1 68 Traces of Unity in the 



through reverence or ignorance, he forbears to use it 

 himself. When we use personal language to describe 

 the deity of Aristotle, we feel that it is improper and 

 unsuitable, even if, through deference to ordinary natures, 

 or the difficulty of inventing any other, he resorts to it 

 himself. Theology can have no connection with the 

 system of Aristotle." Theology, on the contrary, is the 

 very marrow of Platonism. Without being inconsistent 

 with his principles as a philosopher Plato could not be 

 other than religious in one way or another. Without 

 thinking that he was doing anything irrational he may 

 have fulfilled the last wish of Socrates by offering in 

 person a cock to Aisklepios. This he may have done 

 with perfect sincerity : but not so Aristotle, who only 

 escaped being put to death at Athens for atheism by 

 escaping to Chalcis, and remaining there ever after, even 

 until his death in the year 322 B.C. Plato, indeed, is 

 always looking beyond the present. Realities, to him, are 

 not the things of sense, eJSeoXa, but the ideas, t8eat, under- 

 lying them. The idea of the Divine Being is the sub- 

 stance of every other idea and, therefore, of every 

 iSa)\ov. The case is one of unity in multiety and mul- 

 tiety in unity, with the Divine Being as the centre, and 

 not one of independence and separation in which every 

 creature is its own centre. The case is one in which 

 any energy, mental or other, is an imperfect manifesta- 

 tion of an energy of the same sort which is manifested 

 in perfection only in the Divine Being. The case is 

 one in which the limitations of within and without, of 

 here and there, of now and then, merge, without con- 

 fusion, for the I8ea which is the basis of every ei8a)\ov is 

 like the 18 ea of the Divine Being in being free of space 

 and free of time in being, that is, ubiquitous and im- 

 mortal. The case is one which agrees with the pre- 



