PASSAGES FOR COMPARISON 



FROM THE SYMPOSIUM OF PLATO 



[The passage is thus summarized by Jowett: 

 'He who would be truly initiated should pass 

 from the concrete to the abstract, from the 

 individual to the universal, from the universal 

 to the universe of truth and beauty.'] 



Diotima. . . . These are the lesser mysteries 

 of love, into which even you, Socrates, may 

 enter; to the greater and more hidden ones 

 which are the crown of these, and to which, 

 if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will 

 lead, I know not whether you will be able to 

 attain. But I will do my utmost to inform you, 

 and do you follow if you can. He who would 

 proceed aright in this matter should begin in 

 youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he 

 be guided by his instructor aright, to love one 

 such form only out of that he should create 

 fair thoughts. And soon he will of himself 

 perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to 

 the beauty of another; and then, if beauty of 

 form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would 



1 Plato, Symposium. The Dialogues of Plato, translated 

 by Jowett, New York, Oxford University Press, 1892, 1. 580- 

 582. 



[71] 



