Chapter XI — The Philosophers of Athens (Continued.)
The Socratic School (Continued)
Plato
II The Platonic Dialectic
The Platonic Dialectic is the Science of Eternal and Immutable Principles, and the method (ὄργανον) by which these first principles are brought forward into the clear light of consciousness. The student of Plato will have discovered that he makes no distinction between logic and metaphysics. These are closely united in the one science to which he gives the name of “Dialectic” and which was at once the science of the ideas and laws of the Reason, and of the mental process by which the knowledge of Real Being is attained, and a ground of absolute certainty is found. This science has, in modern times, been called Primordial or Transcendental Logic.
We have seen that Plato taught that the human reason is originally in possession of fundamental and necessary ideas—the copies of the archetypal ideas which dwell in the eternal Reason; and that these ideas are the primordial laws of thought—that is, they are the laws under which we conceive of all objective things, and reason concerning all existence. These ideas, he held, are not derived from sensation, neither are they generalizations from experience, but they are inborn and connatural. And, further, he entertained the belief, more, however, as a reasonable hypothesis 554 than as a demonstrable truth, that these standard principles were acquired by the soul in a pre-existent state in which it stood face to face with ideas of eternal order, beauty, goodness, and truth. 555 “Journeying with the Deity,” the soul contemplated justice, wisdom, science—not that science which is concerned with change, and which appears under a different manifestation in different objects, which we choose to call beings; but such science as is in that which alone is indeed being. 556 Ideas, therefore, belong to, and inhere in, that portion of the soul which is properly οὐσία—essence or being; which had an existence anterior to time, and even now has no relation to time, because it is now in eternity—that is, in a sphere of being to which past, present, and future can have no relation. 557
Footnote 554: (return) : Within “the εἰκότων µύθων ἰδέα—the category of probability.”—“Phædo.”
Footnote 555: (return) “Phædo,” § 50-56.
Footnote 556: (return) “Phædrus,” § 58.
Footnote 557: (return) See note on p. 349.
All knowledge of truth and reality is, therefore, according to Plato, a REMINISCENCE (ἀνάµνησις)—a recovery of partially forgotten ideas which the soul possessed in another state of existence; and the dialectic of Plato is simply the effort, by apt interrogation, to lead the mind to “recollect” 558 the truth which has been formerly perceived by it, and is even now in the memory though not in consciousness. An illustration of this method is attempted in the “Meno” where Plato introduces Socrates as making an experiment on the mind of an uneducated person. Socrates puts a series of questions to a slave of Meno, and at length elicits from the youth a right enunciation of a geometrical truth. Socrates then points triumphantly to this instance, and bids Meno observe that he had not taught the youth any thing, but simply interrogated him as to his opinions, whilst the youth had recalled the knowledge previously existing in his own mind. 559
Footnote 558: (return) “To learn is to recover our own previous knowledge, and this is properly to recollect.”—“Phædo” § 55.
Footnote 559: (return) “Meno,” § 16-20. “Now for a person to recover knowledge himself through himself, is not this to recollect.”
Now whilst we readily grant that the instance given in the “Meno” does not sustain the inference of Plato that “the boy” had learnt these geometrical truths “in eternity,” and that they had simply been brought forward into the view of his consciousness by the “questioning” of Socrates, yet it certainly does prove that there are ideas or principles in the human reason which are not derived from without—which are anterior to all experience, and for the development of which, experience furnishes the occasion, but is not the origin and source. By a kind of lofty inspiration, he caught sight of that most important doctrine of modern philosophy, so clearly and logically presented by Kant, that the Reason is the source of a pure à priori knowledge—a knowledge native to, and potentially in the mind, antecedent to all experience, and which is simply brought out into the field of consciousness by experience conditions. Around this greatest of all metaphysical truths Plato threw a gorgeous mythic dress, and presented it under the most picturesque imagery. 560 But, when divested of the rich coloring which the glowing imagination of Plato threw over it, it is but a vivid presentation of the cardinal truth that there are ideas in the mind which have not been derived from without, and which, therefore, the mind brought with it into the present sphere of being. The validity and value of this fundamental doctrine, even as presented by Plato, is unaffected by any speculations in which he may have indulged, as to the pre-existence of the soul. He simply regarded this doctrine of pre-existence as highly probable—a plausible explanation of the facts. That there are ideas, innate and connatural to the human mind, he clung to as the most vital, most precious, most certain of all truths; and to lead man to the recognitions of these ideas, to bring them within the field of consciousness, was, in his judgment, the great business of philosophy.
