Four Points of the World Religions Exemplified in Greek Philosophy
William O'Meara (c) copyright 1997
1. How does Socrates exemplify a universal moral ideal in his life?
2. In the Crito, does Socrates exemplify his commitment to the ideal of self-knowledge even after he has been condemned to death? Explain.
3. What is the first point that Socrates and Crito discuss? What is Socrates' argument?
4. How does Socrates view the city-state of Athens? What does Socrates envision the city-state of Athens saying to him?
5. Does Socrates believe that he has the right to break a law when the jury has made a faulty judgment? Why or why not? Explain.
6. What is the argument of Marcus Aurelius for the universal kinship of all humans as based on their common rational nature?
7. How does Cicero view the relationship between the moral law and God?
8. For Diotima who speaks for Plato, in the dialogue, The Symposium, how does beauty in this life lead to the absolute Beauty? Explain.
9. For Plotinus, how are moral beauty and God's beauty related? Explain.
10. What are the key attributes of a beautiful reality for Plotinus? Explain.
11. In the Phaedo, what does Socrates say is a human's true self?
12. What is a key evidence for Plato that the soul is distinct from the body?
13. What advice does Marcus Aurelius offer on emphasizing one's moral self?
14. In the view of Epictetus, what effect does the emphasis upon one's own rational, volitional self have?
15. For Plotinus, what true beauty is at the heart of true love between two people? Explain whether or not you agree.
16. How does Socrates find happiness even in facing death?
17. How does Marcus Aurelius find a deep sense of peace?
18. For Plotinus, how does true virtue in response to the evils of this life lead to true beauty?
19. How are the four points of world religion and philosophy exemplified in Greek philosophy?
Point 1: Universal Moral Ideal
Socrates illustrates in his way of life a universal moral ideal, a value worth striving for by all people, in his conviction that all people should strive for self-knowledge. Knowing oneself is a basic human ideal that recognizes that all people are equal in their ability to know, that all people are at first ignorant of what they should know, and that people can cooperate in their attempt to know themselves.
In the dialogue Crito, Socrates exemplifies his commitment to the ideal of self-knowledge even after he has been condemned to death on the charges of impiety and corrupting the youth. His friend Crito came to him and offered to rescue him from prison, arguing that the state had done him wrong in convicting an innocent man. Socrates replies:
My dear Crito, I appreciate your warm feelings very much - that is, assuming that they have some justification. We must consider whether we ought to follow your advice or not. You know that this is not a new idea of mine; it has always been my nature never to accept advice from any of my friends unless reflections shows that it is the best course that reason offers. Well, then, how can we consider the question most reasonably?
The point that Socrates is making is that he himself has to think the matter through as reasonably as he can. He is saying that no other individual can live his life for him and think his thoughts and make his decisions. Now Socrates proposes that he can gain self-knowledge here better if he and Crito work together in thinking over the problem. Socrates affirms: "Let us look at it together, my dear fellow; and if you can challenge any of my arguments, do so and I will listen to you."
The first point that he and Crito discuss is whether or not a person should ever do a moral wrong to one's own moral self or to another moral self. Socrates argues that just as one should never harm oneself in one's own moral dignity so also one should never harm anyone else in his moral dignity. Just as one should act for the good of one's moral self, so also should one act for the good of the moral self of others. Socrates argues by analogy to support his view, saying that just as musicians do not make men unmusical by the art of music, so also morally good persons do not make men immoral by the art of moral goodness. It is Socrates' basic principle that he should never cause moral injury to any man including himself. Examples of moral injury to a person would be causing that person to think falsely and to choose foolishly. If a person were brainwashed and manipulated so as to be unable to act according to those capabilities that make him human, in other words, to be unable to act freely, then Socrates would view such manipulation as a great crime against the dignity of the person.
Socrates and Crito now take this principle of never doing moral injury to a human person and apply it to Socrates and the city-state. The city-state of Athens is treated as a moral person. To use modern terminology, we could say that Athens is the incorporation of men as moral persons into a society that is meant to protect individuals in their human or moral rights. Socrates proposes that he and Crito imagine that the laws and constitution of Athens have come before Socrates in order to debate the issue as to whether or not Socrates should try to escape. Athens appears and asks Socrates:
Now, Socrates, what are you proposing to do? Can you deny that by this act which you are contemplating you intend, so far as you have the power, to destroy us, the laws, and the whole state as well? Do you imagine that a city can continue to exist and not be turned upside down, if the legal judgments which are pronounced in it have no force but are nullified and destroyed by private persons?
