ve that,
although explained in the terms of fantastic, almost mythical
metaphysic, the speech of Diotima contains a great truth, deposited in
the heart of man by the unnoticed innumerable experiences of centuries
and peoples; a truth which exists in ourselves also as an instinctive
expectation, and which the advance of knowledge will confirm and
explain. For in that pellucid atmosphere of the Greek mind, untroubled
as yet by theoretic mists, there may have been visible the very things
which our scientific instruments are enabling us to see and
reconstruct piecemeal, great groupings of reality metamorphosed into
Fata Morgana cities seemingly built by the gods.

And thus I am going to try to reinstate in others' belief, as it is
fully reinstated in my own, the theory of higher aesthetic harmonies,
which the prophetess of Mantineia taught Socrates: to wit, that
through the contemplation of true beauty we may attain, by the
constant purification--or, in more modern language, the constant
selecting and enriching--of our nature, to that which transcends
material beauty; because the desire for harmony begets the habit of
harmony, and the habit thereof begets its imperative desire, and thus
on in never-ending alternation.

II.

Perhaps the best way of expounding my reasons will be to follow the
process by which I reached them; for so far from having started with
the theory of Diotima, I found the theory of Diotima, when I re-read
it accidentally after many years' forgetfulness, to bring to
convergence the result of my gradual experience.

* * * * *

Thinking about the Hermes of Olympia, and the fact that so far he is
pretty well the only Greek statue which historical evidence
unhesitatingly gives us as an original masterpiece, it struck me that,
could one become really familiar with him, could eye and soul learn
all the fulness of his perfection, we should have the true
starting-point for knowledge of the antique, for knowledge, in great
measure, of all art.

Yes, and of more than art, or rather of art in more than one relation.

Is this a superstition, a mere myth, perhaps, born of words? I think
not. Surely if we could really arrive at knowing such a masterpiece,
so as to feel rather than see its most intimate organic principles,
and the great main reasons separating it from all inferior works and
making it be itself: could we do this, we should know not merely what
art is and should