Introduction: Religion and morality; from faith to fact -- I. Historical -- II. Ethical -- III. Psychological -- IV. Sociological.

In his greatest work the greatest thinker of his era, if not of all time, Plato, writing in one of the greatest, if not even the greatest epoch in the intellectual, artistic, and literary history of mankind, held up a mirror not only to his own age but to every age, not least our own, in the glowing radiance of his unsurpassed genius. This essay is an attempt to look on the world around us with his searchlight. Addressing on this (...) subject a select company of educated and intelligent men and women, I discovered that several of them had attempted but had failed to read through The Republic . They could not see the wood for the trees, lost their way, and gave up the guest. (shrink)