And this was the grand aim of his Dialectic—to elicit, to bring to light the truths which are already in the mind—“a µαίευσις” a kind of intellectual midwifery 561—a delivering of the mind of the ideas with which it was pregnant.
Footnote 560: (return) As in the “Phædo,” §§ 48-57; “Phædrus,” §§ 52-64; “Republic,” bk. x.
Footnote 561: (return) “Theætetus,” §§ 17-20.
It is thus, at first sight, obvious that it was a higher and more comprehensive science than the art of deduction. For it was directed to the discovery and establishment of First Principles. Its sole object was the discovery of truth. His dialectic was an analytical and inductive method. “In Dialectic Science,” says Alcinous, “there is a dividing and a defining, and an analyzing, and, moreover, that which is inductive and syllogistic.” 562 Even Bacon, who is usually styled “the Father of the Inductive method,” and who, too often, speaks disparagingly of Plato, is constrained to admit that he followed the inductive method. “An induction such as will be of advantage for the invention and demonstration of Arts and Sciences must distinguish the essential nature of things (naturam) by proper rejections and exclusions, and then after as many of these negatives as are sufficient, by comprising, above all (super), the positives. Up to this time this had not been done, nor even attempted, except by Plato alone, who, in order to attain his definitions and ideas, has used, to a certain extent, the method of Induction.” 563
Footnote 562: (return) “Introduction to the Doctrines of Plato,” vol. vi. p. 249. “The Platonic Method was the method of induction.”—Cousin’s “History of Philosophy,” vol. i. p. 307.
Footnote 563: (return) “Novum Organum,” vol. i. p. 105.
The process of investigation adopted by Plato thus corresponds with the inductive method of modern times, with this simple difference, that Bacon conducted science into the world of matter, whilst Plato directed it to the world of mind. The dialectic of Plato aimed at the discovery of the “laws of thought;” the modern inductive philosophy aims at the discovery of the “laws of nature.” The latter concerns itself chiefly with the inquiry after the “causes” of material phenomena; the former concerned itself with the inquiry after the “first principles” of all knowledge and of all existence. Both processes are, therefore, carried on by interrogation. The analysis which seeks for a law of nature proceeds by the interrogation of nature. The analysis of Plato proceeds by the interrogation of mind, in order to discover the fundamental ideas which lie at the basis of all cognition, which determine all our processes of thought, and which, in their final analysis, reveal the REAL BEING, which is the ground and explanation of all existence.
Now the fact that such an inquiry has originated in the human mind, and that it can not rest satisfied without some solution, is conclusive evidence that the mind has an instinctive belief, a proleptic anticipation, that such knowledge can be attained. There must unquestionably be some mental initiative which is the motive and guide to all philosophical inquiry. We must have some well-grounded conviction, some à priori belief, some pre-cognition “ad intentionem ejus quod quæritur,” 564 which determines the direction of our thinking. The mind does not go to work aimlessly; it asks a specific question; it demands the “whence” and the “why” of that which is. Neither does it go to work unfurnished with any guiding principles. That which impels the mind to a determinate act of thinking is the possession of a knowledge which is different from, and independent of, the process of thinking itself. “A rational anticipation is, then, the ground of the prudens quæstio —“the forethought query, which, in fact, is the prior half of the knowledge sought.” 565 If the mind inquire after “laws,” and “causes,” and “reasons,” and “grounds,”—the first principles of all knowledge and of all existence,—“it must have the à priori ideas of “law,” and “cause,” and “reason,” and “being in se” which, though dimly revealed to the mind previous to the discipline of reflection, are yet unconsciously governing its spontaneous modes of thought. The whole process of induction has, then, some rational ground to proceed upon—some principles deeper than science, and more certain than demonstration, which reason contains within itself, and which induction “draws out” into clearer light.
