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    soul often passes into the body of a beast , and that of a beast , if it has ever been human , passes again into the body of a man . For a sou ] which has never seen the Truth at all , cannot enter into the human form , it being necessary that man should be able to apprehend things according to kinds , * which kinds are composed of many perceptions combined by reason into one . Now this mode of apprehending is neither more nor less than the recollecting of those things which the soul

    formerly saw when it journeyed along with the gods , and , disregarding what we now call beings , applied itself to the apprehension of Real Being . It is for this reason that the soul of the philosopher is re-fledged in a shorter period than others : for it constantly , to the best of its power , occupies itself in trying to recollect those things which the gods contemplated , and by the contemplation of which they are gods ; by which means , being lifted out of , and above , human cares and interests , he is , by the vulgar , considered as mad , while in reality he is inspired .

    * It will now appear , on consideration , that that fourth kind of madnesB of which we were before speaking , the madness of one who is a lover of beauty , is the best and most beneficial of all the enthusiasms which are inspired from heaven . For , as we have already said , every human soul has actually seen the-Real Existences , or it would not have come into a human shape . But it is not easy for all of them to call to

    mind what they then saw : those especially , which saw that region for a short time only , and those which , having fallen to the earth , were so unfortunate as to be turned to injustice , and consequent oblivion of the sacred things which were seen by them in their prior state . Few , therefore , remain who are adequate to the recollection of those tilings . These few , when they see here any image or resemblance of the things which are there , receive a shock like a thunderbolt , and are in a manner

    taken out oj themselves ; but from deficiency of comprehension , they know not what it is which so affects them . Now , the likenesses which exist here of Justice and Temperance , and the other things which the soul honours , do not possess any splendour ; and a few persons only , with great difficulty , by the aid of dull , blunt , material organs , perceive the terrestrial likenesses of those qualities , and recognise them . But Beauty was not only most splendid when it was seen by us forming part

    of the heavenly procession or quire , but here also the likeness of it comes to us through the most acute and clear of our senses , that of sight , and with a splendour which no other of the terrestrial images of super-celestial existences possess . They , then , who are not fresh from heaven , or who have been corrupted , are not vehemently impelled towards that Beauty which is aloft , when they see that upon earth which is called by

    its name ; they do not , therefore , venerate and worship it , but g-ive themselves up to physical pleasure , after the manner of a quadruped . But they who are Fresh from those divine objects of contemplation , and who have formerly contemplated them much , when they see a godlike countenance or form , in which celestial beauty is imaged and well imitated , are first struck with a holy awe , and then , approaching , venerate this beautiful object as a god , and , if they were not afraid of the

    * This may be rendered in the dialect of modern philosophy , to ab * tract and to generalize ; which i « here represented as the faculty which distinguishes man , the national being , from the mere beast * .

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    416 Plato ' s Dialogue * ; the Ph&drus .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1834, page 416, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2634/page/34/