sks, one stored with evil, one with good,'

And that he for whom the Thunderer mingles both

'He leads a life checker'd with good and ill.'

[Footnote 951: "Sup.," l. 214.]

[Footnote 952: "Eum.," l. 970.]

[Footnote 953: Ibid., l. 616.]

[Footnote 954: Ibid., l. 664, 737.]

[Footnote 955: Tyler's "Theology of the Greek Poets," especially ch. v.,
from which the above materials are drawn.]

[Footnote 956: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xviii.]

[Footnote 957: "Iliad," xxiv., l. 660.]

Nor can we let our young people know that, in the words of AEschylus--

"'When to destruction God will plague a house
He plants among the members guilt and sin.'"[958]

Whatever in the writings of Homer and the tragic poets give countenance
to the notion that God is, in the remotest sense the author of sin, must
be expunged. Here is clearly a great advance in ethical conceptions.

The great defect in the ethical system of Plato was the identification
of evil with the inferior or corporeal nature of man--"the irascible and
concupiscible elements," fashioned by the junior divinities. The
rational and immortal part of man's nature, which is derived immediately
from God--the Supreme Good, naturally chooses the good as its supreme
end and destination. Hence he adopted the Socratic maxim "that no man is
willingly evil," that is, no man deliberately chooses evil as evil, but
only as a _seeming_ good--he does not choose evil as an end, though he
may choose it voluntarily as a means. Plato manifests great solicitude
to guard this maxim from misconception and abuse. Man has, in his
judgment, the power to act in harmony with his higher reason, or
contrary to reason; to obey the voice of conscience or the clamors of
passion, and consequently he is the object of praise or blame, reward or
punishment. "When a man does not consider himself, but others, as the
cause of his own sins,.... and even seeks to excuse himself from blame,
he dishonors and injures his own soul; so, also, when contrary to
reason.... he indulges in pleasure, he dishonors it by filling it with
vice and remorse."[959] The work and effort of life, the end of this
probationary economy, is to make reason triumphant over passion, and
discipline ourselves to a purer and nobler life.

[Footnote 958: "Republic," bk. ii. ch, xviii., xix.]

[Footnote 959: "Laws," bk. v. ch. i.]

The obstacles to a virtuous life are, however, confessedly numberless,
and, humanly spea