Footnote 564: (return) Bacon.
Footnote 565: (return) Coleridge, vol. ii. p. 413.
Now this mental initiative of every process of induction is the intuitive and necessary conviction that there must be a sufficient reason why every thing exists, and why it is as it is, and not otherwise; 566 or in other words, if any thing begins to be, some thing else must be supposed 567 as the ground, and reason, and cause, and law of its existence. This “law of sufficient (or determinant) reason” 568 is the fundamental principle of all metaphysical inquiry. It is contained, at least in a negative form, in that famous maxim of ancient philosophy, “De nihilo nihil”—“Ἀδύνατον γίνεσθαί τι ἐκ µηδενὸς προϋπάρχοντος.” “It is impossible for a real entity to be made or generated from nothing pre-existing;” or in other words, “nothing can be made or produced without an efficient cause.” 569 This principle is also distinctly announced by Plato: “Whatever is generated, is necessarily generated from a certain αἰτίαν”—ground, reason, or cause; “for it is wholly impossible that any thing should be generated without a cause.” 570
Footnote 566: (return) “Phædo,” § 103.
Footnote 567: (return) Suppono, to place under as a support, to take as a ground.
Footnote 568: (return) This generic principle, viewed under different relations, gives—
1st. The principle of Substance—every quality supposes a subject or real being.
2d. The principle of Causality—every thing which begins to be must have a cause.
3d. The principle of Law—every phenomenon must obey some uniform law.
4th. The principle of Final Cause—every means supposes an end, every existence has a purpose or reason why.
5th. The principle of Unity—all plurality supposes a unity as its basis and ground.
Footnote 569: (return) Cudworth’s “Intellectual System,” vol. ii. p. 161.
Footnote 570: (return) “Timæus,” ch. ix.
The first business of Plato’s dialectic is to demonstrate that the ground and reason of all existence can not be found in the mere objects of sense, nor in any opinions or judgments founded upon sensation. Principles are only so far “first principles” as they are permanent and unchangeable, depending on neither time, nor place, nor circumstances. But the objects of sense are in ceaseless flux and change; they are “always becoming;” they can not be said to have any “real being.” They are not to-day what they were yesterday, and they will never again be what they are now; consequently all opinions founded on mere phenomena are equally fluctuating and uncertain. Setting out, therefore, from the assumption of the fallaciousness of “opinion” it examined the various hypotheses which had been bequeathed by previous schools of philosophy, or were now offered by contemporaneous speculators, and showed they were utterly inadequate to the solution of the problem. This scrutiny consisted in searching for the ground of “contradiction” 571 with regard to each opinion founded on sensation, and showing that opposite views were equally tenable. It inquired on what ground these opinions were maintained, and what consequences flowed therefrom, and it showed that the grounds upon which “opinion” was founded, and the conclusions which were drawn from it, were contradictory, and consequently untrue. 572 “They,” the Dialecticians, “examined the opinions of men as if they were error; and bringing them together by a reasoning process to the same point, they placed them by the side of each other: and by so placing, they showed that the opinions are at one and the same time contrary to themselves, about the same things, with reference to the same circumstances, and according to the same premises.” 573 And inasmuch as the same attribute can not, at the same time, be affirmed and denied of the same subject, 574 therefore a thing can not be at once “changeable” and “unchangeable,” “movable” and “immovable,” “generated” and “eternal.” 575 The objects of sense, however generalized and classified, can only give the contingent, the relative, and the finite; therefore the permanent ground and sufficient reason of all phenomenal existence can not be found in opinions and judgments founded upon sensation.
