Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/109

 J. A. STEWART, The Myths of Plato. 95 are many passages, for instance the speech of Diotima, which demand such a vehicle. As a rule, however, Plato does not keep up the strain of an inspired style for long at a time. Even in the myths, his language is normally that of cultivated Athenian society ; and, when he does rise to the style of " divine and inspired persons," it is generally half in sport, and we are brought to earth again by some humorous deprecation of the ' dithyrambic '. I think that this feature of Plato's style, which Prof. Stewart's translation tends to obscure, is intimately connected with a side of the philosophical interpretation of Myth which his ' Observations ' equally tend to ignore. What, then, is Myth? In the first place, as Prof. Stewart rightly insists, it is not Allegory. Allegory is a deliberate retrans- lation of dogma intellectually apprehended into the language of symbol. Myth, on the other hand, is a development of the primitive " make-believe " or " story-telling " instinct ; it has no " moral " and no " other meaning ". A myth is a tale, interesting in itself, which arouses a certain kind of feeling, which charms us and casts a spell over us, but does not directly instruct us. The vision of the Gave in the Republic is an allegory, and we are right to seek an interpretation of it ; the vision of Er is a myth, and its only end is to express and induce a certain state of feeling. Later ages regularly interpret myth as allegory, and Prof. Stewart acutely suggests that this process was the origin of allegory as an inde- pendent form. Further, we must remember that the parts of a myth may be allegories, and that, in the hands of a genius like Bunyan, allegory tends to become myth. But the broad distinction remains, and I cannot doubt that Prof. Stewart is right in regard- ing it as of fundamental importance for the interpretation of Plato. When, however, we come to the question of the precise nature anl object of the feeling induced by myth, it is more difficult to accept Prof. Stewart's view. This depends upon his own meta- physical doctrine, of which he gives us a brief sketch on pages 44 seq. It is a sort of optimistic version of Schopenhauer. The problem of the universe has already been settled in its own way by the ' Vegetative Soul ' long before the intellect takes it up. The Intellect merely deludes itself by its conceptual solutions, which are plausible only because they mimic those solutions of depart- mental problems which we are accustomed to accept from the special sciences. The true answer to the problem lies deep down in the unconscious part of our nature, and cannot be expressed in terms of thought at all. It is in ' Transcendental Feeling,' not in thought, that we come into contact with reality, with timeless existence, with "That which is and was and shall be". The ' Vegetative Soul ' has nothing to do with ' existential ' or ' theoretic ' judgments, but only with ' value- judgments ' or rather ' value- feelings '. It is to this part of us that myth addresses itself. It awakens ' Transcendental Feeling ' by inducing ' dream-conscious- ness,' just as great poetry does. It is an appeal "from the world