He now
eats bread in the sweat of his brow, and has dominion over the animals,
subjected to the conditions of his nature, and yet able to cope with them
by divine help. Thus Plato may be said to represent in a figure--(1) the
state of innocence; (2) the fall of man; (3) the still deeper decline into
barbarism; (4) the restoration of man by the partial interference of God,
and the natural growth of the arts and of civilised society. Two lesser
features of this description should not pass unnoticed:--(1) the primitive
men are supposed to be created out of the earth, and not after the ordinary
manner of human generation--half the causes of moral evil are in this way
removed; (2) the arts are attributed to a divine revelation: and so the
greatest difficulty in the history of pre-historic man is solved. Though
no one knew better than Plato that the introduction of the gods is not a
reason, but an excuse for not giving a reason (Cratylus), yet, considering
that more than two thousand years later mankind are still discussing these
problems, we may be satisfied to find in Plato a statement of the
difficulties which arise in conceiving the relation of man to God and
nature, without expecting to obtain from him a solution of them. In such a
tale, as in the Phaedrus, various aspects of the Ideas were doubtless
indicated to Plato's own mind, as the corresponding theological problems
are to us.
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