inity of the Godhead is limited by the
boundary of the flesh, as though by a vessel? For not even during our
lifetime is the spiritual nature confined within the boundaries of the
flesh. The mass of the body, it is true, is limited by neighbouring
parts, but the soul reaches out freely into the whole of creation by
the movements of thought."

The soul is not the personality, the soul belongs to infinity. From
such a point of view the Pythagoreans must have considered that only
fools could imagine the soul-force to be exhausted with the
personality.

For them, too, as for Heraclitus, the essential point was the
awakening of the eternal in the personal. Knowledge for them meant
intercourse with the eternal. The more man brought the eternal element
within him into existence, the greater must he necessarily seem to
the Pythagoreans. Life in their community consisted in holding
intercourse with the eternal. The object of the Pythagorean education
was to lead the members of the community to that intercourse. The
education was therefore a philosophical initiation, and the
Pythagoreans might well say that by their manner of life they were
aiming at a goal similar to that of the cults of the Mysteries.

IV

PLATO AS A MYSTIC

The importance of the Mysteries to the spiritual life of the Greeks
may be realised from Plato's conception of the universe. There is only
one way of understanding him thoroughly. It is to place him in the
light which streams forth from the Mysteries.

Plato's later disciples, the Neo-Platonists, credit him with a secret
doctrine which he imparted only to those who were worthy, and which he
conveyed under the "seal of secrecy." His teaching was looked upon as
mysterious in the same sense as the wisdom of the Mysteries. Even if
the seventh Platonic letter is not from his hand, as is alleged, it
does not signify for our present purpose, for it does not matter
whether it was he or another who gave utterance to the view expressed
in this letter. This view is of the essence of Plato's philosophy. In
the letter we read as follows: "This much I may say about all those
who have written or may hereafter write as if they knew the aim of my
work,--that no credence is to be attached to their words, whether they
obtained their information from me, or from others, or invented it
themselves. I have written nothing on this subject, nor would anything
be allowed to appear. This kind of thing cannot be expres