Footnote 571: (return) “The Dialectitian is one who syllogistically infers the contradictions implied in popular opinions.”—Aristotle, “Sophist,” §§ 1, 2.
Footnote 572: (return) “Republic,” bk. vi. ch. xiii.
Footnote 573: (return) “Sophist,” § 33; “Republic,” bk. iv. ch. xii.
Footnote 574: (return) See the “Phædo,” § 119, and “Republic,” bk. iv. ch. xiii., where the Law of Non-contradiction is announced.
Footnote 575: (return) “Parmenides,” § 3.
The dialectic process thus consisted almost entirely of refutation, 576 or what both he and Aristotle denominated elenchus (ἔλεγχος)—a process of reasoning by which the contradictory of a given proposition is inferred. “When refutation had done its utmost, and all the points of difficulty and objection had been fully brought out, the dialectic method had accomplished its purpose; and the affirmation which remained, after this discussion, might be regarded as setting forth the truth of the question under consideration;” 577 or in other words, when a system of error is destroyed by refutation, the contradictory opposite principle, with its logical developments, must be accepted as an established truth.
Footnote 576: (return) Confutation is the greatest and chiefest of purification.—“Sophist,” § 34.
Footnote 577: (return) Article “Plato,” Encyclopædia Britannica.
By the application of this method, Plato had not only exposed the insufficiency and self-contradiction of all results obtained by a mere à posteriori generalization of the simple facts of experience, but he demonstrated, as a consequence, that we are in possession of some elements of knowledge which have not been derived from sensation; that there are, in all minds, certain notions, principles, or ideas, which have been furnished by a higher faculty than sense; and that these notions, principles, or ideas, transcend the limits of experience, and reveal the knowledge of real being—τὸ ὄντως ὄν—Being in se.
To determine what these principles or ideas are, Plato now addresses himself to the analysis of thought. “It is the glory of Plato to have borne the light of analysis into the most obscure and inmost region; he searched out what, in this totality which forms consciousness, is the province of reason; what comes from it, and not from the imagination and the senses—from within, and not from without.” 578 Now to analyze is to decompose, that is, to divide, and to define, in order to see better that which really is. The chief logical instruments of the dialectic method are, therefore, Division and Definition. “The being able to divide according to genera, and not to consider the same species as different, nor a different as the same,” 579 and “to see under one aspect, and bring together under one general idea, many things scattered in various places, that, by defining each, a person may make it clear what the subject is,” is, according to Plato, “dialectical.” 580
Footnote 578: (return) Cousin’s “Lectures on the History of Philosophy,” vol. i. p. 328.
Footnote 579: (return) “Sophist,” § 83.
Footnote 280: (return) “Phædrus,” §§ 109, 111.
