and future
states of existence. His language may be compared to that of some modern
philosophers, who speak of eternity, not in the sense of perpetual
duration of time, but as an ever-present quality of the soul. Yet at
the conclusion of the Dialogue, having 'arrived at the end of the
intellectual world' (Republic), he replaces the veil of mythology,
and describes the soul and her attendant genius in the language of the
mysteries or of a disciple of Zoroaster. Nor can we fairly demand of
Plato a consistency which is wanting among ourselves, who acknowledge
that another world is beyond the range of human thought, and yet are
always seeking to represent the mansions of heaven or hell in
the colours of the painter, or in the descriptions of the poet or
rhetorician.

15. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul was not new to the
Greeks in the age of Socrates, but, like the unity of God, had a
foundation in the popular belief. The old Homeric notion of a gibbering
ghost flitting away to Hades; or of a few illustrious heroes enjoying
the isles of the blest; or of an existence divided between the two; or
the Hesiodic, of righteous spirits, who become guardian angels,--had
given place in the mysteries and the Orphic poets to representations,
partly fanciful, of a future state of rewards and punishments. (Laws.)
The reticence of the Greeks on public occasions and in some part of
their literature respecting this 'underground' religion, is not to be
taken as a measure of the diffusion of such beliefs. If Pericles in the
funeral oration is silent on the consolations of immortality, the
poet Pindar and the tragedians on the other hand constantly assume the
continued existence of the dead in an upper or under world. Darius
and Laius are still alive; Antigone will be dear to her brethren after
death; the way to the palace of Cronos is found by those who 'have
thrice departed from evil.' The tragedy of the Greeks is not 'rounded'
by this life, but is deeply set in decrees of fate and mysterious
workings of powers beneath the earth. In the caricature of Aristophanes
there is also a witness to the common sentiment. The Ionian and
Pythagorean philosophies arose, and some new elements were added to the
popular belief. The individual must find an expression as well as the
world. Either the soul was supposed to exist in the form of a magnet, or
of a particle of fire, or of light, or air, or water; or of a number or
of a harmony of numb