The purpose of the Platonic myth is to carry the argument beyond and above the region of logic and analysis, into that of poetry and constructive truth, upon matters where strict proof was impossible. The reader may be referred to Bishop Westcott’s Essay on _Religious Thought in the West_, and to Professor J. A. Stewart’s book on _The Myths of Plato_. (1) It will be convenient to look first into the myth of Thespesius in Plutarch’s Dialogue _On the Instances of Delay in Divine Punishment_ (see pp. 205-13 of this book). The motive is identical with that of the myth of Er in the _Republic_, yet with a difference. Plato gives us an experience from the world beyond death, granted to one who had been taken for dead during several days, in order to carry to a higher plane his argument for the victory here and hereafter of Justice over Injustice. Plutarch, as a moral teacher and ‘physician of souls’, concerned to restore individuals who have fallen, and to keep the falling on their feet, gives us the picture of ‘The Rake Reformed’, taking an extreme instance of a vicious character restored to sanity by glimpses of penalties and of bliss beyond this life, in order to deter and encourage others under temptation. The name Aridaeus, changed to Thespesius, ‘The Divine’, as an earnest of the reformation, reminds us of Ardiaeus the tyrant, in Plato. The language naturally falls into that of the Judgement-myth in the _Gorgias_. It is introduced by a similar form of words: ‘Now listen while I tell you a very beautiful story (λόγος) which you I think will call a myth (μῦθος), for all that I am about to say I wish to be regarded as true’ (Plato). ‘I can tell you a story which I have lately heard, yet I hesitate lest it may appear to you a myth.... Let me first make good the “probability” of my view, then we will start the myth, if myth indeed it be’ (Plutarch). The details in Plutarch are fuller and grimmer, and the language, though solemn, lacks the stately reticence of Plato. We are often reminded of words and thoughts in the _Eumenides_ of Aeschylus. The celestial imagery is vague, and does not seem to suggest any special source more modern than Plato. It has a general resemblance to a passage in the _Phaedo_ (c. 58, p. 109 D, E). ‘We, dwelling in a hollow of the Earth, think that we dwell upon the Earth itself; and the air we call Heaven, and think that it is that Heaven wherein are the courses of the stars: whereas, by reason of weakness and sluggishness, we cannot go forth out of the air; but if a man could journey to the edge thereof, or having gotten wings could fly up, it would come to pass that even as fishes here which rise out of the sea do behold the things here, he, looking out, would behold the things there, and if his strength could endure the sight thereof, would see that there are the True Heaven, and the True Light, and the True Earth’ (Tr. J. A. Stewart).