have an element of limitation. Sense or passion are too much for the 'dry
light' of intelligence which mingles with them and becomes discoloured by
them. Imagination is often at war with reason and fact. The concentration
of the mind on a single object, or on a single aspect of human nature,
overpowers the orderly perception of the whole. Yet the feelings too bring
truths home to the minds of many who in the way of reason would be
incapable of understanding them. Reflections of this kind may have been
passing before Plato's mind when he describes the poet as inspired, or
when, as in the Apology, he speaks of poets as the worst critics of their
own writings--anybody taken at random from the crowd is a better
interpreter of them than they are of themselves. They are sacred persons,
'winged and holy things' who have a touch of madness in their composition
(Phaedr.), and should be treated with every sort of respect (Republic), but
not allowed to live in a well-ordered state. Like the Statesmen in the
Meno, they have a divine instinct, but they are narrow and confused; they
do not attain to the clearness of ideas, or to the knowledge of poetry or
of any other art as a whole.

In the Protagoras the ancient poets are recognized by Protagoras himself as
the original sophists; and this family resemblance may be traced in the
Ion. The rhapsode belongs to the realm of imitation and of opinion: he
professes to have all knowledge, which is derived by him from Homer, just
as the sophist professes to have all wisdom, which is contained in his art
of rhetoric. Even more than the sophist he is incapable of appreciating
the commonest logical distinctions; he cannot explain the nature of his own
art; his great memory contrasts with his inability to follow the steps of
the argument. And in his highest moments of inspiration he has an eye to
his own gains.

The old quarrel between philosophy and poetry, which in the Republic leads