We have already seen that, in his first efforts at applying reflection to the concrete phenomena of consciousness, Plato had recognized two distinct classes of cognitions, marked by characteristics essentially opposite;—one of “sensible” objects having a definite outline, limit, and figure, and capable of being imaged and represented to the mind in a determinate form—the other of “intelligible” objects, which can not be outlined or represented in the memory or the imagination by any figures or images, and are, therefore, the objects of purely rational conception. He found, also, that we arrive at one class of cognitions “mediately” through images generated in the vital organism, or by some testimony, definition, or explication of others; whilst we arrive at the other class “immediately” by simple intuition, or rational apperception. The mind stands face to face with the object, and gazes directly upon it. The reality of that object is revealed in its own light, and we find it impossible to refuse our assent—that is, it is self-evident. One class consisted of contingent ideas—that is, their objects are conceived as existing, with the possibility, without any contradiction, of conceiving of their non-existence; the other consisted of necessary ideas—their objects are conceived as existing with the absolute impossibility of conceiving of their non-existence. Thus we can conceive of this book, this table, this earth, as not existing, but we can not conceive the non-existence of space. We can conceive of succession in time as not existing, but we can not, in thought, annihilate duration. We can imagine this or that particular thing not to have been, but we can not conceive of the extinction of Being in itself. He further observed, that one class of our cognitions are conditional ideas; the existence of their objects is conceived only on the supposition of some antecedent existence, as for example, the idea of qualities, phenomena, events; whilst the other class of cognitions are unconditional and absolute—we can conceive of their objects as existing independently and unconditionally—existing whether any thing else does or does not exist, as space, duration, the infinite, Being in se. And, finally, whilst some ideas appear in us as particular and individual, determined and modified by our own personality and liberty, there are others which are, in the fullest sense, universal. They are not the creations of our own minds, and they can not be changed by our own volitions. They depend upon neither times, nor places, nor circumstances; they are common to all minds, in all times, and in all places. These ideas are the witnesses in our inmost being that there is something beyond us, and above us; and beyond and above all the contingent and fugitive phenomena around us. Beneath all changes there is a permanent being. Beyond all finite and conditional existance there is something unconditional and absolute. Having determined that there are truths which are independent of our own minds—truths which are not individual, but universal—truths which would be truths even if our minds did not perceive them, we are led onward to a super-sensual and super-natural ground, on which they rest.
To reach this objective reality on which the ideas of reason repose, is the grand effort of Plato’s dialectic. He seeks, by a rigid analysis, clearly to separate, and accurately to define the à priori conceptions of reason. And it was only when he had eliminated every element which is particular, contingent, and relative, and had defined the results in precise and accurate language, that he regarded the process as complete. The ideas which are self-evident, universal, and necessary, were then clearly disengaged, and raised to their pure and absolute form. “You call the man dialectical who requires a reason of the essence or being of each thing. As the dialectical man can define the essence of every thing, so can he of the good. He can define the idea of the good, separating it from all others—follow it through all windings, as in a battle, resolved to mark it, not according to opinion, but according to science.” 581
Footnote 581: (return) “Republic,” bk. vii. ch. xiv.
Abstraction is thus the process, the instrument of the Platonic dialectic. It is important, however, that we should distinguish between the method of comparative abstraction, as employed in physical inquiry, and that immediate abstraction, which is the special instrument of philosophy. The former proceeds by comparison and generalization, the latter by simple separation. The one yields a contingent general principle as the result of the comparison of a number of individual cases, the other gives an universal and necessary principle by the analysis of a single concrete fact. As an illustration we may instance “the principle of causality.” To enable us to affirm “that every event must have a cause,” we do not need to compare and generalize a great number of events. “The principle which compels us to pronounce the judgment is already complete in the first as in the last event; it can change in regard to its object, it can not change in itself; it neither increases nor decreases with the greater or less number of applications.” 582 In the presence of a single event, the universality and necessity of this principle of causality is recognized with just as much clearness and certainty as in the presence of a million events, however carefully generalized.
Footnote 582: (return) Cousin’s “The True, the Beautiful, and the Good,” pp. 57, 58.
Abstraction, then, it will be seen, creates nothing; neither does it add any new element to the store of actual cognitions already possessed by all human minds. It simply brings forward into a clearer and more definite recognition, that which necessarily belongs to the mind as part of its latent furniture, and which, as a law of thought, has always unconsciously governed all its spontaneous movements. As a process of rational inquiry, it was needful to bring the mind into intelligible and conscious communion with the world of Ideas. These ideas are partially revealed in the sensible world, all things being formed, as Plato believed, according to ideas as models and exemplars, of which sensible objects are the copies. They are more fully manifested in the constitution of the human mind which, by virtue of its kindred nature with the original essence or being, must know them intuitively and immediately. And they are brought out fully by the dialectic process, which disengages them from all that is individual and phenomenal, and sets them forth in their pure and absolute form.
