Shrine of Wisdom Magazine 15 (1923)
Platonism as a Discipline
Platonism is a Method of Discipline rather than the designation of a System. Its aim is to bring out into bold relief that Philosophy which embraces the higher nature of man within its scope, unfolds the mysteries of the interior being, and renders us awake to everything essential to human well-being.
The faith of all ages, the most ancient as well as the present, however diverse in form, has always been the same in essence. In every creed the effort to realize the the Truth is manifest; and every worship is the aspiration for the purer and more excellent.
It is therefore only when symbols supersede substance, and external rites veil their own true scope and meaning, that we have any occasion to withhold countenance from them. Even history becomes untrue when its occurrences are described in actual disregard of the inspiring principles of action; and that science is radically at fault which ignores the Supreme Intellect.
If Platonism has seemed to place a low estimate upon what is usually regarded as practical and scientific knowledge, it always contemplates the Truth which transcends it. It gathers the Wisdom of the more ancient schools and nations together with the learning of more modern centuries, with the purpose of extracting what is precious from all. It is a proving as well as a prizing of all things. It teaches how to discriminate the permanent from the changing; that which is, from that which seems; the mathematic and absolute, from the the geometric and relative; mind, in its integrity, from instinct and the lower understanding. It essays to make us acquainted with our true selfhood, to familiarize us with Reason - the raying forth of Divinity into human consciousness; to bring us to the knowledge of Truth, and to awaken in us that longing which is never satisfied except at that Fountain.
It is the province of this Philosophy to place at their true value the whole body of facts accumulated from the world's experience, and to render them useful. The moral sentiments, which have sometimes been described as resting on those accumulations, like islands on reefs of coral-accretion from the oceans bottom, it proves to be at-one with what our Souls have brought with them from the Eternal World. We have but to winnow away the chaff and foreign seeds in order to have the pure grain.
This philosophic discipline unfolds the interior nature of the Soul; arouses the dormant truth there inhumed; brings into activity the spiritual faculty; and enables us to peruse the Arcana of the higher life. It discloses the absolute identity of Truth as a Divine Presence and manifestation in every people, a pure Ideal in every faith, an overhanging sky over every lofty human aspiration.
- T. M. Johnson, in "The Platonist", January 1884.