making Virtue herself appear almost "too bright and good for human nature's daily food;" too lofty and afar for the common man to attain; a mere abstraction to be preserved as a field appropriate to the gymnastics of metaphysicians, and to be shielded from the harsh contact of the common world and common men by the chevaux de frise of dialectical subtlety. Excess of Reason in Plato has produced a similar result to that produced by excess of Emotion in modern Religion, and it is not without Justice that a great writer of the nineteenth century has described Plato as "putting men off with stars instead of sense," and as teaching them to be anything but "practical men, honest men, continent men, unambitious men, fearful to solicit a trust, slow to accept, and resolute never to betray one."[1] The accessibility of Virtue to the common heart is conditioned in Plato's system by its intelligibility to the common reason. The dialectic processes by which the Ideas of the Good, the True, the Beautiful are pursued are merely repellent to the average man, who does not care for Metaphysics, but wishes to be good and pure and just in his dealings with his fellow-men.[2] "Plato acknowledges that the morality of the*
- ↑ W. S. Landor: Diogenes and Plato (Imaginary Conversations).—"Draw thy robe around thee; let the folds fall gracefully, and look majestic. That sentence is an admirable one, but not for me. I want sense, not stars." Cf. Dr. Martineau: Plato (Types of Ethical Theory).—"The perfection which consists in contemplation of the absolute, or the attempt to copy it, may be the consummation of Reason, but not of character."
- ↑ Cf. Landor: loc. cit.—"The bird of wisdom flies low, and seeks her food under hedges; the eagle himself would be starved if he
