s that the combination of poet and philosopher in one man is
an exceedingly dangerous combination. I have explained before that the
object of philosophy is, not merely to feel the truth, as the poet and
mystic feel it, but intellectually to comprehend it, not merely to
give us a series of pictures and metaphors, but a reasoned explanation
of things upon scientific principles. When a man, who is at once a
poet and a philosopher, cannot rationally explain a thing, it is a
terrible temptation to him to substitute poetic metaphors for the
explanation which is lacking. We saw, for example, that the writers of
the Upanishads, who believed that the whole world issues forth from
the one, absolute, imperishable, being, which they called Brahman,
being unable to explain why the One thus differentiates itself into
the many, took refuge in metaphors. As the sparks from the substantial
fire, so, they say, do all finite beings issue forth from the One. But
this explains nothing, and the aim of the philosopher is not thus
vaguely to feel, but rationally to understand. Now this is not merely
my view of the functions of philosophy. It is emphatically Plato's own
view. In fact Plato was the originator of it. He is perpetually
insisting that {171} nothing save full rational comprehension deserves
the names of knowledge and philosophy. No writer has ever used such
contemptuous language as Plato used of the mere mystic and poet, who
says wise and beautiful things, without in the least understanding why
they are wise and beautiful. No man has formed such a low estimate of
the functions of the poet and mystic. Plato is, in theory at least,
the prince of rationalists and intellectualists. In practice, however,
he must be convicted of the very fault he so severely censured in
others. This, in fact, is the explanation of most of the Platonic
myths. Wherever Plato is unable to explain anything, he covers up the
gap in his system with a myth. This is particularly noticeable, for
example, in the "Timaeus." Plato having, in other dialogues, developed
his theory of the nature of the ultimate reality, arrives, in the
"Timaeus," at the problem how the actual world is to be explained from
that ultimate reality. At this point, as we shall see, Plato's system
breaks down. His account of the absolute reality is defective, and in
consequence, it affords no principle whereby the actual universe can
be explained. In the "Timaeus," therefore, instead of a reason