behold! there sits 'Aváyen herself on her throne, and there are the three Fates, with solemn ritual, ordering the succession of events in time according to the law of 'Aváykŋ. Yet, within the very precincts of the court of 'Aváyen in which they stand, the Pilgrim Souls hear the Prophet telling them in the words of Lachesis, that "they are free to choose, and will be held responsible for their choice." Plato here presents the Idea of Freedom mythically under the form of a prenatal act of choice the choice, it is to be carefully noted, not of particular things, but of a Whole Life-the prenatal "choice" of that whole complex of circumstances in which particular things are chosen in this earthly life. Each Soul, according to its nature, clothes itself in certain circumstances comes into, and goes through, this earthly life in circumstances which it has itself chosen-that is, in circumstances which are to be regarded not as forcing it, or dominating it mechanically from without, but as being the environment in which it exhibits its freedom or natural character as a living creature.1 Among the circumstances of a Life "chosen," a fixed character of the Soul itself, we are told, is not included-vxns dè Táğı ovк éveîvai (Rep. 618 B),-because the Soul is modified by the Life which it chooses. This means that the Soul, choosing the circumstances, or Life, chooses, or makes itself responsible for, its own character, as afterwards modified, and necessarily modified, by the circumstances, or Life. In other words, a man is responsible here on Earth for actions proceeding from a connate character which is modified here in accordance with the circumstances of a general scheme of life made unalterable by Necessity and the Fates before he was born-αἱρείσθω βίον ᾧ σύνεσται ἐξ ἀνάγκης (Rep. 617 E).

In presenting Moral Freedom under the Reign of Natural Law mythically, as Prenatal Choice made irrevocable by 'Aváyen, Plato lays stress, as he does elsewhere, on the unbroken continuity of the responsible Self evolving its character in a series of life-changes. It is the choice made before the throne of 'Aváyкn which dominates the behaviour

1 It was chiefly in order to express this relation between living creature and environment that Leibniz formulated his theory of Pre-established Harmony. We may say of Leibniz's theory what he says himself of Plato's doctrine of áváμrnois-that it is "myth "toute fabuleuse" (Nouveaux Essais, Avantpropos, p. 196 b, ed. Erdmann).

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of the Soul in the bodily life on which it is about to enter; but the choice made before the throne of 'Aváyκη depended itself on a disposition formed in a previous life; the man who chooses the life of a tyrant, and rues his choice as soon as he has made it, but too late, had been virtuous in a previous life, ἔθει ἄνευ φιλοσοφίας — his virtue had been merely "customary," without foundation upon consciously realised principle (Rep. 619 c). Plato thus makes Freedom reside in esse, not in operari. To be free is to be a continuously existing, self-affirming, environment-choosing personality, manifesting itself in actions which proceed, according to necessary law, from itself as placed once for all in the environment which it has chosen-its own natural environment the environment which is the counterpart of its own . character. It is vain to look for freedom of the will in some power of the personality whereby it may interfere with the necessary law according to which character, as modified up to date, manifests itself in certain actions. Such a power, such a liberum arbitrium indifferentiae, would be inconsistent with the continuity, and therefore with the freedom and responsibility, of the Self. It is, in other words, the freedom of the "noumenal," as distinguished from the "phenomenal" Self, which Plato presents as the "prenatal choice of a Life"mythically; which is, indeed, the only way in which such a transcendental idea can be legitimately presented. aipeio0w βίον ᾧ σύνεσται ἐξ ἀνάγκης· ἡ δ ̓ ἀρετὴ ἀδέσποτον. A certain Life, with all its fortunes and all its influences on character, when once chosen, is chosen irrevocably. But, none the less, it is a life of freedom, for "Virtue is her own mistress." In being conscious of Virtue—that is, of Self as

1 For the distinction, see Schopenhauer, Parerga und Paralipomena, ii. § 117; Die Welt als Wille u. Vorstellung, vol. ii. pp. 364, 365; and Die Grundlage der Moral, § 10. In the last of these passages Schopenhauer (explaining the distinction between the "intelligible" and the "empirical" character, the latter of which is related to the former as operari is to esse-operari sequitur esse) quotes Porphyry (in Stobaeus, Ecl. 8. §§ 37-40): τὸ γὰρ ὅλον βούλημα τοιοῦτ ̓ ἔοικεν εἶναι τοῦ Πλάτωνος ἔχειν μὲν τὸ αὐτεξούσιον τὰς ψυχὰς πρὶν εἰς σώματα καὶ βίους διαφόρους ἐμπεσεῖν, εἰς τὸ ἢ τοῦτον τὸν βίον ἑλέσθαι ἢ ἄλλον.

