of the sun. At length the antagonism between the popular and philosophical
religion, never so great among the Greeks as in our own age, disappeared,
and was only felt like the difference 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