We experience, as we go on learning and
knowing,--the vast majority of us experience,--the need of relating what
we have learnt and known to the sense which we have in us for conduct,
to the sense which we have in us for beauty.
A certain Greek prophetess of Mantineia in Arcadia, Diotima[126] by
name, once explained to the philosopher Socrates that love, and impulse,
and bent of all kinds, is, in fact, nothing else but the desire in men
that good should forever be present to them. This desire for good,
Diotima assured Socrates, is our fundamental desire, of which
fundamental desire every impulse in us is only some one particular form.
And therefore this fundamental desire it is, I suppose,--this desire in
men that good should be forever present to them,--which acts in us when
we feel the impulse for relating our knowledge to our sense for conduct
and to our sense for beauty. At any rate, with men in general the
instinct exists. Such is human nature. And the instinct, it will be
admitted, is innocent, and human nature is preserved by our following
the lead of its innocent instincts.
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