But whilst Plato has certainly exhibited the true method of investigation by which the ideas of reason are to be separated from all concrete phenomena and set clearly before the mind, he has not attempted a complete enumeration of the ideas of reason; indeed, such an enumeration is still the grand desideratum of philosophy. We can not fail, however, in the careful study of his writings, to recognize the grand Triad of Absolute Ideas—ideas which Cousin, after Plato, has so fully exhibited, viz., the True, the Beautiful, and the Good.
Platonic Scheme of Ideas
I. The idea of ABSOLUTE TRUTH or REALITY (τὸ ἀληθές—τὸ ὄν)—the ground and efficient cause of all existence, and by participating in which all phenomenal existence has only so far a reality, sensible things being merely shadows and resemblances of ideas. This idea is developed in the human intelligence in its relation with the phenomenal world; as,
1. The idea of SUBSTANCE (οὐσία)—the ground of all phenomena, “the being or essence of all things,” the permanent reality.—“Timæeus,” ch. ix. and xii.; “Republic,” bk. vii. ch. xiv.; “Phædo,”§§ 63-67, 73.
2. The idea of CAUSE (αἰτία)—the power or efficiency by which things that “become,” or begin to be, are generated or produced.—“Timæus,” ch. ix.; “Sophist,” § 109; “Philebus,” §§ 45, 46.
3. The idea of IDENTITY (αὐτὸ τὸ ἴσον)—that which “does not change,” “is always the same, simple and uniform, incomposite and indissoluble,”—that which constitutes personality or self-hood.—“Phædo,” §§ 61-75; “Timæus,” ch. ix.; “Republic,” bk. ii. ch. xix. and xx.
4. The idea of UNITY (τὸ ἕν)—one mind or intelligence pervading the universe, the comprehensive conscious thought or plan which binds all parts of the universe in one great whole (τὸ πᾶν)—the principle of order.—“Timæus,” ch. xi. and xv.; “Republic,” bk. vi. ch. xiii.; “Philebus,” §§ 50-51.
5. The idea of the INFINITE (τὸ ἄπειρον)—that which is unlimited and unconditioned, “has no parts, bounds, no beginning, nor middle, nor end.”—“Parmenides,” §§ 22, 23.
II. The idea of ABSOLUTE BEAUTY (τὸ καλόν)—the formal cause of the universe, and by participation in which all created things have only so far a real beauty.—“Timæus,” ch. xi, “Greater Hippias,” §§ 17, 18; “Republic,” bk. v. ch. 22.
This idea is developed in the human intelligence in its relation to the organic world; as,
1. The Idea of PROPORTION or SYMMETRY (συµµετρἰα)—the proper relation of parts to an organic whole resulting in a harmony (κόσµος), and which relation admits of mathematical expression.—“Timæus,” ch. lxix.; “Philebus,” § 155 (“Timæus,” ch. xi. and xii., where the relation of numerical proportions to material elements is expounded).
2. The idea of DETERMINATE FORM (παράδειγµα ἀρχέτυπος)—the eternal models or archetypes according to which all things are framed, and which admit of geometrical representation.—“Timæus,” ch. ix.; “Phædo,” §112 (“Timæus,” ch. xxviii.-xxxi., where the relation of geometrical forms to material elements is exhibited).
3. The idea of RHYTHM (ῥυθµός)—measured movement in time and space, resulting in melody and grace.—“Republic,” bk. iii. ch. xi. and xii.; “Philebus,” § 21.
4. The idea of FITNESS or ADAPTATION (χρήσιον)—effectiveness to some purpose or end.—“Greater Hippias,” § 35.
5. The idea of PERFECTION (τελειότης)—that which is complete, “a structure which is whole and finished—of whole and perfect parts.”—“Timæus,” ch. xi., xii., and xliii.
