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χρόνου, πάσης δὲ οὐσίας, μέγα τι δοκεῖν εἶναι τὸν ἀνθρώπι vov ẞíov,* all these, as they are presented in this warm and eloquent description of philosophy and the philosophic life, rise at once to a more elevated meaning, while, at the same time, how admirably does every sentence, thought, and word accommodate itself to this higher sense, as though it had formed the main and only design of the writer. When, with that mild pathos which he sometimes uses with so much effect, he tells us what difficulties the philosophic nature has to encounter in maintaining its ground against the unfriendly influences of a foreign, uncongenial clime (ὥσπερ ξενικὸν σπέρμα ἐν γῇ ἄλλῃ σπειρόμενον ἐξίτηλον φιλεῖ κρατούμενον ἰέναι εἰς τὸ ἐπιχώριον),t we can hardly help thinking that we hear the spiritual and plaintive Leighton declaring, that "the grace of God in the heart of man is like a tender plant sown in a strange, unkindly soil," where its fruit would inevitably wither and degenerate into affinity with some base native weed, unless he that planted it should exercise that constant care, without which it must perish.

In the hands of no other writer, ancient or modern, does philosophy ever assume this heavenly aspect. Should it be supposed that this is all the effect of a partial imagination, let the experiment be tried with others. Let any one, with a similar purpose, read Aristotle, or Bacon, or any of the moderns who treat of the philosophy of the soul, and ascertain if he can, without violence, extract from them any such higher sense, or any such easy accommodation to an elevated Christian spirituality. A faint resemblance of this peculiar Platonic unction may be traced in some of the philosophical tracts of Cicero, especially those that were written during the latter years of his life, and in the subdued spirit of his adverse fortunes; but even with Cicero,

* Republic, vi., 486, A.

+ Ibid., 497, B.

they are mere imitations of the style and manner of one whom he professedly takes as his model, and whom he so affectionately styles "his master Plato."

Let these thoughts be carried with us in reading, in the seventh book of the Republic, the description of the dark cave, and of the poor prisoners who are there confined, with their backs to the light, and their intent gaze ever fixed upon those shadowy appearances which so strangely flit across the walls of their chamber of imagery. What thoughtful mind can fail to recur to the higher truths of the Christian revelation, or avoid being struck with the almost perfect parallelism, as, in Plato's most truthful picture, he contemplates the fondness of those miserable bondsmen for their gloomy abode, their first aversion to the dazzling splendour of the world of reality, and the strong grasp with which they cling to their prison house, when some kind hand attempts to draw them forth, through the rough and steep ascent (τραχείας καὶ ἀνάντους ἀναβάσεως), into the light of life. How graphic, too, the description of the science and philosophy of that narrow world fτñs έket̃ oopías). How admirably does he depict the interest with which these subterranean savans are occupied in the study of what they style nature, in tracing the law of cause and effect, antecedents and consequents, as the dim shadows pass across their contracted scene of observation-the petty pride with which they dignify this pursuit with the exclusive name of science, their stinging jealousy of others who are ambitiously aiming at the distinctions and honours of the same most intellectual life, the laborious earnestness with which they are engaged in thus building up from these inductions a science of shadows, which might astonish their more vulgar companions, by its seeming vaticinations of the periods and returns of those paιvóμeva with which their minds are daily occupied, to the exclusion of any study of themselves or of their true position-while all this time the

real world, in which shines the real sun, where may be seen the real heavens, and where alone exists the real science, are as much and as utterly unknown as are the high hopes of the Christian, and the sublime truths which occupy his soul, to the most grovelling and sensual worldling. Τιμαὶ δὲ καὶ ἔπαινοι εἴ τινες αὐτοῖς ἦσαν τότε παρ' ἀλλήλων καὶ γέρα τῷ ὀξύτατα καθαρῶντι τὰ παριόντα καὶ μνημονεύοντι μάλιστα ὅσα τε πρότερα αὐτῶν καὶ ὅσα ὕστερα εἰώθει καὶ ἅμα πορεύεσθαι, καὶ ἐκ τούτων δὴ δυνα τώτατα ἀπομαντευομένῳ τὸ μέλλον ἥξειν, δοκεῖς ἂν αὐτὸν (τὸν πρὸς τὸ φῶς ἔλθοντα) ἐπιθυμητικῶς αὐτῶν ἔχειν καὶ ζηλοῦν τοὺς παρ' ἐκείνοις τιμωμένους ; Republic, vii., 516, D. The resemblance between this and the spirit and tenor of the Scriptural representations need not be pointed out. One might almost fancy it an expansion of the striking, yet concise description of the Psalmist: visch, Man walketh in a shadow, a land of images, A VAIN SHOW.

