prolific animals generally do not die off fast enough to become extinct. And yet Afterthought takes credit to himself for all this! In such cases there is really no design-no Forethought, -merely the inevitable consequence of blind natural law; and it is only foolish Afterthought who pretends that there is design-Afterthought who always begins to reflect after the fait accompli, Afterthought the Father, as Pindar says, of Pretence—τὴν Ἐπιμαθέος . . . ὀψινόου θυγατέρα Πρόφασιν. But the pretence of Epimetheus is found out. He has nothing left wherewith to equip Man. He can seem to "design" only where mechanism really does the workreally produces the results which he pretends to produce by his "design." The various modes of structure and habit by which the lower animals correspond with their various environments (and the summary list of these modes given in the Myth shows that Plato has the eye of the true naturalist) the various modes of animal correspondence-are indeed best accounted for mechanically, without any Epimethean pretence of teleology. But when we pass from the ἀναγκαῖον of mere animal survival to the καλόν of human civilisation, we pass, Plato in this Myth seems to tell us, into another order of things. The mere survival of animals is not such a great thing that we must think of it as caused by Prometheus-as designed in the true sense; but the civilised life of Man is too beautiful and good a thing not to be designed in the true sense-not to be an end consciously aimed at by the Creator, who uses as his means the Art which Prometheus gave to a few, and the Virtue which Hermes placed within the reach of all. In short, Plato seems to say in this Myth that a teleological explanation of Man's Place in the Cosmos is indispensable. But let us note that the teleological explanation which he offers is conveyed in Myth. Plato's attitude here towards teleology is not different from Kant's, if allowance be made for the difference between the mythical and the critical ways of expression. "Though not for the Determinant, yet for the Reflective Judgment," says Kant,2 "we have sufficient ground 1 Pindar, Pyth. v. 34. 2 Bernard's Transl. of the Crit. of Judgment p. 35. Q for judging man to be, not merely, like all organised beings, a natural purpose, but also the ultimate purpose of nature here on earth." It need hardly be said that the assumption or working hypothesis which Kant here makes on behalf of Man does not stand alone. If oaks could speak, they would say that the Oak is "the ultimate purpose of nature here on earth." III My next observation is on the account given of the origin of Virtue-ȧpern-in the Protagoras Myth. 2 The gift of Epimetheus is púois-bodily structure and function, with the instincts and habits thereon dependent, whereby the lower animals correspond accurately, but blindly, with a narrow immediate environment; the gift of Prometheus to Man, whose mere púσis is not adequate to the wider environment into which his destiny advances him, is Art, Téxvn, which, though imparted to few, benefits the whole race by completing puois, to borrow the phrase in which Aristotle expresses the close relation existing between Nature and Art, þúσis and тéxvn. Plato, too, wishes us to look at the relation as a close one; for in the Myth Prometheus takes up his brother's unfinished work. But ἀρετή -morality (as distinguished, on the one hand, from þúσis— natural constitution-the gift of Epimetheus to animals, and, on the other hand, from Téxvn-aquired skill in some department-the gift of Prometheus to a few men)-ȧperý, as distinguished from púσis and réxvn, is distributed by Hermes to all men. All men have implanted in them what may be called an original moral sense," which education appeals to and awakens. All men are capable of morality as they are capable of speech. Virtue is "learnt" as one's mother tongue is learnt, without any special instruction like that through which some particular art or craft is acquired by a person specially capable of acquiring it. Here the resemblance and difference between Virtue and Art-a subject approached by 1 "An organised product of nature (a natural purpose) is one in which every part is reciprocally purpose (end) and means." Bernard's Transl. of Crit. of Judgment, p. 280; cf. Watson's Selections from Kant, p. 345. Phys. ii. 8, 199 & 15 : ὅλως δὲ ἡ τέχνη τὰ μὲν ἐπιτελεῖ ἃ ἡ φύσις ἀδυνατεῖ ἀπεργάσασθαι, τὰ δὲ μιμεῖται. Plato from many sides-is viewed from yet another side, in Myth, and, therefore, we may take it, with deep insight into its metaphysical import. Art, though it is the gift of Prometheus, and distinguishes Man, as working for consciously realised future ends, from the brutes, which, at most, live in a dream of the present, is