This very simplicity of motive has thoroughly humanized what might have been a tenuous theme. The picture is a magnificent conclave out of many ages, a symbol of the cumulative splendor of the Catholic tradition. [Illustration: FIG. 187. Raphael. La Disputa—The Truth of the Eucharist. Fresco.—_Vatican._ ] [Illustration: FIG. 188. Raphael. The School of Athens. Fresco.—_Vatican._ ] On the opposite wall, in the School of Athens, Figure 188, Raphael pictures a similar continuity of human thought on the secular plane. The arched space opens into a vast basilica whose gods, represented as colossal statues at the sides, are Apollo and Minerva. Raphael has studied the Basilica of Constantine and has modestly scanned Bramante’s plans for new St. Peter’s. He invents a vaulted interior more impressive than any that man has ever built. Within finite bounds he suggests the infinity of Umbrian space. Without the figures, or with quite other figures, we should still have a great picture. But the group is as nobly disposed as the architecture. You may imagine a foreshortened ring of which the reverend forms of Plato and Aristotle are the twin jewels. Aristotle at the right is in the vigor of middle age as a scientist should be. His disciples crowd towards him or gather in secondary groups about some leader. Science is social and co-operative. Raphael puts himself in this group. Plato at the left is immensely old and feeble. Speculative philosophy requires only strength of spirit. His disciples are generally isolated in personal meditation. Philosophical truth is arrived at not in society but in solitude. Certain ardent young faces recall Leonardo da Vinci, and the construction of the group is his. We have linking motives, like that of sprawling Diogenes on the steps, curves that repeat or counter the vault above, turns and thrusts of bodies in active balance, an energetic variety within a serene harmony. The mood is less agitated than that of the Disputa, while the composition is freer. Human science and philosophy are at once less bound than is theology, and move more equably because they strive for more readily attainable ends. Like its companion piece, the School of Athens is both a citation of witnesses and a profession of faith, of faith in the capacity of the human mind.