[405] the idea. Ideas are but meditations on the intuitions first given visual form by the artist^a. The icon created by the artist’s imagination precedes the verbal structure erected by the philosopher^b and the scientist^c on the basis of this aesthetic experience. Religion^d and philosophy^e are built on the artist’s intuitions. (For example, Greek philosophy is really a meditation based on symmetry, proportion, and harmony--first discovered by artists, painting pots and weaving rugs.) And the architect discovered the dome and the vault and thus gave men the idea of infinity, etc... --Would you please comment on the above and draw out its implications for the religious life. [The question was drawn from comments on the "jacket" of Read's book.—PHJ] PT: Now that's a very good question, which is not so much a question as [it is] a supplement to the fundamental method which I have applied in these lectures, showing the expressive power of art for a reality which, without this art, can never be found and certainly cannot be found in terms of cognitive^f approach. On the other hand, I think he is only half right in this. And it is interesting that the real example which he gives are the Greeks. Now I come to this immediately--there are a lot of places-- when I speak about humanists^g and Christian education^h. So I will postpone that for a moment because there the fundamental difference of the genesis of ideas is clear: in Greece it is the

transcendent memory; the ideas are IN MAN, and must be developed. And then the philosophical and artistic expressions then follow. And I would understand that here, perhaps, in some cases-- I wouldn’t make it general--the ARTISTIC expression PRECEDES the philosophical expression. But all such things are usually exaggerations. The more adequate thing seems to me to give absolute priority to the mythⁱ, to the mythological fantasy, which has in itself both the artistic, the juristic, and the philosophical element. And it is interesting that ALL of them have developed together, in early Greek philosophy--in Parmenides it is the goddess of right, diké, which introduces the philosopher in[to] the vision of being. That means that the different functions were seen in unity, and they were seen mythologically^j. Now that is my answer to this. And in Christianity the situation is obviously wrongly described because before there were icons,