dventurer
was suddenly bereft of his senses, and after a while returned to
the upper air. What he could then remember composed the Divine
revelation which had been communicated to him in his unnatural
state below. Plutarch has given a full account of this experience
from one Timarchus, who had himself passed through it.46 The
substance of it is this. When Timarchus reached the bottom of the
cave, his soul passed from his body, visited the under world of
the departed, saw the sphere of generation where souls were reborn
into the upper world, received some explanation of all these
things: then, returning into the body, he was taken up out of the
cave. Here is no allusion to any traditions of the Deluge or the
ark; but the great purpose is evidently a doctrine of the destiny
of man after death.

Before the eyes and upon the heart of all mankind in every age has
passed in common vision the revolution of the seasons, with its
beautiful and sombre changes, phenomena having a power of
suggestion irresistible to stir some of the most profound
sentiments of the human breast. The day rolls overhead full of
light and life and activity; then the night settles upon the scene
with silent gloom and repose. So man runs his busy round of toil
and pleasure through the day of existence; then, fading, following
the sinking sun, he goes down in death's night to the pallid
populations of shade. Again: the fruitful bloom of summer is
succeeded by the bleak nakedness of winter. So the streams of
enterprise and joy that flowed full and free along their banks in
maturity, overhung by blossoming trees, are shrivelled and frozen
in the channels of age, and above their sepulchral beds the
leafless branches creak in answer to the shrieks of the funereal
blast. The flush of childish gayety, the bloom of youthful
promise, when a new comer is growing up sporting about the hearth
of home, are like the approach of the maiden and starry Spring,
"Who comes sublime, as when, from Pluto free, Came, through the
flash of Zeus, Persephone." And then draw hastily on the long,
lamenting autumnal days, when "Above man's grave the sad winds
wail and rain drops fall, And Nature sheds her leaves in yearly
funeral."

44 Faber, Mysteries of the Cabiri, ch. 10, pp. 331-356. Dion
Chrysostom describes this scene: Oration XII.

45 The Clouds, 1. 507.

46 Essay on the Demon of Socrates. See also Pansanias, lib. ix.
cap. xxxix.

The flowers are gone, the birds ar