Athens is speaking of itself as a moral entity necessary for sustaining the moral rights of all persons. That is why it argues that it should not allow any individual to use private judgment to upset the laws of the state. For if everyone could do that, then the state might as well not exist because the very idea of the state as an impartial protector of the moral rights of all would be attacked.
Specifically, Socrates questions himself if he has the right to break a law when the jury has made a faulty judgment. The law in question is that an individual condemned to death by a duly selected jury must be executed. Socrates says that he accepted, by choosing to remain in Athens as an adult, the possibility that he might be brought to trial and condemned. Since he has agreed to be a citizen of Athens by living there, he says that he must abide by the laws and court decisions of Athens. Socrates continues his argument:
If I go to one of the neighboring states to escape punishment from Athens, those states will not trust me because I have commited a breach of faith against Athens. I would confirm the opinion of the jurors who condemned me because one who destroys laws might very well be supposed to have a destructive influence upon young and foolish human beings.
So Socrates accepts the verdict. He realizes that if has Athens condemned him for trying to develop the examined way of life, then he must die for the cause which he has believed in. He cannot give up his way of life either here in Athens or in any other city-state. Socrates believes that if he does not courageously die for his way of life, people will not think he believed in hls way of life and that he did not believe in respecting the moral nature of other persons as protected by the laws of the state.
Another example of the universal moral ideal can be found in the Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius who expresses an argument for the universal kinship of all humans based on their common rational nature:
If our intellectual part is common, the reason also, in respect of which we are rational beings, is common: if this is so, common also is the reason which commands us what to do, and what not to do; if this is so, there is a common law also; if this is so, we are members of some political community; if this is so, the world is in a manner a state." (Meditation 4; Oates, p. 509)
Point 2: One God and the World as a Cosmos, an Orderly Whole in its Physical and Moral Laws
In a very famous passage from his dialogue The Republic, which is based on the ideals expressed in Plato's Republic, Cicero, the Roman Stoic philosopher, affirms:
True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions. And it does not lay its commands or prohibitions upon good people in vain, though neither have any effect on the wicked. It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal any part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligation by senate or people, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or an interpreter of it. And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is, God, over us all, for he is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will suffer the worst penalties, even if he escapes what is commonly considered judgment. (XXII)
In that great dialogue the Symposium, in which several speakers explain their philosphies of love and beauty, Diotima, the prophetess, instructs Socrates about learning how beauty in this world, both physical and moral, should lead to love of the Divine Beauty as the only Immortal Beauty:
But I will do my utmost to inform you, and do you follow if you can. For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only -- out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is and the same! And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle; and after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution, himself a slave mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere. To this I will proceed; please to give me your very best attention:
He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty (and this, Socrates, is the final cause [purpose] of all our former toils) -- a nature which in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in another, or at one time or in one relation or at one place fair, at another time or in another relation or at another place foul, as if fair to some and foul to others, or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, or existing in any other being, as for example, in an animal, or in heaven or in earth, or in any other place; but beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things. He who from these ascending under the influence of true love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from the end. And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair [beautiful, moral] practices, and from fair practices to fair [true] notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is. This, my dear Socrates," said the stranger of Mantineia, "is that life above all others which man should live, in the contemplation of beauty absolute; a beauty which if you once beheld, you would see not to be after the measure of gold, and garments, and fair boys and youths, whose presence now entrances you; and you and many a one would be content to live seeing them only and conversing with them without meat or drink, if that were possible -- you only want to look at them and to be with them. But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty -- the divine beauty, I mean, pure and dear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life -- thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty simple and divine? Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may. (Jowett Translation).
As the world is made of some beautiful things and living species, so the world as a whole is orderly and beautiful. A human being who perceive the order and beauty of natural realities and of human beings will create a life of moral beauty, a life of harmonious balance of one's appetites and emotions. As one lives a life of moral harmony in oneself and with others, one will learn to see even better the order and balance in nature and in morality, thereby conceiving truthful notions of these realities, arriving at fair and accurate notions of them. This life devoted to the aesthetic beauty of morality and truth will lead a person to a vision of Absolute, Divine Beauty which is Eternal. A life based upon Divine Beauty will enable a person to create real beauty in life.
