland opposite, which extended along the real Ocean. In this island, Atlantis (so it was named), a great and wondrous league of kings arose, who conquered the whole country, and many other islands and parts of the mainland, and besides this they held dominion over Libya as far as the borders of Egypt, and over Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. So then, having combined all their forces together, they essayed to enslave by one bold assault your country and ours, and all the district of the Mediterranean. Whereupon your state, Solon, proved gloriously conspicuous for valour and might; for first at the head of the Greeks, and then alone and deserted, as all else abandoned her, pre-eminent in courage and martial arts, she was brought to the extremity of peril, but at last triumphed over the invaders, and saved for ever all who had not yet been enslaved from the fear of slavery, and generously restored their freedom to all others within the Pillars of Hercules. But at a later time, after unnatural earthquakes and floods, a wild day and night followed, and all your warrior race was swallowed up by the earth, and the island Atlantis sank beneath the sea. And so it is that the sea there is impassable,

*Timæus, 23 B.

because all progress is hindered by the shallow banks of mud which were caused by the sinking of the island.”*

The further development of this myth of epic magnificence is reserved for the "Critias," of which only a fragment, as it seems, was ever written, but that a fragment of unrivalled richness. The description of the wealth of Atlantis is almost Oriental in the profusion of detail, and almost prophetic in its anticipations of the triumph of modern commerce and art. Every production of the earth was gathered to the marts of the favoured people of Poseidon. Their docks were built of marble; their buildings were varied in fanciful polychrome; their palaces were of stupendous size and beauty; their walls were plated with metal; their harbours were crowded with vessels. from every quarter of the world, and filled day and night with the voice of merchants and the manifold din of ceaseless traffic. For a time they bore meekly, as it had been a burden, the large measure of their wealth. But at last the Divine element within them was overpowered by human passion. Unjust aggrandizement and power seemed the greatest blessings, and they were blind to their own shame; whereupon Zeus devised their chastisement, and called the gods together to hear his purpose. . And so the poem ends; for in the "Critias" the myth has grown into a poem. The conception of secular cataclysms is lost in the episode of Athenian greatness, or the symbolic struggle of martial wisdom against material power. The teaching of instinct is replaced by the creations of fancy. Yet even so the last picture in the noble series is one on which the Platonist, and not he only, could look with devout thankfulness. For it taught him that He who made the universe into a living whole, and rejoiced when He looked upon it,-He who with wise alternations of control and freedom directs the cyclic periods of its common course,-He who by the action of general laws renews the face of the earth on which we live, looks also to separate nations, and ordains judgment for their excesses, "that they may learn uprightness by correction."‡ BROOKE F. WESTCOTT.

(To be continued.)

The existence of Atlantis has been a favourite subject of discussion with modern geologists. Dr. Unger, of Vienna, has published a remarkable lecture upon the subject (translated in the Journal of Botany, 1865, pp. 12, et. seq.), in which he shews, from the consideration of the Floras, that "in the Tertiary period Europe must have been connected with North America ;" and again, that at a later period this "Atlantis assumed the form of an island separate from both continents."

Plato expressly distinguishes the island from the mainland beyond it. His shallow, muddy sea is an evident allusion to the great sargassum-bed, of which Aristotle has an interesting notice (De Mirab. Aud., § 136).

† Critias, 113 B, et seq.

Ibid., 121 B.

KHOND" MACPHERSON.

Τ

Memorials of Service in India; from the Correspondence of the late Major Samuel Charteris Macpherson, C.B., Political Agent at Gwalior during the Mutiny, and formerly employed in the suppression of human sacrifices in Orissa. Edited by his Brother, WILLIAM MACPHERSON. London: John Murray. 1865.

IT is an old saying now, that India is the great school in which

England trains her captains: and not a few of her pupils have done credit to their early instruction there; they have graduated with honours on the battle-fields of Europe. One Arthur Wellesley, for example, was no discredit to her. Our Anglo-Indians may be excused for being somewhat proud of the fact that the metal of which the "Iron Duke" was made was forged and stamped in India; that the great military qualities, which shone forth with so brilliant lustre at Waterloo, were formed and fostered at Assaye and Belgaum. And the Duke was but one of many Peninsular heroes who had first been Indian heroes. So it was with many of our leaders in the Crimea. Forty years of almost unbroken peace had left few remaining of those who had known European warfare; and but for experience gained in the East, our generals must have been either veterans long past their prime, or else men destitute of practical acquaintance with the art of war. But, fortunately, our armies contained a middle class betwixt these two, uniting the advantages of each with freedom from the disadvantages of either; men to whom campaigns and battles and sieges were familiar; men whose powers had been ripened, but not exhausted, in the wars of the Indus, the Sutlej, and the Brahmaputra. And when these Crimean warriors, with Campbell at their head, rushed to the aid of India in her hour