rt then must be true,
and politics must be true, and the life of man must be true and not a
seeming or sham. In all of them order has to be brought out of disorder,
truth out of error and falsehood. This is what we mean by the greatest
improvement of man. And so, having considered in what way 'we can best
spend the appointed time, we leave the result with God.' Plato does not
say that God will order all things for the best (compare Phaedo), but
he indirectly implies that the evils of this life will be corrected
in another. And as we are very far from the best imaginable world at
present, Plato here, as in the Phaedo and Republic, supposes a purgatory
or place of education for mankind in general, and for a very few a
Tartarus or hell. The myth which terminates the dialogue is not the
revelation, but rather, like all similar descriptions, whether in the
Bible or Plato, the veil of another life. For no visible thing can
reveal the invisible. Of this Plato, unlike some commentators on
Scripture, is fully aware. Neither will he dogmatize about the manner
in which we are 'born again' (Republic). Only he is prepared to maintain
the ultimate triumph of truth and right, and declares that no one, not
even the wisest of the Greeks, can affirm any other doctrine without
being ridiculous.

There is a further paradox of ethics, in which pleasure and pain are
held to be indifferent, and virtue at the time of action and without
regard to consequences is happiness. From this elevation or exaggeration
of feeling Plato seems to shrink: he leaves it to the Stoics in a later
generation to maintain that when impaled or on the rack the philosopher
may be happy (compare Republic). It is observable that in the Republic
he raises this question, but it is not really discussed; the veil of the
ideal state, the shadow of another life, are allowed to descend upon it
and it passes out of sight. The martyr or sufferer in the cause of right
or truth is often supposed to die in raptures, having his eye fixed on a
city which is in heaven. But if there were no future, might he not still
be happy in the performance of an action which was attended only by a
painful death? He himself may be ready to thank God that he was thought
worthy to do Him the least service, without looking for a reward; the
joys of another life may not have been present to his mind at all. Do
we suppose that the mediaeval saint, St. Bernard, St. Francis, St.
Catharine of Sienna, or th