as reasoning, in modern science; but his conclusions agree quite remarkably with those of our own most advanced scientific thinkers, in that they find an evolutionary justification for both heterosexual and homosexual inclinations. Of the latter, he says that men who belong to the "male" evolutionary strain "love men throughout their boyhood, and take pleasure in physical contact with men. Such ... lads are the best of their generation, because they are the most manly. Some people say they are shameless, but they are wrong. It is not shamelessness which inspires their behaviour, but high spirit and manliness and virility, which lead them to welcome the society of their own kind. A striking proof of this is that such youths alone, when they reach maturity, engage in public life." Of true lovers, he says, "No one can suppose that it is mere physical enjoyment which causes the one to take such intense delight in the company of the other. It is clear that the soul of each has some other longing which it cannot express, but can only surmise and obscurely hint at. Suppose (the god) Hephaestus... were to visit them as they lie together, and stand over them and ask: 'What is it, mortals, that you hope to gain from one another?' Suppose too that when they could not answer he repeated his question in these terms: 'Is the object of your desire to be always together as much as possible, and never to be separated from one another day or night? If that is what you want, I am ready to melt and weld you together, so that, instead of two, you shall be one flesh; as long as you live you shall live a common life, and when you die, you shall suffer a common death, and be still one, not two, even in the next world. Would such a fate as this content you, and satisfy your longings?' We know what their answer would be; no one would refuse the offer; it would be plain that this is what everybody wants, and everybody would regard it as the precise expression of the desire which he had long felt but had been unable to formulate, that he should melt into his beloved, and that henceforth they should be one being instead of two.”

The speech of Agathon, the poet, follows considerably different lines. By his own species of logic, he finds Love at the basis of a great many other lesser virtues-youthfulness, tenderness or "softness" of sympathy, beauty, goodness, self-mastery, uprightness, courage, wisdom, comradeship, creativeness in the arts. As to the voluptuous, or sensual aspects of Love, he gives these a passing mention, but appears to regard them as incidental expressions of that spiritual love which covets the endowments of a virtuous, upright and strong character for their own sake, whether to possess for oneself or to draw close to in others.

In the arrangement of the SYMPOSIUM, the speech of Agathon is followed by that of Socrates, and lastly by the eulogy of Socrates from the lips of Alcibiades, who arrives at the dinner-party late, and in a somewhat drunken condition. Inasmuch as the deepest thought of the dialogue is contained in the speech of Socrates, we will violate the sequence of Plato's narrative to the extent of presenting, next, Alcibiades' address, so that we may conclude this series of extracts with the philosophical ideas for which the SYMPOSIUM is most distinguished.