134 Ancient Ideals
the world. The world of any moment is the merest appearance....
In silence, in steadiness, in severe abstraction, let him hold by him-
self; add observation to observation, patient of neglect, patient of re-
proach; and bide his own time— happy enough, if he can satisfy
himself alone, that this day he has seen something truly” (64). In
time he learns that in descending to the secrets of his own mind he
has unlocked the secret of all minds. When he off ers his vision to
the world he risks the greatest disaster. How many have sought to
strike through the pasteboard mask and see the ultimate forms that
lie on the other side, discerning Truth from what merely appears to
be the case? How many have come anywhere close to plausible
success?
For what the true thinker hopes for is rather outrageous. Natu-
rally, he dreams of understanding the pre sent and the past. But he
wants something more. If the thinker has fulfi lled his dream he is
also someone who can predict the future—in the only au then tic
sense there is. He can tell you not only what men and women are
like now, and what the world is, but how those things will be for all
time. Plato knows—or believes he knows— the possi ble shapes, both
of happiness and sorrow, that the spirit can take, not just for the
Athenian pre sent but for all time. He knows— because he knows
Nature— what kinds of government will succeed and fail, who the
gods are and how to worship them, what a child is and how to give
it the fullest chance for growth. And these matters will—if Plato is
right— never change. Seeing humanity as it is, he knows humanity
as it ever will be. Knowing what is Good now, he knows the Good
for all time. A man or woman who has reached such a level of ap-
prehension may be truly said to have touched the immortal, for then
all of time is pre sent here and now. In ever y instant of pure thought,
the true thinker lives amidst eternal life.