III. The idea of ABSOLUTE GOOD (τὸ ἀγαθόν)—the final cause or reason of all existence, the sun of the invisible world, that pours upon all things the revealing light of truth.
The first Good 583 (summum bonum) is God the highest, and Mind or Intelligence (νοῦς), which renders man capable of knowing and resembling God. The second flows from the first, and are virtues of mind. They are good by a participation of the chief good, and constitute in man a likeness or resemblance to God.—“Phædo,” §§110-114; “Laws,” bk. i. ch. vi., bk. iv. ch. viii.; “Theætetus,” §§ 84, 85; “Republic,” bk. vi. ch. xix., bk. vii. ch. iii., bk. x. ch. xii. 584
Footnote 583: (return) “Let us declare, then, on what account the framing Artificer settled the formation of the universe. He was GOOD;” and being good, “he desired that all things should as much as possible resemble himself.”—“Timæus,” ch. x.
Footnote 584: (return) “At the utmost bounds of the intellectual world is the idea of the Good, perceived with difficulty, but which, once seen, makes itself known as the cause of all that is beautiful and good; which in the visible world produces light, and the orb that gives it; and which in the invisible world directly produces Truth and Intelligence.”—“Republic,” bk. vii. ch. iii.
This idea is developed in the human intelligence in its relation to the world of moral order; as,
1. The idea of WISDOM or PRUDENCE (φρόνησις)—thoughtfulness, rightness of intention, following the guidance of reason, the right direction of the energy or will.—“Republic,” bk. iv. ch. vii., bk. vi. ch. ii.
2. The idea of COURAGE or FORTITUDE (ἀνδρία)—zeal, energy, firmness in the maintenance of honor and right, virtuous indignation against wrong.—“Republic,” bk. iv. ch. viii.; “Laches;” “Meno,” § 24.
3. The idea of SELF-CONTROL or TEMPERANCE (σωφροσύνη)—sound-mindedness, moderation, dignity.—“Republic,” bk. iv. ch. ix.; “Meno,” § 24; “Phædo,” § 35.
4. The idea of JUSTICE (δικαιοσύνη)—the harmony or perfect proportional action of all the powers of the soul.—“Republic,” bk. i. ch. vi., bk. iv. ch. x.-xii., bk. vi. ch. ii. and xvi.; “Philebus,” § 155; “Phædo,” § 54; “Theætetus,” §§ 84, 85.
Plato’s idea of Justice comprehends—
(1) EQUITY (ὶσότης)—the rendering to every man his due.—“Republic,” bk. i. ch. vi.
(2.) VERACITY (ἀλήθεια)—the utterance of what is true.—“Republic,” bk. i. ch. v., bk. ii. ch. xx., bk. vi. ch. ii.
(3.) FAITHFULNESS (πιστὸτης)—the strict performance of a trust.—“Republic,” bk. i. ch. v., bk. vi. ch. ii.
(4.) USEFULNESS (ώφέλτµον)—the answering of some valuable end.—“Republic,” bk. ii. ch. xviii., bk. iv. ch. xviii.; “Meno,” § 22.
(5.) BENEVOLENCE (εὔνοια)—seeking the well-being of others.—“Republic,” bk. i. ch. xvii., bk. ii. ch. xviii.
(6.) HOLINESS (ὁσιότης)—purity of mind, piety.—“Protagoras,” §§ 52-54; “Phædo,” § 32; “Theætetus,” § 84.
The final effort of Plato’s Dialectic was to ascend from these ideas of Absolute Truth, and Absolute Beauty, and Absolute Goodness to the Absolute Being, in whom they are all united, and from whom they all proceed. “He who possesses the true love of science is naturally carried in his aspirations to the real Being; and his love, so far from suffering itself to be retarded by the multitude of things whose reality is only apparent, knows no repose until it have arrived at union with the essence of each object, by the part of the soul which is akin to the permanent and essential; so that this divine conjunction having produced intelligence and truth, the knowledge of being is won.” 585
Footnote 585: (return) “Republic,” bk. vi. ch. v.
