the service of God, which is the more disinterested, be in like manner the
higher? And although only a very few in the course of the world's history
--Christ himself being one of them--have attained to such a noble
conception of God and of the human soul, yet the ideal of them may be
present to us, and the remembrance of them be an example to us, and their
lives may shed a light on many dark places both of philosophy and theology.

THE MYTHS OF PLATO.

The myths of Plato are a phenomenon unique in literature. There are four
longer ones: these occur in the Phaedrus, Phaedo, Gorgias, and Republic.
That in the Republic is the most elaborate and finished of them. Three of
these greater myths, namely those contained in the Phaedo, the Gorgias and
the Republic, relate to the destiny of human souls in a future life. The
magnificent myth in the Phaedrus treats of the immortality, or rather the
eternity of the soul, in which is included a former as well as a future
state of existence. To these may be added, (1) the myth, or rather fable,
occurring in the Statesman, in which the life of innocence is contrasted
with the ordinary life of man and the consciousness of evil: (2) the
legend of the Island of Atlantis, an imaginary history, which is a fragment
only, commenced in the Timaeus and continued in the Critias: (3) the much
less artistic fiction of the foundation of the Cretan colony which is
introduced in the preface to the Laws, but soon falls into the background:
(4) the beautiful but rather artificial tale of Prometheus and Epimetheus
narrated in his rhetorical manner by Protagoras in the dialogue called
after him: (5) the speech at the beginning of the Phaedrus, which is a
parody of the orator Lysias; the rival speech of Socrates and the
recantation of it. To these may be added (6) the tale of the grasshoppers,
and (7) the tale of Thamus and of Theuth, both in the Phaedrus: (8) the
parable of the Cave (Republic), in which the previous argument is