Page:The religion of Plutarch, a pagan creed of apostolic times; an essay (IA religionofplutar00oakeiala).pdf/62

 multitude must be utilitarian, since none other is attainable save by the highly trained metaphysician." Even when the multitude accept the teachings of the philosopher, it is not because they are capable of the knowledge of ideal truth, but because the philosopher has compelled them to recognize, from utilitarian reasons, that it is better to be virtuous than to be vicious. But this acknowledgment of the inability of the multitude to be virtuous in the highest sense, and the assertion that they must submit themselves as clay to be moulded by the philosopher, who alone has a knowledge of ideal goodness, do not help in a world where the philosophers are not autocrats, but where every teacher must submit his claims to the intelligence of the multitude. It may accordingly be questioned whether Plato's Ethics have furnished inspiration for goodness except to those who have already had a predilection for virtue as an appanage of the highest intellect, or to those more general lovers of the Beautiful whose taste is gratified by fascinating descriptions of a quality which, in itself, has no special charm for them, but which, when depicted by this "master of the starry spheres" in its atmosphere of cold but radiant splendour, has transfigured their moral life with beams that do not "fade into the common light of day." Plato's teaching, indeed, has something monastic, exclusive, aristocratic in its import, and the

near the ground, and the plants that bear it require ventilation and lopping."]
 * [Footnote: always soared aloft and against the sun. The sweetest fruit grows