ication. It is evident how Plato feels himself in harmony with
the Mysteries! He only thinks he is on the right path when it is
taking him where the Mystic is to be led. He thus expresses himself on
the subject in the Timaeus. "All those who are of right mind invoke the
gods for their small or great enterprises; but we who are engaged in
teaching about the universe,--how far it is created and
uncreated,--have the special duty, if we have not quite lost our way,
to call upon and implore the gods and goddesses that we may teach
everything first in conformity with their spirit, and next in harmony
with ourselves." And Plato promises those who follow this path, that
divinity, as a deliverer, will grant them illuminating teaching as the
conclusion of their devious and wandering researches.

* * * * *

It is especially the _Timaeus_ that reveals to us how the Platonic
cosmogony is connected with the Mysteries. At the very beginning of
this dialogue there is mention of an initiation. Solon is initiated by
an Egyptian priest into the formation of the worlds, and the way in
which eternal truths are symbolically expressed in traditional myths.
"There have already been many and various destructions of part of the
human race," says the Egyptian priest to Solon, "and there will be
more in the future; the most extensive by fire and water, other lesser
ones through countless other causes. It is also related in your
country that Phaethon, the son of Helios, once mounted his father's
chariot, and as he did not know how to drive it, everything on the
earth was burnt up, and he himself slain by lightning. This sounds
like a fable, but it contains the truth of the change in the movements
of the celestial bodies revolving round the earth and of the
annihilation of everything on the earth by much fire. This
annihilation happens periodically, after the lapse of certain long
periods of time." This passage in the _Timaeus_ contains a plain
indication of the attitude of the initiate towards folk-myths. He
recognises the truths hidden in their images.

The drama of the formation of the world is brought before us in the
_Timaeus_. Any one who will follow up the traces which lead to this
formation of the cosmos arrives at a dim apprehension of the
primordial force from which all things proceeded. "Now it is difficult
to find the Creator and Father of the universe, and when we have found
Him, it is impossible to spe