.) Or is he serious in holding that each soul bears
the character of a god? He may have had no other account to give of
the differences of human characters to which he afterwards refers. Or,
again, in his absurd derivation of mantike and oionistike and imeros
(compare Cratylus)? It is characteristic of the irony of Socrates to
mix up sense and nonsense in such a way that no exact line can be drawn
between them. And allegory helps to increase this sort of confusion.

As is often the case in the parables and prophecies of Scripture, the
meaning is allowed to break through the figure, and the details are not
always consistent. When the charioteers and their steeds stand upon the
dome of heaven they behold the intangible invisible essences which
are not objects of sight. This is because the force of language can
no further go. Nor can we dwell much on the circumstance, that at the
completion of ten thousand years all are to return to the place from
whence they came; because he represents their return as dependent on
their own good conduct in the successive stages of existence. Nor again
can we attribute anything to the accidental inference which would also
follow, that even a tyrant may live righteously in the condition of life
to which fate has called him ('he aiblins might, I dinna ken'). But
to suppose this would be at variance with Plato himself and with Greek
notions generally. He is much more serious in distinguishing men from
animals by their recognition of the universal which they have known in
a former state, and in denying that this gift of reason can ever be
obliterated or lost. In the language of some modern theologians he might
be said to maintain the 'final perseverance' of those who have entered
on their pilgrim's progress. Other intimations of a 'metaphysic' or
'theology' of the future may also be discerned in him: (1) The moderate
predestinarianism which here, as in the Republic, acknowledges the
element of chance in human life, and yet asserts the freedom and
responsibility of man; (2) The recognition of a moral as well as an
intellectual principle in man under the image of an immortal steed; (3)
The notion that the divine nature exists by the contemplation of
ideas of virtue and justice--or, in other words, the assertion of the
essentially moral nature of God; (4) Again, there is the hint that human
life is a life of aspiration only, and that the true ideal is not to
be found in art; (5) There occurs the f