Plotinus, the greatest neo-Platonic philsopher, wrote in the Enneads about virtue as true beauty which leads people closer to the Beauty of the Divine:
The Civic Virtues, on which we have touched above, are a principle or order and beauty in us as long as we remain passing our life here: they ennoble us by setting bound and measure to our desires and to our entire sensibility, and dispelling false judgement- and this by sheer efficacy of the better, by the very setting of the bounds, by the fact that the measured is lifted outside of the sphere of the unmeasured and lawless.
And, further, these Civic Virtues- measured and ordered themselves and acting as a principle of measure to the Soul which is as Matter to their forming- are like to the measure reigning in the over-world, and they carry a trace of that Highest Good in the Supreme; for, while utter measurelessness is brute Matter and wholly outside of Likeness, any participation in Ideal-Form produces some corresponding degree of Likeness to the formless Being There. And participation goes by nearness: the Soul nearer than the body, therefore closer akin, participates more fully and shows a godlike presence. . . .
We build our lives towards beauty by first imitating people of beautiful virtue who have harmony in themselves and with others, but we should ultimately learn to create beauty in our lives based the Divine Reakity which is the Great Exemplar, Plotinus affirms:
For it is to the Gods, not to the Good, that our Likeness must look: to model ourselves upon good men is to produce an image of an image: we have to fix our gaze above the image and attain Likeness to the Supreme Exemplar.
Beauty, therefore, is based upon likeness of the Divine ordering of all realities. A reality cannot be beautiful unless its parts are brought into harmonious symmetry in accord with the Divine ideal appropriate to each reality, affirms Plotinus:
BEAUTY
1. Beauty addresses itself chiefly to sight; but there is a beauty for the hearing too, as in certain combinations of words and in all kinds of music, for melodies and cadences are beautiful; and minds that lift themselves above the realm of sense to a higher order are aware of beauty in the conduct of life, in actions, in character, in the pursuits of the intellect; and there is the beauty of the virtues. What loftier beauty there may be, yet, our argument will bring to light. What, then, is it that gives comeliness to material forms and draws the ear to the sweetness perceived in sounds, and what is the secret of the beauty there is in all that derives from Soul? Is there some One Principle from which all take their grace, or is there a beauty peculiar to the embodied and another for the bodiless? Finally, one or many, what would such a Principle be? Consider that some things, material shapes for instance, are gracious not by anything inherent but by something communicated, while others are lovely of themselves, as, for example, Virtue. The same bodies appear sometimes beautiful, sometimes not; so that there is a good deal between being body and being beautiful. What, then, is this something that shows itself in certain material forms? This is the natural beginning of our enquiry. What is it that attracts the eyes of those to whom a beautiful object is presented, and calls them, lures them, towards it, and fills them with joy at the sight? If we possess ourselves of this, we have at once a standpoint for the wider survey. Almost everyone declares that the symmetry of parts towards each other and towards a whole, with, besides, a certain charm of colour, constitutes the beauty recognized by the eye, that in visible things, as indeed in all else, universally, the beautiful thing is essentially symmetrical, patterned.
But think what this means. Only a compound can be beautiful, never anything devoid of parts; and only a whole; the several parts will have beauty, not in themselves, but only as working together to give a comely total. Yet beauty in an aggregate demands beauty in details; it cannot be constructed out of ugliness; its law must run throughout. All the loveliness of colour and even the light of the sun, being devoid of parts and so not beautiful by symmetry, must be ruled out of the realm of beauty. And how comes gold to be a beautiful thing? And lightning by night, and the stars, why are these so fair? In sounds also the simple must be proscribed, though often in a whole noble composition each several tone is delicious in itself. Again since the one face, constant in symmetry, appears sometimes fair and sometimes not, can we doubt that beauty is something more than symmetry, that symmetry itself owes its beauty to a remoter principle?
