Page:The religion of Plutarch, a pagan creed of apostolic times; an essay (IA religionofplutar00oakeiala).pdf/130

 predilections and antipathies in character before they become conspicuous to the world by breaking out into gross evil-doing under the influence of the passions. ''For God is assuredly cognizant of the natural disposition of every individual man'', being, by His nature, more fitted to perceive soul than body: nor does He await the outbreak of actual sin before He punishes violence, profanity, obscenity." Thus, although Plutarch accepts the philosophic phrasing current respecting the nature of the Deity, his ardent, sympathetic temperament brings down the philosophers' Deity from its majestic isolation, and makes it "meet halfway" the gods of the popular faith, so that both may be of service to humanity, the latter being purified and elevated, the other actualized and humanized. We discern with sympathy Plutarch's attempt to satisfy the eternal craving of men for a mediator between themselves and the unapproachableness of the Highest; and we are prepared for his exposition of the doctrines of Dæmonology. This tendency to give warmth and life to philosophic abstractions is occasionally visible in an unconscious attempt to assimilate the qualities possessed by the Deity to those displayed in a less degree by mankind. Thus, he implicitly accepts the Platonic position that Eternity is all present to God, a position which is also accepted by modern European Theology: but he elsewhere regards the Deity (formally using the name of Apollo) as a scientific observer, with infallibly acute reasoning powers directed upon phenomena'', 393 A.]