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words: 'I do not doubt, Socrates, that you are as fully convinced as we are of the impossibility, or at least the extreme difficulty, of arriving at actual certainty in regard to these matters, whilst we are on earth. Still you would justly blame our faint-heartedness, if we desisted from the search for truth, before we had tried every possible means of attaining it. You would tell us that, if a man has failed to learn the truth from another, or to discover it for himself, it is his duty at any rate to find the best and most irrefragable of human words, and trusting himself to this, as to a raft, to set forth on the hazardous voyage of life, unless it were possible to find a surer and less dangerous way on board a stronger vessel, some word of God'.'

I conclude with one example of Plato's allegorical style, the famous simile of the Cave from the Seventh book of the Republic.

'Imagine human beings living in a sort of underground den which has a mouth wide open towards the light they have been there from childhood and, having their necks and legs chained, can only see before them. At a distance there is a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners a raised way, and a low wall built along the way, like that over which marionette players show their puppets. Above the wall are seen moving figures, who hold in their hands various works of art, and among them figures of men and animals, wood and stone, and some of the passers-by are talking and

1 τὸν γοῦν βέλτιστον τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων λόγων λαβόντα καὶ δυσεξελεγκτότατον, ἐπὶ τούτου ὀχούμενον, ὥσπερ ἐπὶ σχεδίας, κινδυνεύοντα διαπλεῦσαι τὸν βίον, εἰ μή τις δύναιτο ἀσφαλέστερον καὶ ἀκινδυνότερον ἐπὶ βεβαιοτέρου ὀχήματος, λόγου θείου τινὸς, διαπορευθῆναι.

others silent. The captives see nothing but the shadows which the fire throws on the wall of the cave; to these they give names; and, if we add an echo which returns from the wall, the voices of the passengers will seem to proceed from the shadows. Suppose now that you suddenly turn them round and make them look with pain and grief to themselves at the real images; will they believe them to be real? Will not their eyes be dazzled, and will they not try to get away from the light to something which they are able to behold without blinking? And suppose further, that they are dragged up a steep and rugged ascent into the presence of the sun himself, will not their sight be darkened with excess of light? Some time will pass before they get the habit of perceiving at all; and at first they will be able to perceive only shadows and reflexions in the water; then they will recognize the moon and the stars, and will at length behold the sun in his own proper place as he is. Last of all they will conclude: This is he who gives us the the seasons, and is the author of all that we see. How will they rejoice in passing from darkness to light! How worthless to them will seem the honours and glories of the den or cave out of which they came! And now imagine further that they descend into their old habitations. In that underground dwelling they will not see as well as their fellows, and will not be able to compete with them in the measurement of the shadows on the wall; there will be many jokes about the man who went on a visit to the sun and lost his eyes; and if those imprisoned there find any one trying to set free and enlighten one of their number, they will put him to death. if they can catch him.

M. P.

year and

6

Now in this allegory, the cave or den is the world of sight, the fire is the sun, the way upwards is the way to knowledge; and in the world of knowledge the Idea of Good is last seen and with difficulty, but, when seen, is inferred to be the author of good and right, parent of the lord of light in this world and of truth and understanding in the other. He who attains to the beatific vision is always going upwards; he is unwilling to descend into political assemblies and courts of law; for his eyes are apt to blink at the images or shadows of images which they behold in them; he cannot enter into the ideas of those who have never in their lives understood the relation of the shadow to the substance. Now blindness

is of two kinds, and may be caused either by passing out of darkness into.light, or out of light into darkness, and a man of sense will distinguish between them, and the blindness which arises from fulness of light he will deem blessed, and pity the other. There is a further lesson taught by this parable of ours. Some persons fancy that instruction is like giving eyes to the blind, but we say that the faculty of sight was always there, and that the soul only requires to be turned round towards the light. And this is conversion: other virtues are not innate but acquired by exercise like bodily habits; but intelligence has a diviner life and is indestructible, turning either to good or evil according to the direction given. Did you never observe how the mind of a clever rogue peers out of his eyes, and the more clearly he sees, the more evil he does? Now, if you take such an one and cut away from him the leaden weights which drag him down and keep the eye of the soul fixed on the ground, the same faculty in him will be turned round, and he will behold the truth as

clearly as he now discerns his meaner ends. And have we not decided that our rulers must neither be so uneducated as to have no fixed rule of life, nor so over-educated as to be unwilling to leave their paradise for the business of the world? While we must choose out the natures who are most likely to ascend to the light and knowledge of the good, we must not allow them to remain in that region of light, but must force them to descend again among the captives in the den to partake of their labours and honours. Nor is this unjust to them, for our purpose in framing the State was not that our citizens should do what they like, but that they should serve the State for the common good of all. May we not fairly say to the philosopher:-In other states philosophy grows wild, and a wild plant owes nothing to the gardener, but you we have trained to be the rulers of our hive, and therefore we must insist on your descending into the darkness of the den? You must each of you take your turn and become able to use your eyes in the dark, and with a little practice you will see far better than those who quarrel about the shadows, whose knowledge is a dream only, whilst yours is a waking reality. It may be, the saint or philosopher who is best fitted, may also be the least inclined to rule, but necessity is laid upon him, and he must no longer live in the heaven of ideas. And this will be the salvation of the State.'

Aristotle 'the master of the wise,' according to the great poet of the Middle Ages, the tyrant of the schools, and champion of the Obscurantists, according to Bacon and the Renaissance, was born at Stagira, a Greek colony in Thrace, in the year 385 B.C. He came to Athens in

his 17th year and studied under Plato for twenty years. On Plato's death in 347 B. C. he went with Xenocrates to reside at the court of his former pupil Hermias, the ruler of the Mysian cities of Assos and Atarneus. On the overthrow and death of Hermias in 344, he retired to Mitylene, from whence he was invited in 342 by Philip, King of Macedon, to superintend the education of his son Alexander, then a boy of 13. When Alexander set out on his Persian expedition in 335 B. C. Aristotle returned to Athens and taught in the Lyceum. As he lectured while walking his disciples were called Peripatetics'. On the death of Alexander, Aristotle left Athens to escape from a charge of impiety, 'desiring', as he said, 'to save the Athenians from sinning a second time against philosophy', and settled at Chalcis in Euboea, where he died 322 B.C.

It is worth while to pause and reflect for a moment on the succession here brought before us; Alexander the disciple of Aristotle, the disciple of Plato, the disciple of Socrates. That four such names, each supreme in his own line, should have been thus linked together, is a fact unparalleled in the history of the world; and its momentous nature is seen in its consequences, the Hellenizing of East and West by the sword of Alexander and by the writings of Plato and Aristotle. The work of Alexander might perhaps have been done by a meaner instrument, but without the 'great twin brethren' the whole course of human development must have been different. Science, Law, Philosophy, Theology, owe their present form and almost their existence to them. When Plato, griev

1 The form shows that the word is derived from TeрITαтéw not fron περίπατος.

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