Turn to what is attractive in methods of life or in the expression of thought; are we to call in symmetry here? What symmetry is to be found in noble conduct, or excellent laws, in any form of mental pursuit? What symmetry can there be in points of abstract thought? The symmetry of being accordant with each other? But there may be accordance or entire identity where there is nothing but ugliness: the proposition that honesty is merely a generous artlessness chimes in the most perfect harmony with the proposition that morality means weakness of will; the accordance is complete. Then again, all the virtues are a beauty of the soul, a beauty authentic beyond any of these others; but how does symmetry enter here? The soul, it is true, is not a simple unity, but still its virtue cannot have the symmetry of size or of number: what standard of measurement could preside over the compromise or the coalescence of the soul's faculties or purposes? Finally, how by this theory would there be beauty in the Intellectual-Principle, essentially the solitary?
2. Let us, then, go back to the source, and indicate at once the Principle that bestows beauty on material things. Undoubtedly this Principle exists; it is something that is perceived at the first glance, something which the soul names as from an ancient knowledge and, recognising, welcomes it, enters into unison with it. But let the soul fall in with the Ugly and at once it shrinks within itself, denies the thing, turns away from it, not accordant, resenting it. Our interpretation is that the soul- by the very truth of its nature, by its affiliation to the noblest Existents in the hierarchy of Being- when it sees anything of that kin, or any trace of that kinship, thrills with an immediate delight, takes its own to itself, and thus stirs anew to the sense of its nature and of all its affinity. But, is there any such likeness between the loveliness of this world and the splendours in the Supreme? Such a likeness in the particulars would make the two orders alike: but what is there in common between beauty here and beauty There? We hold that all the loveliness of this world comes by communion in Ideal-Form.
All shapelessness whose kind admits of pattern and form, as long as it remains outside of Reason and Idea, is ugly by that very isolation from the Divine-Thought. And this is the Absolute Ugly: an ugly thing is something that has not been entirely mastered by pattern, that is by Reason, the Matter not yielding at all points and in all respects to Ideal-Form.
But where the Ideal-Form has entered, it has grouped and coordinated what from a diversity of parts was to become a unity: it has rallied confusion into co-operation: it has made the sum one harmonious coherence: for the Idea is a unity and what it moulds must come to unity as far as multiplicity may. And on what has thus been compacted to unity, Beauty enthrones itself, giving itself to the parts as to the sum: when it lights on some natural unity, a thing of like parts, then it gives itself to that whole. Thus, for an illustration, there is the beauty, conferred by craftsmanship, of all a house with all its parts, and the beauty which some natural quality may give to a single stone. This, then, is how the material thing becomes beautiful- by communicating in the thought that flows from the Divine.
Essential Point 3: Discovery of Spiritual Selfhood
In the dialogue Phaedo, Socrates argues that one's true self is not to be identified with one's physical body. Socrates has a moral ideal, self-knowledge and self-government in a life of moderation and justice, which he has lived for and which he cannot give up even though he must die. The courage of Socrates facing death is a key evidence for Plato in arguing that the soul is distinct from the body. Talking with his friend Simmias in the dialogue Phaedo, Socrates sums up his analysis of body and soul as follows:
And when they consider all this, must not true philosophers make a reflection, of which they will speak to one another in such words as these: We have found, they will say, a path of speculation which seems to bring us and the argument to the conclusion that while we are in the body, and while the soul is mingled with this mass of evil, our desire will not be satisfied, and our desire is of the truth. For the body is a source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food; and also is liable to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after truth: and by filling us so full of loves, and lusts, and fears, and fancies, and idols, and every sort of folly, prevents our ever having, as people say, so much as a thought. For whence come wars, and fightings, and factions? whence but from the body and the lusts of the body? For wars are occasioned by the love of money, and money has to be acquired for the sake and in the service of the body; and in consequence of all these things the time which ought to be given to philosophy is lost. Moreover, if there is time and an inclination toward philosophy, yet the body introduces a turmoil and confusion and fear into the course of speculation, and hinders us from seeing the truth: and all experience shows that if we would have pure knowledge of anything we must be quit of the body, and the soul in herself must behold all things in themselves: then I suppose that we shall attain that which we desire, and of which we say that we are lovers, and that is wisdom, not while we live, but after death, as the argument shows; for if while in company with the body the soul cannot have pure knowledge, one of two things seems