Note (return) — Chapter XV

This consciousness of the need of supernatural light and help, and this aspiration after a light supernatural and divine, which Plato inherited from Socrates, constrained him to regard with toleration, and even reverence, every apparent approach, every pretension, even, to a divine inspiration and guidance in the age in which he lived. "'The greatest blessings which men receive come through the operation of phrensy (µανία--inspired exaltation), when phrensy is the gift of God. The prophetess of Delphi, and the priestess of Dodona, many are the benefits which in their phrensies (moments of inspiration) they have bestowed upon Greece; but in their hours of self-possession, few or none. And too long were it to speak of the Sibyl, and others, who, inspired and prophetic, have delivered utterances beneficial to the hearers. Indeed, this word phrenetic or maniac is no reproach; it is identical with mantic --prophetic. 966 And often when diseases and plagues have fallen upon men for the sins of their forefathers, some phrensy too has broken forth, and in prophetic strain has pointed out a remedy, showing how the sin might be expiated, and the gods appeased (by prayers, and purifications, and atoning rites).... So many and yet more great effects could I tell you of the phrensy which comes from the gods." 967 Some have discerned in all this merely the food for a feeble ridicule. They regard these sentiments as simply an evidence of the power and prevalence of superstition clouding the loftiest intellects in ancient times. By the more thoughtful and philosophic mind, however, they will be accepted as an indication of the imperishable and universal faith of humanity in a supernatural and supersensuous world, and in the possibility of some communication between heaven and earth. 968 And above all, it is a conclusive proof that Plato believed that the knowledge of salvation--of a remedy for sin, a method of expiation for sin, a means of deliverance from the power and punishment of sin, must be revealed from Heaven.