g systems of theory are much more like village
lamp-posts than they are like the sun, that they were made to light up a
particular path, obviate certain dangers, and aid a peculiar mode of
life. The understanding of the place of theory in life is a comparatively
new one. We are just beginning to see how creeds are made. And the
insight is enormously fertile. Thus Mr. Alfred Zimmern in his fine study
of "The Greek Commonwealth" says of Plato and Aristotle that no
interpretation can be satisfactory which does not take into account the
impression left upon their minds by the social development which made the
age of these philosophers a period of Athenian decline. Mr. Zimmern's
approach is common enough in modern scholarship, but the full
significance of it for the creeds we ourselves are making is still
something of a novelty. When we are asked to think of the "Republic" as
the reaction of decadent Greece upon the conservative temperament of
Plato, the function of theory is given a new illumination. Political
philosophy at once appears as a human invention in a particular
crisis--an instrument to fit a need. The pretension to finality falls
away.

This is a great emancipation. Instead of clinging to the naive belief
that Plato was legislating for all mankind, you can discuss his plans as
a temporary superstructure made for an historical purpose. You are free
then to appreciate the more enduring portions of his work, to understand
Santayana when he says of the Platonists, "their theories are so
extravagant, yet their wisdom seems so great. Platonism is a very refined
and beautiful expression of our natural instincts, it embodies conscience
and utters our inmost hopes." This insight into the values of human life,
partial though it be, is what constitutes the abiding monument of Plato's
genius. His constructions, his formal creeds, his law-making and social
arrangements are local and temporary--for us they can have only an
antiquarian interest.

In some such way as this the sophomoric riddle is answered: no thinker
can lay down a course of action for all mankind--programs if they are
useful at all are useful for some particular historical period. But if
the thinker sees at all deeply into the life of his own time, his
theoretical system will rest upon observation of human nature. That
remains as a residue of wisdom long after his reasoning and his concrete
program have passed into limbo. For human nature in all its profounde