to follow -- either knowledge is not to be attained at all, or, if at all, after death. For then, and not till then, the soul will be in herself alone and without the body. In this present life, I reckon that we make the nearest approach to knowledge when we have the least possible concern or interest in the body, and are not saturated with the bodily nature, but remain pure until the hour when God himself is pleased to release us. And then the foolishness of the body will be cleared away and we shall be pure and hold converse with other pure souls, and know of ourselves the clear light everywhere; and this is surely the light of truth. For no impure thing is allowed to approach the pure. These are the sort of words, Simmias, which the true lovers of wisdom cannot help saying to one another, and thinking. You will agree with me in that? (Jowett Translation)
The Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius offers this advice on emphasizing one's moral or spiritual self and not being distracted by the material world:
Remember to retire into this little territory of thy own, and above all do not restrict or strain thyself, but be free and look at things as a man, as a human being, as a citizen, as a moral agent. But among (the maxims that guide your reflections) . . ., let there be these two. One is that things do not touch the soul, for they are external and remain immovable; but our perturbations come only from the opinion which is within thee. The other is that all these things, which thou seest, change immediately and will no longer be; and constantly bear in mind how many of these changes thou hast already witnessed. The universe is transformation; life is opinion. (Oates, Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers, p. 509)
In the view of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, this emphasis upon one's own rational, volitional self as the true self does not separate men from each other but instead makes them capable of true friendship. He writes:
Paris was the guest of Menelaus, and any one who had seen the courtesies they used to one another would not have believed one who denied that they were friends. But a morsel was thrown between them, in the shape of a pretty woman, and for that there was war. (Oates, p. 333)
In the view of Epictetus, only those can be true friends who put their interest in the development of their own moral character and that of their friend. Only such friendship is true human friendship, friendship that perfects the moral nature of a human being. All other kinds of friendship fall short of the greatness friendship of the virtuous can reach.
Plotinus also emphasizes true moral beauty and integrity as the heart and soul of what lovers love when they love each other for the sake of the other:
just as all take delight in the beauty of the body but all are not stung as sharply, and those only that feel the keener wound are known as Lovers. These Lovers, then, lovers of the beauty outside of sense, must be made to declare themselves. What do you feel in presence of the grace you discern in actions, in manners, in sound morality, in all the works and fruits of virtue, in the beauty of souls? When you see that you yourselves are beautiful within, what do you feel? What is this Dionysiac exultation that thrills through your being, this straining upwards of all your Soul, this longing to break away from the body and live sunken within the veritable self? These are no other than the emotions of Souls under the spell of love. But what is it that awakens all this passion? No shape, no colour, no grandeur of mass: all is for a Soul, something whose beauty rests upon no colour, for the moral wisdom the Soul enshrines and all the other hueless splendour of the virtues. It is that you find in yourself, or admire in another, loftiness of spirit; righteousness of life; disciplined purity; courage of the majestic face; gravity; modesty that goes fearless and tranquil and passionless; and, shining down upon all, the light of god-like Intellection. All these noble qualities are to be reverenced and loved, no doubt, but what entitles them to be called beautiful? They exist: they manifest themselves to us: anyone that sees them must admit that they have reality of [Spiritual-Eternal] Being; and is not [Spiritual-Eternal] Real-Being, really beautiful?
Essential Point 4: Spiritual Happiness for Humanity
Death has been viewed as the great destroyer of human happiness, as the evil most to be avoided. Yet Socrates faces death, believing
this as a truth, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life, or after death. His fortunes are not neglected by the gods; and what has come to me today has not come by chance. I am persuaded that it was better for me to die now, - and to be released from trouble; and that was the reason why the sign (his conscience) never turned me back." (Apology, text, p. 6)
Although physical harm comes to Socrates in the fact that he must die, spiritual harm does not come to him. Discovery of one's moral nature, of spiritual selfhood, as distinct from the body, leads to the realization of fulfilment of the self even though physical life ends. There is a greater good and a greater happiness for Socrates in being true to his moral commitment to the examined life than in merely contining to live physically:
and if I say again that the greatest good of man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living - that you are still less likely to believe. And yet what I say is true, although a thing of which it is hard for me to persuade you.
