OBSERVATIONS ON THE GORGIAS MYTH 1. “Moral Responsibility” is the motif of the Gorgias Myth, as it is of the Phaedo Myth-The Gorgias Myth sets forth, in a Vision of Judgment, Penance, and Purification, the continuity and sameness of the Active, as distinguished from the Passive, Self, the Self as actively developing its native power under the discipline of correction, kólaous, not as being the mere victim of vengeance, Tiuwpla-Death as Philosopher Pages 126-128 2. The mystery of the infinite difference between Vice with Large Opportunity and Vice with Narrow Opportunity 3. Observations on Tablets affixed to the Judged Souls, in the Meadow of 130-132 . 135-151 1. Cosmography and Geography of the Myth . 152-154 2. Dante's Lethe and Eunoè taken in connection with the Orphic Ritual and Mythology, to which Plato is largely indebted for his account of the Soul's káda pois as a Process of Forgetting and Remembering 154-161 3. More about the Cosmography and Geography of the Myth—The Pillar of Light, the Spindle of Necessity, the Model of the Cosmos in the lap 4. The great philosophical question raised and solved in the Myth, How to . 1. Relation of the Politicus Myth to the "Science" of Plato's day 196-197 2. Is Plato “in earnest” in supposing that God, from time to time, withdraws from the government of the World ? 3. Resurrection and Metem psychosis 198-200 suppose the solution of this problem to be furthered by an Aetiological difficulty—The Kalewala quoted to illustrate the function of Aetiological Myth- The Story of the Birth of Iron—Transition from the Politicus Myth to the “Creation Myths" strictly so called, the Protagoras Myth, THE PROTAGORAS MYTH OBSERVATIONS ON THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 1. Is it a "Platonic Myth," or only a “Sophistic Apologue" ?-It is a true Myth, 220-222 2. It sets forth the distinction between the “mechanical" and the “teleo. logical" explanation of the World and its parts—It raises the question discussed in Kant's Critique of Judgment 3. Account given in the Myth of the Origin of Virtue as distinguished from 4. A Sculptured Myth, the Prometheus Sarcophagus in the Capitoline 5. The difference between Myth and Allegory—Sketch of the History of Alle- gorical Interpretation—The interpreters of Homer and of Greek Mythology -Philo—The Christian Fathers—The Neo-Platonists-Dante-Plato's Allegory of the Cave (which is a Myth as well as an Allegory)—His Alle- gory of the Disorderly Crew - Allegory and Myth compared with . THE TIMAEUS Context. Translation 259 261-297 OBSERVATIONS ON THE TIMAEUS 1. General observations on its scope 2. Purification and Metempsychosis 3. On the Creation of Souls 298-302 THE PHAEDRUS MYTH Context of the Myth Translation 306-307 309-335 OBSERVATIONS THE PHAEDRUS MYTH 1. Preliminary 336 2. The Phaedrus Myth as giving a “Deduction" of the Categories of the Under- 337-339 3. The doctrines of 'Avauinous, 'Epws, Immortality--The Meno Myth translated, and compared with the Phaedrus Myth-In what sense is the “Doctrine 5. The celestial, or astronomical, mise en scène of the “History of the Soul” in the Phaedrus Myth, and the importance of that mise en scène for sub- sequent philosophical and religious thought down to Dante 350-381 Translation 399-407 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE MYTH and comparison with the Zagreus Myth and with Rabelais 408-413 II.-THE DISCOURSE OF DIOTIMA Translation 415-427 OBSERVATIONS ON THE DISCOURSE OF DIOTIMA 1. The Discourse at once an Allegory and a Myth-May be taken as a study of the Prophetic Temperament—The nature of Prophecy . 428-434 2. The History of the Doctrine of Daemons 434-450 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON MYTHS WHICH SET FORTH THE NATION'S, AS DISTINGUISHED FROM THE INDIVIDUAL'S, IDEALS AND CATEGORIES Myths in which we have the spectacle of a Nation's life, (a) led on by a Vision of its Future, (6) conditioned by its Past. These are (a) the Atlantis Myth in the Timaeus and Critias, which, taken in connection with the account of the Ideal State in the Republic, sets forth the Vision of an Hellenic Empire; (b) the Myth of the Earth-born in the Republic 451-456 THE ATLANTIS MYTH Abbreviated translation, or rendering 457-464 OBSERVATIONS ON THE ATLANTIS MYTH The Geology and Geography of the Myth 465-469 THE MYTH OF THE EARTH-BORN Translation Pages 471.473 474 CONCLUSION—THE MYTHOLOGY AND METAPHYSICS OF THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS The " Cambridge Platonists” represent Plato the Mythologist, or Prophet, rather than Plato the Dialectician, or Reasoner, and in this respect are important for the understanding of our modern English “Idealists," who, it is contended, are “Platonists" of the same kind as Cudworth and his associates 475-519 INTRODUCTION 1. THE PLATONIC DRAMA his say. The Platonic Dialogue may be broadly described as a Drama in which speech is the action, and Socrates and his companions are the actors. The speech in which the action consists is mainly that of argumentative conversation in which, although Socrates or another may take a leading part, yet everybody has The conversation or argument is always about matters which can be profitably discussed—that is, matters on which men form workaday opinions which discussion may show to be right or wrong, wholly or in part. But it is only mainly that the Platonic Drama consists in argumentative conversation. It contains another element, the Myth, which, though not ostensibly present in some Dialogues, is so striking in others, some of them the greatest, that we are compelled to regard it, equally with the argumentative conversation, as essential to Plato's philosophical style. The Myth is a fanciful tale, sometimes traditional, sometimes newly invented, with which Socrates or some other interlocutor interrupts or concludes the argumentative conversation in which the movement of the Drama mainly consists. The object of this work is to examine the examples of the Platonic Myth in order to discover its function in the organism of the Platonic Drama. That Myth is an organic part of the Platonic Drama, not an added ornament, is a point about which the experienced reader of Plato can have no doubt. The Sophists probably ornamented their discourses and made 1 Cf. Cratylus, 387 Β, το λέγειν μία τις εστι των πράξεων. B |