"Such, Phaedrus--and I speak not only to you, but to all of you--were the words of Diotima; and I am persuaded of their truth. And being persuaded of them, I try to persuade others, that in the attainment of this end human nature will not easily find a helper better than Love. And therefore, also, I say that every man ought to honour him as I myself honour him, and walk in his ways, and exhort others to do the same, and praise the power and spirit of Love according to the measure of my ability now and ever." [Footnote: Plato, Symp. 201.--Translated by Jowett.] I have thought it worth while to quote this passage, in spite of its length, partly for the sake of its own intrinsic beauty, partly because no account of the Greek view of life could be complete which did not insist upon the prominence in their civilisation of the passion of friendship, and its capacity of being turned to the noblest uses. That there was another side to the matter goes without saying. This passion, like any other, has its depths, as well as its heights; and the ideal of friendship conceived by Plato was as remote, perhaps, from the experience of the average man, as Dante's presentation of the love between man and woman. Still, the fact remains that it was friendship of this kind that supplied to the Greek that element of romance which plays so large a part in modern life; and it is to this, and not to the relations between men and women, that we must look for the highest reaches of their emotional experience. Section 11. Summary. If now we turn back to take a general view of the points that have been treated in the present chapter, we shall notice, in the first place, that the ideal of the Greeks was the direct and natural outcome of the conditions of their life. It was not something beyond and above the experience of the class to which it applied, but rather, was the formula of that experience itself: in philosophical phrase, it was immanent not transcendent. Because there really was a class of soldier-citizens free from the necessity of mechanical toil, possessed of competence and leisure, and devoting these advantages willingly to the service of the State, therefore their ideal of conduct took the form we have described. It was the ideal of a privileged class, and postulated for its realisation, not only a strenuous endeavour on the part of the individual, but also certain adventitious gifts of fortune, such as health, wealth, and family connections. These were conditions that actually obtained among members of the class concerned; so that the ideal in question was not a mere abstract "ought", but an expression of what, approximately at least, was realised in fact.