between the religion of the educated and uneducated
among ourselves. The Zeus of Homer and Hesiod easily passed into
the 'royal mind' of Plato (Philebus); the giant Heracles became the
knight-errant and benefactor of mankind. These and still more wonderful
transformations were readily effected by the ingenuity of Stoics and
neo-Platonists in the two or three centuries before and after Christ.
The Greek and Roman religions were gradually permeated by the spirit of
philosophy; having lost their ancient meaning, they were resolved into
poetry and morality; and probably were never purer than at the time of
their decay, when their influence over the world was waning.

A singular conception which occurs towards the end of the book is
the lie in the soul; this is connected with the Platonic and Socratic
doctrine that involuntary ignorance is worse than voluntary. The lie
in the soul is a true lie, the corruption of the highest truth, the
deception of the highest part of the soul, from which he who is deceived
has no power of delivering himself. For example, to represent God
as false or immoral, or, according to Plato, as deluding men with
appearances or as the author of evil; or again, to affirm with
Protagoras that 'knowledge is sensation,' or that 'being is becoming,'
or with Thrasymachus 'that might is right,' would have been regarded by
Plato as a lie of this hateful sort. The greatest unconsciousness of the
greatest untruth, e.g. if, in the language of the Gospels (John), 'he
who was blind' were to say 'I see,' is another aspect of the state
of mind which Plato is describing. The lie in the soul may be further
compared with the sin against the Holy Ghost (Luke), allowing for the
difference between Greek and Christian modes of speaking. To this is
opposed the lie in words, which is only such a deception as may occur
in a play or poem, or allegory or figure of speech, or in any sort of
accommodation,--which though useless to the gods may be useful to men
in certain cases. Socrates is here answering the question which he had
himself raised about the propriety of deceiving a madman; and he is also
contrasting the nature of God and man. For God is Truth, but mankind can
only be true by appearing sometimes to be partial, or false. Reserving
for another place the greater questions of religion or education, we
may note further, (1) the approval of the old traditional education
of Greece; (2) the preparation which Plato is making