2 Hobbes' "Sovereign, once chosen, ever afterwards irremovable," is a "foundation-myth"; the social order which constrains individuals to conformity is accounted for "mythically" by a prehistoric act of choice exercised by individuals. They willed themselves into the social order, and may not will themselves out of it. A "categorical imperative" is laid upon them to act as social beings.

striving after the good or self-realisation-the Soul is conscious of its own freedom. This consciousness of "freedom," involved in the consciousness of "Virtue," is better evidence for the reality of freedom than the inability of the logical faculty to understand freedom is against its reality. As Butler says, "The notion of necessity is not applicable to practical subjects, i.e. with respect to them is as if it were not true. . . . Though it were admitted that this opinion of necessity were speculatively true, yet with regard to practice it is as if it were false."

1

One other point and I have done with the Myth of Er: The momentary prenatal act of choice which Plato describes in this Myth is the pattern of like acts which have to be performed in a man's natural life. Great decisions have to be made in life, which, once made, are irrevocable, and dominate the man's whole career and conduct afterwards. The chief use of education is to prepare a man for these crises in his life, so that he may decide rightly. The preparation does not consist in a rehearsal, as it were, of the very thing to be done when the crisis comes,-for the nature of the crisis cannot be anticipated, but in a training of the will and judgment by which they become trustworthy in any difficulty which may be presented to them. The education given to the φύλακες of Plato's Καλλίπολις is a training of this kind. Its aim is to cultivate faculties rather than to impart special knowledge. It is a "liberal education" suitable to free men of the governing class, as distinguished from technical instruction by which workmen are fitted for the routine of which they are, so to speak, the slaves.

1 Analogy, i. 6.

THE POLITICUS MYTH

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

We have now done with the three purely Eschatological Myths, and enter on a series of Myths which are mainly Aetiological. We begin with the Myth of the Alternating World-periods in the Politicus.

The Cosmos has alternating periods, according as God either goes round with and controls its revolution, or lets go the helm and retires to his watch-tower. When God lets go the helm, the Cosmos, being a Cov with its own σúμouтos émiovμía, and subject, like all creatures, to eiμapμévn, begins to revolve in its own direction, which is opposite to God's direction. The change of direction-the least possible change if there is to be change at all-we must ascribe to the changeable nature of the material Cosmos, and not either to God, who is unchangeable, imparting now one motion and then its contrary, or to the agency of another God. When God, then, lets go the helm, the Cosmos begins of itself to revolve backwards; and since all events on Earth are produced by the revolution of the Cosmos, the events which happened in one cosmic period are reproduced backwards in the next. Thus the dead of one period rise from their graves in the next as grey-haired men, who gradually become black-haired and beardless, till at last, as infants, they vanish away. This is the account of the fabled ynyeveîs. They were men who died and were buried in the cosmic period immediately preceding that of Cronus-the Golden Age of Cronus, when the Earth brought forth food plenteously for all her children, and men and beasts, her common children, talked together, and Saíuoves, not mortal men, were kings (cf. Laws, 713). But at last the stock of earthen men ran out—τὸ γήϊνον ἤδη πᾶν ἀνήλωτο

yévos (Pol. 272 D) and the age of Cronus came to an end: God let go the helm, and the Cosmos changed the direction of its revolution, the change being accompanied by great earthquakes which destroyed all but a few men and animals. Then the Cosmos calmed down, and for a while, though revolving in its own direction, not in God's, yet remembered God, and fared well; but afterwards forgot him, and went from bad to worse; till God, of his goodness, saved struggling men, now no longer earth-born, from destruction by means of the fire of Prometheus and the arts of Athena and Hephaestus. In due time he will close the present period-that of Zeusby again taking the helm of the Cosinos. Then will be the Resurrection of the Dead. Such, in brief, is the Myth of the Changing World-periods in the Politicus.

Like the Myths already examined, this one deals with God's government of man as a creature at once free to do good and evil, and determined by cosmic influences over which he and even God the Creator himself, whether from lack or non-use of power hardly matters-have no control. The Myth differs from those which we have examined in not being told by Socrates himself. It is told by an Eleatic. Stranger, who says that the younger Socrates, who is present with the elder, will appreciate a ulos, or story. Similarly, Protagoras prefaces the Myth which he tells (Prot. 320 c) by saying that it will suit Socrates and the others—younger men than himself.

The Eleatic Stranger in the Politicus tells his Myth ostensibly in order to bring it home to the company that they have defined "kingship" too absolutely-as if the king were a god, and not a human being. Gods directly appointed by the great God were kings on this Earth in a former period; but in the period in which we now live men are the only kings. Kingship must now be conceived "naturalistically" as a product of human society; and human society itself, like the whole Cosmos of which it is a part, must be conceived "naturalistically" as following its own intrinsic law without divine guidance ab extra. To enforce a "naturalistic" estimate of kingship is the ostensible object of the Myth; but it soars high, as we shall see, above the argument which it is ostensibly introduced to serve.