what they
did; a philosopher that drained the cup without even asking that it
pass from him; a mere reformer, though dangerous perhaps as every
reformer worth the name must be; but, otherwise, a mere man like any
other, only a little better, could obviously have had no share. For
reasons not minor but major, Plato could have had none either.

It is related that a Roman invader sank back, stricken with
_deisidaimonia_--the awe that the gods inspired--at the sight of the
Pheidian Zeus. It is with a wonder not cognate certainly, yet in a
measure relative, that one considers what Socrates must have been if
millennia have gone without producing one mind approaching that of his
spiritual heir. It was uranian; but not disassociated from human
things.

Plato, like his master, was but a man in whom the ideal was intuitive,
perhaps the infernal also. In the gardens of the Academe and along the
banks of the Ilissus, he announced a Last Judgment. The announcement,
contained in the _Phaedo_, had for supplement a picture that may have
been Persian, of the righteous ascending to heaven and the wicked
descending to hell. In the _Laws_, the picture was annotated with a
statement to the effect that whatever a man may do, there is an eye
that sees him, a memory that registers and retains. In the _Republic_
he declared that afflictions are blessings in disguise. But his
"Republic," a utopian commonwealth, was not, he said, of this world,
adding in the _Phaedo_, that few are chosen though many are called.

The mystery of the catholicism of the Incas, reported back to the Holy
Office, was there defined as an artifice of the devil. With finer
circumspection, Christian Fathers attributed the denser mystery of
Greek philosophy to the inspiration of God.

Certainly it is ample. As exemplified by Plato it has, though, its
limitations. There is no charity in it. Plato preached humility, but
there is none in his sermons. His thought is a winged thing, as the
thought of a poet ever should be. But in the expression of it he seems
smiling, disdainful, indifferent as a statue to the poverties of the
heart. That too, perhaps, is as it should be. The high muse wears a
radiant peplum. Anxiety is banished from the minds that she haunts.
Then, also, if, in the nectar of Plato's speech, compassion is not an
ingredient, it may be because, in his violet-crowned city, it was
strewn open-handed through the beautiful streets. There, public
malediction was vi