But they are not to be
regarded as the stages of an idea, rising above one another to a climax.
They are fanciful, partly facetious performances, 'yet also having a
certain measure of seriousness,' which the successive speakers dedicate to
the god. All of them are rhetorical and poetical rather than dialectical,
but glimpses of truth appear in them. When Eryximachus says that the
principles of music are simple in themselves, but confused in their
application, he touches lightly upon a difficulty which has troubled the
moderns as well as the ancients in music, and may be extended to the other
applied sciences. That confusion begins in the concrete, was the natural
feeling of a mind dwelling in the world of ideas. When Pausanias remarks
that personal attachments are inimical to despots. The experience of Greek
history confirms the truth of his remark. When Aristophanes declares that
love is the desire of the whole, he expresses a feeling not unlike that of
the German philosopher, who says that 'philosophy is home sickness.
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