knowledge? Once
more, in speaking of beauty is he really thinking of some external form
such as might have been expressed in the works of Phidias or Praxiteles;
and not rather of an imaginary beauty, of a sort which extinguishes
rather than stimulates vulgar love,--a heavenly beauty like that which
flashed from time to time before the eyes of Dante or Bunyan? Surely
the latter. But it would be idle to reconcile all the details of the
passage: it is a picture, not a system, and a picture which is for the
greater part an allegory, and an allegory which allows the meaning to
come through. The image of the charioteer and his steeds is placed side
by side with the absolute forms of justice, temperance, and the like,
which are abstract ideas only, and which are seen with the eye of the
soul in her heavenly journey. The first impression of such a passage, in
which no attempt is made to separate the substance from the form, is far
truer than an elaborate philosophical analysis.

It is too often forgotten that the whole of the second discourse of
Socrates is only an allegory, or figure of speech. For this reason, it
is unnecessary to enquire whether the love of which Plato speaks is
the love of men or of women. It is really a general idea which includes
both, and in which the sensual element, though not wholly eradicated, is
reduced to order and measure. We must not attribute a meaning to
every fanciful detail. Nor is there any need to call up revolting
associations, which as a matter of good taste should be banished, and
which were far enough away from the mind of Plato. These and similar
passages should be interpreted by the Laws. Nor is there anything in the
Symposium, or in the Charmides, in reality inconsistent with the sterner
rule which Plato lays down in the Laws. At the same time it is not to be
denied that love and philosophy are described by Socrates in figures
of speech which would not be used in Christian times; or that nameless
vices were prevalent at Athens and in other Greek cities; or that
friendships between men were a more sacred tie, and had a more important
social and educational influence than among ourselves. (See note on
Symposium.)

In the Phaedrus, as well as in the Symposium, there are two kinds of
love, a lower and a higher, the one answering to the natural wants of
the animal, the other rising above them and contemplating with religious
awe the forms of justice, temperance, holiness, yet finding th