existence because they are more perfect than the sensible forms of them
which are given by experience. But in the Phaedo the doctrine of ideas is
subordinate to the proof of the immortality of the soul. 'If the soul
existed in a previous state, then it will exist in a future state, for a
law of alternation pervades all things.' And, 'If the ideas exist, then
the soul exists; if not, not.' It is to be observed, both in the Meno and
the Phaedo, that Socrates expresses himself with diffidence. He speaks in
the Phaedo of the words with which he has comforted himself and his
friends, and will not be too confident that the description which he has
given of the soul and her mansions is exactly true, but he 'ventures to
think that something of the kind is true.' And in the Meno, after dwelling
upon the immortality of the soul, he adds, 'Of some things which I have
said I am not altogether confident' (compare Apology; Gorgias). From this
class of uncertainties he exempts the difference between truth and
appearance, of which he is absolutely convinced.

In the Republic the ideas are spoken of in two ways, which though not
contradictory are different. In the tenth book they are represented as the
genera or general ideas under which individuals having a common name are
contained. For example, there is the bed which the carpenter makes, the
picture of the bed which is drawn by the painter, the bed existing in
nature of which God is the author. Of the latter all visible beds are only
the shadows or reflections. This and similar illustrations or explanations
are put forth, not for their own sake, or as an exposition of Plato's
theory of ideas, but with a view of showing that poetry and the mimetic
arts are concerned with an inferior part of the soul and a lower kind of
knowledge. On the other hand, in the 6th and 7th books of the Republic we
reach the highest and most perfect conception, which Plato is able to
attain, of the nature of knowledge. The ideas are now finally seen to be
one as well as many, causes as well as ideas, and to have a unity which is
the idea of good and the cause of all the rest. They seem, however, to
have lost their first aspect of universals under which individuals are
contained, and to have been converted into forms of another kind, which are
inconsistently regarded from the one side as images or ideals of justice,
temperance, holiness and the like; from the other as hypotheses, or
mathematical truths or principles.

In the Timaeus, which in the series of Plato's works immediately follows
the Republic, though probably written some time afterwards, no mention
occurs of the doctrine of ideas. Geometrical forms and arithmetical ratios
furnish the laws according to which the world is created. But though the
conception of the ideas as genera or species is forgotten or laid aside,
the distinction of the visible and intellectual is as firmly maintained as
ever. The IDEA of good likewise disappears and is superseded by the
conception of a personal God, who works according to a final cause or
principle of goodness which he himself is. No doubt is expressed by Plato,
either in the Timaeus or in any other dialogue, of the truths which he
conceives to be the first and highest. It is not the existence of God or
the idea of good which he approaches in a tentative or hesitating manner,
but the investigations of physiology. These he regards, not seriously, as
a part of philosophy, but as an innocent recreation (Tim.).

Passing on to the Parmenides, we find in that dialogue not an exposition or
defence of the doctrine of ideas, but an assault upon them, which is put
into the mouth of the veteran Parmenides, and might be ascribed to
Aristotle himself, or to one of his disciples. The doctrine which is
assailed takes two or three forms, but fails in any of them to escape the
dialectical difficulties which are urged against it. It is admitted that
there are ideas of all things, but the manner in which individuals partake
of them, whether of the whole or of the part, and in which they become like
them, or how ideas can be either within or without the sphere of human
knowledge, or how the human and divine can have any relation to each other,
is held to be incapable of explanation. And yet, if there are no universal
ideas, what becomes of philosophy? (Parmenides.) In the Sophist the
theory of ideas is spoken of as a doctrine held not by Plato, but by
another sect of philosophers, called 'the Friends of Ideas,' probably the
Megarians, who were very distinct from him, if not opposed to him
(Sophist). Nor in what may be termed Plato's abridgement of the history of
philosophy (Soph.), is any mention made such as we find in the first book
of Aristotle's Metaphysics, of the derivation of such a theory or of any
part of it from the Pythagoreans, the Eleatics, the Heracleiteans, or even
from Socrates. In the Philebus, probably one of the latest of the Platonic
Dialogues, the conception of a personal or semi-personal deity expressed
under the figure of mind, the king of all, who is also the cause, is
retained. The one and many of the Phaedrus and Theaetetus is still working
in the mind of Plato, and the correlation of ideas, not of 'all with all,'
but of 'some with some,' is asserted and explained. But they are spoken of
in a different manner, and are not supposed to be recovered from a former
state of existence. The metaphysical conception of truth passes into a
psychological one, which is continued in the Laws, and is the final form of
the Platonic philosophy, so far as can be gathered from his own writings
(see especially Laws). In the Laws he harps once more on the old string,
and returns to general notions:--these he acknowledges to be many, and yet
he insists that they are also one. The guardian must be made to recognize
the truth, for which he has contended long ago in the Protagoras, that the
virtues are four, but they are also in some sense one (Laws; compare
Protagoras).

So various, and if regarded on the surface only, inconsistent, are the
statements of Plato respecting the doctrine of ideas. If we attempted to
harmonize or to combine them, we should make out of them, not a system, but
the caricature of a system. They are the ever-varying expression of
Plato's Idealism. The terms used in them are in their substance and
general meaning the same, although they seem to be different. They pass
from the subject to the object, from earth (diesseits) to heaven (jenseits)
without regard to the gulf which later theology and philosophy have made
between them. They are also intended to supplement or explain each other.
They relate to a subject of which Plato himself would have said that 'he
was not confident of the precise form of his own statements, but was strong
in the belief that something of the kind was true.' It is the spirit, not


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