immortality for them when they have worn away, how greatly must creative _souls_ desire that partnership and close communion with other souls as fair as they may bring to birth a brood of lofty thoughts, poems, statues, institutions, laws,--the fitting progeny of the soul? "And he who in his youth hath the need of these things in him, and grows to be a godlike man, wanders about in search of a noble and well-nurtured soul; and finding it, and in presence of that beauty which he forgets not night or day, brings forth the beautiful which he conceived long ago; and the twain together tend that which he hath brought forth, and are bound by a far closer bond than that of earthly children, since the children which are born to them are fairer and more immortal far. Who would not choose to have Homer's offspring rather than any sons or daughters of men? Who would not choose the offspring which Lycurgus left behind him, to be the very salvation of Lacedæmon and of Greece? or the children of Solon, whom we call Father of our Laws? or of other men like these, whether Greeks or barbarians, who by great deeds that they have done have become the begetters of every kind of virtue?--ay, and to these men's children have temples been set up, and never to any other progeny of man...." "He, then, who to this end would strive aright, must begin in youth to seek fair forms, and should learn first to love one fair form only, and therein to engender noble thoughts. And then he will perceive that the beauty of one fair form is to the beauty of another near akin; and that if it be Beauty's self he seek, it were madness not to account the beauty of all forms as one same thing; and considering this, he will be the lover of all lovely shapes, and will abate his passion for one shape alone, despising and deeming it but a little thing. And this will lead him on to see that the beauty of the soul is far more precious than any beauty of outward form, so that if he find a fair soul, though it be in a body which hath but little charm, he will be constant thereunto, and bring to birth such thoughts as teach and strengthen, till he lead that soul on to see the beauty of actions and of laws, and how all beauty is in truth akin, and the body's beauty is but a little matter; and from actions he will lead him on to sciences, that he may see how sciences are fair; and looking on the abundance of beauty may no longer be as the slave or bondman of one beauty or of one law; but setting sail into the ocean of beauty, and creating and beholding many fair and glorious thoughts and images in a philosophy without stint or stay, he may thus at last wax strong and grow, and may perceive that there is one science only, the science of infinite beauty.