To the mind of Plato, there was in every thing, even the smallest and most insignificant of sensible objects, a reality just in so far as it participates in some archetypal form or idea. These archetypal forms or ideas are the “thoughts of God” 586—they are the plan according to which he framed the universe. “The Creator and Father of the universe looked to an eternal model.... Being thus generated, the universe is framed according to principles that can be comprehended by reason and reflection.” 587 Plato, also, regarded all individual conceptions of the mind as hypothetical notions which have in them an à priori element—an idea which is unchangeable, universal, and necessary. These unchangeable, universal, and necessary ideas are copies of the Divine Ideas, which are, for man, the primordial laws of all cognition, and all reasoning. They are possessed by the soul “in virtue of its kindred nature to that which is permanent, unchangeable, and eternal.” He also believed that every archetypal form, and every à priori idea, has its ground and root in a higher idea, which is unhypothetical and absolute—an idea which needs no other supposition for its explanation, and which is, itself, needful to the explanation of all existence—even the idea of an absolute and perfect Being, in whose mind the ideas of absolute truth, and beauty, and goodness inhere, and in whose eternity they can only be regarded as eternal. 588 Thus do the “ideas of reason” not only cast a bridge across the abyss that separates the sensible and the ideal world, but they also carry us beyond the limits of our personal consciousness, and discover to us a realm of real Being, which is the foundation, and cause, and explanation of the phenomenal world that appears around us and within us.
Footnote 586: (return) Alcinous, “Doctrines of Plato,” p. 262.
Footnote 587: (return) “Timæus,” ch. ix.
Footnote 588: (return) Maurice’s “Ancient Philosophy,” p. 149.
This passage from psychology to ontology is not achieved per saltum, or effected by any arbitrary or unwarrantable assumption. There are principles revealed in the centre of our consciousness, whose regular development carry us beyond the limits of consciousness, and attain to the knowledge of actual being. The absolute principles of causality and substance, of intentionality and unity, unquestionably give us the absolute Being. Indeed the absolute truth that every idea supposes a being in which it resides, and which is but another form of the law or principle of substance, viz., that every quality supposes a substance or being in which it inheres, is adequate to carry us from Idea to Being. “There is not a single cognition which does not suggest to us the notion of existence, and there is not an unconditional and absolute truth which does not necessarily imply an absolute and unconditional Being.” 589
Footnote 589: (return) Cousin’s “Elements of Psychology,” p. 506.
This, then, is the dialectic of Plato. Instead of losing himself amid the endless variety of particular phenomena, he would search for principles and laws, and from thence ascend to the great Legislator, the First Principle of all Principles. Instead of stopping at the relations of sensible objects to the general ideas with which they are commingled, he will pass to their eternal Paradigms—from the just thing to the idea of absolute justice, from the particular good to the absolute good, from beautiful things to the absolute beauty, and thence to the ultimate reality—the absolute Being. By the realization of the lower idea, embodied in the forms of the visible universe and in the necessary laws of thought, he sought to rise to the higher idea, in its pure and abstract form—the Supreme Idea, containing in itself all other ideas—the One Intelligence which unites the universe in a harmonious whole. “The Dialectic faculty proceeds from hypothesis to an unhypothetical principle.... It uses hypotheses as steps, and starting-points, in order to proceed from thence to the absolute. The Intuitive Reason takes hold of the First Principle of the Universe, and avails itself of all the connections and relations of that principle. It ascends from idea to idea, until it has reached the Supreme Idea”—the Absolute Good—that is, God. 590
Footnote 590: (return) “Republic,” bk. vi. ch. xx. and xxi.
We are thus brought, in the course of our examination of the Platonic method, to the results obtained by this method—or, in other words, to