THE ONE IN THE MANY, AND THE MANY liN THE ONE. 131 



of the world did not belong to modern times — we had continually 

 to guard against the narrowing of our ideals. No one could deny 

 that in the philosophy of the old teachers we had the essence of 

 right living. That of Socrates and Plato might be summed up in 

 two words, " Know thyself." The philosophy of Marcus Aurelius 

 could be briefly expressed by the j)hrase " Control thyself," which 

 he extended in his Meditations — ^to stay impulse, efface impression 

 and quench inclination — the doctrine of a typical stoic. The 

 marvellous teachings of Jesus Christ were built up on the basis 

 of an unmistakable altruism — "Deny thyself — and thus we had 

 the philosophical trinity, " Know thyself, control thyself, and deny 

 thyself." But, on the other hand, much of the more profound 

 early teaching was too speculative, too imaginative and theoretical, 

 and little progress could be made on Thought alone. Nor was 

 Experience without careful thought a sure factor of progress. The 

 two must ever be combined ; there must be a perfect reciprocity 

 between them, and right Action w^ould be the result. Hence we 

 had another trinity — Thought, Experience, and Action. 



The doctrine of the One in Many and the Many in One was as 

 much a scientific axiom as a philosophical truth. The Lecturer 

 had made out a good case for the latter, but both pyschologically 

 and physiologically each individual was an example of the ]\Iany 

 in One, and the One in Many. It was indeed a marvel of science 

 that after the fusion of the human spermatozoon with the ovum, a 

 cell division was begun that did not end mth the individual but 

 passed on through generations of beings, so that each cell in our 

 living frame contained some infinitesimal part of the entire race 

 of our progenitors, and we passed on the living " Atoms " to posterity. 



The Many in One was expressed by what we called personality, 

 intuition, hereditary tendency ; the one to be in many was nurtured 

 by our ideals, which reflected upon our emotions or, in other words, 

 gave the individual " the emotion of the ideal," as Benjamin Kidd 

 would say. 



There was thus an impelling force, the vis a tergo, and the attractive 

 force, both moving in what might be styled Plato's " Invisible 

 Sphere." Such should make for the betterment of the race. 



Plato's theory of the search for the beautiful might be tested 

 by modern standards — it was the doctrine of the Good Angel which 

 liad a reforming grace of first importance. This was the philosophy of 



