in regard to tradition on other elements in the ancient faith the same speaker subsequently represents himself as neither altogether a believer nor a disbeliever, and he proceeds to search, in Plutarch’s own special way, for “faint and dim emanations of truth dispersed about among the mythologies of the Egyptians.”[151] Plutarch’s lofty idea of the passion of Love may have induced him in this, as his strenuous moral aim did in so many other instances, to emphasize for the moment any particular aspect of the ancient faith which appeared likely to furnish inspiration to the realization of noble ethical ideals. He is anxious, at all events, that his purely rational arguments shall not carry him too far, as, on one occasion, after a long disquisition, the undoubted purport of which is to refer oracular inspiration to subterraneous fumes and exhalations, or, as one of the speakers says, “to accident and natural means,” Plutarch (“Lamprias” here is clearly a thin disguise of Plutarch himself) is disturbed and confused that he should be thought desirous of refuting any “true and religious” opinions recognized with respect to the Deity; and he forthwith proceeds to prove that it is quite possible to investigate natural phenomena for secondary causes, while recognizing a final cause in the creative Deity.[152] Not only does Plutarch sympathize with those who accept with pious simplicity the tenets of the “ancient and hereditary Faith;” not only does he deprecate too severe a handling of religious questions; but he is also eager to support his view of a subject by showing that it is not out of harmony with the traditions or prescriptions of the national belief. Concluding that consolatory letter to his wife upon the death of their little daughter, which is the most humane and natural expression of sympathy left us by antiquity, he tries to show that those who die young will earlier feel at home in the other world than those whose long life on earth has habituated their souls to a condition so different from that which exists “beyond the gates of Hades,” and he says that this is a truth which becomes clearer in the light of the ancient and hereditary customs.[153] No libations are poured for the young that are dead. They have no share in earth, nor in the things of earth. The laws do not allow mourning for children of such tender years, “_because they have gone to dwell in a better land, and to share a diviner lot_.” And he adds, “I know that these questions are involved in great uncertainty; but since to disbelieve is more difficult than to believe, in external matters let us act as the laws enjoin, while within we become more chaste, and holy, and undefiled.”[154] It must not be overlooked that Plutarch was long a priest of the Delphian Apollo, and that the duties of this position responded to some internal need of his soul, and were not regarded by him as a merely official dignity, is proved by the manner in which he alludes to the subject. He