. He who under
the influence of true love rising upward from these begins to see that
beauty, is not far from the end. And the true order of going or being
led by another to the things of love, is to use the beauties of earth
as steps along which he mounts upwards for the sake of that other
beauty, going from one to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from
fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions,
until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty,
and at last knows what the essence of beauty is. This, my dear
Socrates," said the stranger of Mantineia, "is that life above all
others which a man should live, in the contemplation of beauty
absolute; a beauty which if you once beheld, you would see not to be
after the measure of gold, and garments, and fair boys and youths,
whose presence now entrances you; and you and many a one would be
content to live seeing only and conversing with them without meat or
drink, {142} if that were possible--you only want to be with them and
to look at them. But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty--the
divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with
the pollutions of mortality, and all the colours and vanities of human
life--thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty divine
and simple? Do you not see that in that communion only, beholding
beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not
images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of
a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the
friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may. Would that be an
ignoble life?" (Jowett, _Plato_, vol. ii. p. 58).

Closely connected in subject with the _Symposium_ is the _Phaedrus_.
As Professor Jowett observes: "The two dialogues together contain the
whole philosophy of Plato on the nature of love, which in _The
Republic_ and in the later writings of Plato is only introduced
playfully or as a figure of speech. But in the _Phaedrus_ and
_Symposium_ love and philosophy join hands, and one is an aspect of the
other. The spiritual and emotional is elevated into the ideal, to
which in the _Symposium_ mankind are described as looking forward, and
which in the _Phaedrus_, as well as in the _Phaedo_, they are seeking
to recover from a former state of existence."

We are here introduced to one of the most famous conceptions of Plato,
that