With this philosopher even politics assumes a divine and religious aspect, and, in all his speculations, the political closely connects itself with the theological. How easy and natural would it be, in pursuance of the same method, to adapt what he says of the heavenly paradigm in the close of the ninth book of the Republic, and his seventh kingdom in the Politicus, to the Christian Church: ἐν τῇ πρώτῃ δὲ πολὺ πρῶτόν τε καὶ ἄριστον βιωτέον, πλὴν τῆς ἙΒΔΟΜΗΣ. πασῶν γὰρ ἐκείνην γε ἐκκριτέον, οἷον θεὸν ἐξ ἀνθρώπων, ἐκ τῶν ἄλλων πολιτειῶν. Politicus, or Statesman, 303, A.

From such an accommodation of Plato's rich and wondrous fancy, how many most valuable thoughts, or rather illustrations, might be suggested, which would not be unworthy even of the pulpit-thoughts which, while they claimed the closest affinity with the Scriptures, might be brought to bear upon the soul and conscience with all the power of illustration drawn from the language of the divin

est of philosophers. We know of no profane writer who, in this way, might be so useful to the preacher as Plato, and no one whom we would so earnestly recommend to all young men who are aiming at the Christian ministry. Let them not read Plato to understand the Bible—although, even with this in view, they would receive no small assistance-but let them read the Bible in close connexion with our philosopher, and they will understand Plato better than he ever understood himself.

LXI.

Mythical Sense of the Word Θάνατος.

PAGE 62, LINE 4. ἔν τε ζωῇ καὶ ἐν πᾶσι θανάτοις. This evidently refers to the deaths of one individual, and not of many. But why, then, the plural? We think Plato keeps in mind here his doctrine of the transition of the soul, or its μeтeμvxwσeç, into various states, either in an ascending or a descending series; the passage from one to the other of which he styles a death and a birth. See the Phædon, 114, B., also 70, C. : παλαιὸς μὲν οὖν ἐστί τις ὁ λόγος, ὡς εἰσὶν ἐνθένδε ἀφικόμεναι ἐκεῖ, καὶ πάλιν γε δεύρο ἀφικνοῦνται, καὶ γίγνονται ἐκ τῶν τεθνεώτων— It is an ancient tradition that souls go there from hence, and again return hither and arise from the dead." Compare, also, what is said respecting the purgations and metempsychoses of the soul, in the remarkable myth at the end of the Republic. Thus, also, in the Gorgias, 493, A., he speaks of the present life as though, when compared with some preceding state, it might in reality be a death, to which, for reasons arising out of some former relations, we may have been doomed. "As you say," continues Socrates, "life is an awful thing (dɛɩvòs ỏ ßíos), and I should not wonder if Euripides spoke the truth when he said,

Τίς δ ̓ οἶδεν, εἰ τὸ ζῆν μέν ἐστι κατθανεῖν,
τὸ κατθανεῖν δὲ ζῇν ;

Who knows but life is death, and death is life? And perhaps we are now dead, as I have heard of the wise, and that the body is our monument (oñua) or sepulchre in which the soul is buried."

The context of this strange declaration in the Gorgias affords strong reasons for believing, that it may have been spoken mystically and mythically of that spiritual death which is so prominent a subject of the Scriptures. In this most exquisite analysis of the nature of physical pleasure, and its utter want of all claim to be considered The Good, the sensualist is regarded as "dead while he lives." His soul is said to be rotten and leaky, like a perforated cask (ὡς πίθος τετρημένος). His pleasure is described as a continual inflowing to supply a constant outflowing; a “broken cistern," requiring a constant and laborious filling, in distinction from that spring which Socrates represents as ever full, and which so strongly suggests our Saviour's well of living water, bubbling up to everlasting life." In this description, physical pleasure is regarded as a protracted dying, because it can only exist as the gratifying of an ever-craving want, the removal of an ever-tormenting pain, the vain attempt to quench an ever-burning thirst, or to fill an ever-empty void. In the language of the sensualist himself: ἐν τούτῳ ἐστὶ τὸ ἡδέως ζῇν, ἐν τῷ ὡς πλεῖσ. τον ἐπιῤῥεῖν—καὶ διψήν γε καὶ διψῶντα πίνειν— In this is pleasure, namely, to have the greatest inflowing (as into a vacuum), to drink while ever thirsting, and ever to thirst while drinking." See the whole passage, from 492, D., to 495, A. In the declaration in our text, Plato probably uses dávatos in the first of these interpretations. Ast renders it quolibet mortis genere.

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