line can be drawn between them. And allegory helps to increase this sort
of confusion.

As is often the case in the parables and prophecies of Scripture, the
meaning is allowed to break through the figure, and the details are not
always consistent. When the charioteers and their steeds stand upon the
dome of heaven they behold the intangible invisible essences which are not
objects of sight. This is because the force of language can no further go.
Nor can we dwell much on the circumstance, that at the completion of ten
thousand years all are to return to the place from whence they came;
because he represents their return as dependent on their own good conduct
in the successive stages of existence. Nor again can we attribute anything
to the accidental inference which would also follow, that even a tyrant may
live righteously in the condition of life to which fate has called him ('he
aiblins might, I dinna ken'). But to suppose this would be at variance
with Plato himself and with Greek notions generally. He is much more
serious in distinguishing men from animals by their recognition of the
universal which they have known in a former state, and in denying that this
gift of reason can ever be obliterated or lost. In the language of some
modern theologians he might be said to maintain the 'final perseverance' of
those who have entered on their pilgrim's progress. Other intimations of a
'metaphysic' or 'theology' of the future may also be discerned in him: (1)
The moderate predestinarianism which here, as in the Republic, acknowledges
the element of chance in human life, and yet asserts the freedom and
responsibility of man; (2) The recognition of a moral as well as an
intellectual principle in man under the image of an immortal steed; (3) The
notion that the divine nature exists by the contemplation of ideas of
virtue and justice--or, in other words, the assertion of the essentially
moral nature of God; (4) Again, there is the hint that human life is a life
of aspiration only, and that the true ideal is not to be found in art; (5)