One Stoic philosopher found a deep sense of peace in these words:
When a man has learned to understand the government of the universe and has realized that there is nothing so great or sovereign or all pervasive as this frame of things wherein God and men are united and that from this frame come all things on earth, my father, my grandfather, all things that grow on the earth and all rational creatures especially - for rational creatures are fitted to share in the society of God, being connected with him in sharing in rationality-why should man fear anything that can happen to him among men? When kinship with Caesar is sufficient to make men live in security, free from every fear, shall not the fact that we have God as maker and father and kinsman relieve us from pains and fears? (Marcus Aurelius)
Plotinus wrote of true virtue in response to the troubles of this life:
ON VIRTUE
1. Since Evil is here, "haunting this world by necessary law," and it is the Soul's design to escape from Evil, we must escape hence. But what is this escape? "In attaining Likeness to God," we read. And this is explained as "becoming just and holy, living by wisdom," the entire nature grounded in Virtue. But does not Likeness by way of Virtue imply Likeness to some being that has Virtue? To what Divine Being, then, would our Likeness be? To the Being- must we not think?- in Which, above all, such excellence seems to inhere, that is to the Soul of the Kosmos and to the Principle ruling within it, the Principle endowed with a wisdom most wonderful. What could be more fitting than that we, living in this world, should become Like to its ruler?
Plotinus grasps the pursuit of true virtue and true happiness as a journey towards True Beauty:
But what must we do? How lies the path? How come to vision of the inaccessible Beauty, dwelling as if in consecrated precincts, apart from the common ways where all may see, even the profane? He that has the strength, let him arise and withdraw into himself, foregoing all that is known by the eyes, turning away for ever from the material beauty that once made his joy. When he perceives those shapes of grace that show in body, let him not pursue: he must know them for copies, vestiges, shadows, and hasten away towards That they tell of. For if anyone follow what is like a beautiful shape playing over water- is there not a myth telling in symbol of such a dupe, how he sank into the depths of the current and was swept away to nothingness? So too, one that is held by material beauty and will not break free shall be precipitated, not in body but in Soul, down to the dark depths loathed of the Intellective-Being, where, blind even in the Lower-World, he shall have commerce only with shadows, there as here. "Let us flee then to the beloved Fatherland": this is the soundest counsel. But what is this flight? How are we to gain the open sea? For Odysseus is surely a parable to us when he commands the flight from the sorceries of Circe or Calypso- not content to linger for all the pleasure offered to his eyes and all the delight of sense filling his days. The Fatherland to us is There whence we have come, and There is The Father. What then is our course, what the manner of our flight? This is not a journey for the feet; the feet bring us only from land to land; nor need you think of coach or ship to carry you away; all this order of things you must set aside and refuse to see: you must close the eyes and call instead upon another vision which is to be waked within you, a vision, the birth-right of all, which few turn to use. 9. And this inner vision, what is its operation? Newly awakened it is all too feeble to bear the ultimate splendour. Therefore the Soul must be trained- to the habit of remarking, first, all noble pursuits, then the works of beauty produced not by the labour of the arts but by the virtue of men known for their goodness: lastly, you must search the souls of those that have shaped these beautiful forms. But how are you to see into a virtuous soul and know its loveliness? Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. So do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiselling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendour of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine. When you know that you have become this perfect work, when you are self-gathered in the purity of your being, nothing now remaining that can shatter that inner unity, nothing from without clinging to the authentic man, when you find yourself wholly true to your essential nature, wholly that only veritable Light which is not measured by space, not narrowed to any circumscribed form nor again diffused as a thing void of term, but ever unmeasurable as something greater than all measure and more than all quantity- when you perceive that you have grown to this, you are now become very vision: now call up all your confidence, strike forward yet a step- you need a guide no longer- strain, and see. This is the only eye that sees the mighty Beauty.
If the eye that adventures the vision be dimmed by vice, impure, or weak, and unable in its cowardly blenching to see the uttermost brightness, then it sees nothing even though another point to what lies plain to sight before it. To any vision must be brought an eye adapted to what is to be seen, and having some likeness to it. Never did eye see the sun unless it had first become sunlike, and never can the soul have vision of the First Beauty unless itself be beautiful. Therefore, first let each become godlike and each beautiful who cares to see God and Beauty.
When an individual does not see beauty in oneself, then let the individual work like the creator of a statue, cutting away disorder and evil in one place, smoothing good habits into perfection in another, until beauty and harmony in oneself has been created in accord with the basic points discovered in the Socratic commitment to self-knowledge:
Point 1: Universal Moral Ideal
Point 2: One God and the World as a Cosmos, an Orderly Whole Physically & Morally
Essential Point 3: Discovery of Spiritual Selfhood
Essential Point 4: Spiritual Happiness for Humanity
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