still only "a completion of nature," and Man does not yet live the true life of Man under the régime of Prometheus. The gift of Prometheus, indeed, came from Heaven, but it was stolen. The Godlike intelligence of Man employs itself in the pursuit of objects which, though really means under the providence of the Creator to the ultimate realisation of the true human life, are not yet regarded by Man himself as more than means to the convenient life of the dominant animal on earth. Man, having received the stolen gift, conquers the lower animals; yet still homo homini lupus. But the gift which makes him see, with the eye of justice and respect, his fellow-man as an End along with himself in a Kingdom of Ends-this gift was not stolen, but is of the Grace of God. It is given to all men, or at least is a ?/^eppatov which all may hope in the course of life to find; and it is given in greater measure to some men than to others. Great teachers of the moral ideal arise, like great poets, specially inspired; and their power, whether manifested in the silent example of their lives, or in the prophetic utterance of Myth, is felt in its effects by all; but the secret of it is incommunicable.1 The gift of aper in greater measure is not, indeed, alluded to in the Protagoras Myth, but it is, after all, merely an eminent instance of the gift as described in that Myth. The gift of ȧperý, whether in less or greater measure, is of the Grace of God. Such a doctrine is properly conveyed in Myth; and the discourse of Protagoras in which it is conveyed is, I submit, a true Myth, because it sets forth the a priori, not, as Schleiermacher and some other critics maintain, a mere Sophistic Apologue or Allegory illustrating and popularising a posteriori data. "As to the myth brought forward by Protagoras," says Schleiermacher,2 « there is no need to number it as some have 1 See Meno, 99, 100. 2 Introduction to the Protagoras, p. 96, Dobson's Transl. d done, good-naturedly raising it to an exalted rank, among those "Not introduced into the minds of men until a later Universal is necessarily (set/forun (as a Thing permanent ye throughout a succession of changes in time It is indeed no matter always to remember that a Myth is a Myth. Not Elyfsend Also Also 2 pre ei at a sarcophagus in the Capitoline Museum on which the mystery of Man's birth and life and death is rendered for the eye in a relief representing, naively enough, the history of the Butterfly-Soul and its Clay Body the handiwork of Prometheus.1 There sits Prometheus with a basket of clay beside him; on his knees a little human figure standing, which he supports with his left hand; while his right hand, holding the modelling stick, is drawn back, its work finished. On the head of the little human figure Athena lightly sets a butterfly. Behind and above, Clotho spins the thread of life, and Lachesis draws the horoscope on a globe of the Heavens. It is morning, for Helios with his chariot and horses is rising on the left hand. Beneath him is seated Gaia with her horn of plenty; near him lies Oceanus with his rudder in his hand; while the Wind-God blows through his shell; and, half hidden among these elemental powers Eros kisses Psyche. Now let us turn from the Morning and Day of the sculptured Myth, and look at its Evening and Night. On the right of the two central figures, Prometheus and Athena, close by Athena with her butterfly, stands Night, a tall draped woman, above whom is Selene in her car, with her veilymaking a crescent behind her in the wind as she rides. At the feet of Night lies a Youth, dead, with his butterfly-soul fluttering near. Death, with down-turned torch, is bending over the corpse, and Fate sits at its head unrolling a scroll on her knee; while the Soul of the Youth, now a little-winged human form,-led by Hermes, is already on its westward way to Hades. This is the front of the sarcophagus; and the two ends include the mystery of the front in a larger mystery. On the one end is Hephaestus at his forge, and the fire is burning which Prometheus stole. On the other end the sin is punished-Prometheus lies bound upon Caucasus, and the vulture sits over him; but Heracles, with his bow bent, is coming to deliver him. The version of the Myth presupposed by the Capitoline artist is plainly Neo-Platonic. (In the Myth as Plato has it in the Protagoras, Prometheus does not make Man. On the Capitoline sarcophagus (No. 446 [13], described by Helbig, Führer durch die öffentl. Sammlungen klass. Alterth. in Rom., vol. i. p. 341; and cf. Mitchell, History of Anc. Sculpture, p. 693), he does; just as, in Plotinus, Enn. iv. 3 13 (quoted p. 238 infra), he-not, as in Hesiod, O. et D. 49 ff., Hephaestus makes Pandora Keets o de to Psyche boya |