i tisition of knowledge was the evolution of this
harmony, and it was accompanied with instinctive i -
of the pre-adaptation. Many of the Btrang- Plato may he similarly reduced to pro- saic probability.
The supernal realities which are the objects of the pure and of the purified intelligence are thejirst Intel- ligibles, presented to the contemplation of um or disembodied spirits. These prime intelligibles are i immaterial archetj pi -
patterns or i oi er pres-
ent to tin- Divine Mind, furnishing tin- models, and, indeed, the essence, of all the temporal creation. The term ideas was older than Plato: but ii- application to heavenly types, it- metaphysical employment, and its
substitution for the Pythagorean Numbers, were almost certainly Platonic inventions (Parmenid. p. 135; De Rep. vi. 509). It ha- justly been remarked by I'cber-
had often been remarked before Ueberweg,
that ••the Platonic philosophy centres in the theory of idea-." Intii. Physics, Ethics, the rays
all converge towards this point lint the ideas of Plato are not merely his central doctrine: they are usually conceived to he his distinctive doctrine. As such, they were assailed and refuted by Aristotle (Met- upli. i. vi. ix i. who. nevertheless, substituted a more rationalistic equivalent for them in /■'<,,„,.-: A- Buch, they were received and expanded by the New Plato- nists. A- such, liny have given life and name to all associated schemes of philosophy, included under the broad name of Idealism. As such, they furnished the battle-ground for the lone-, impassioned, and bil troversy of the Realists and Nominalists. See hi u- ism and Nominalism.
According to Plato, following the Eleatic s.-l 1 and
Heraclitus, all sensible or concrete existence is perish- able, fleeting, and imperfect ; hut this imperfection in- volves the existence of the perfect, the changeless, and the immortal (Aristot. Metaph. i. vi ; Alex. Aphrod. Asclep.et Anon. Urbin. Schol. ad loc). If some things are good, there must he an absolute goodness, in which all things good participate, and which they feebly reflect. If things are beautiful, they are so by the incorporation of the beautiful If actions are ju-t. beneficent, or holy, there must he an eternal justice,
beneficence, and holiness, whence they derive their character (Pkatdrus, p. 246 256; Tlipp, Maj. p. 294, 295 ; Conviv. p. 210 212; Phcedo, p. 100 102). 'The passing things of sense acquire their essential character from the indwelling of these immutable existences, however these may !»■ warped and deformed by being reduced to temporal conditions. As it i- vtritfa abstract qual- ities.-o it is with individual things. A dog, a horse, a man. are what they are (ri> ri inn ) from the possession of the essentia] nature of those animals -caninity, equi- iiliij. humanity. Each differs from other members ol iis class, or is individualized, by union with matter, and consequent deflection from the perfect conception of the breed. Each, therefore, is an inadequate and, con- sequently, untrue representation of the true and perfect being of its kind, and approaches such perfection just iii proportion a- it approximates to the true, perfect, and eternal image. These intelligible and uncreated per- fections are the ideas, present from the beginning, or in fore all beginning, in the contemplation of the 1 > i — vinity, after which all things are made that were made.
I lex ale not merely the models ot' created things, but
their essence. In the progress towards truth, all phe- nomenal being, all concrete existence, all temporal pre- sentation, all earthly images, all s< usible apprehi nsii ns, must he left behind, and. by an ascending pnx purified intelligence must pierce the veil and phantas- mal appearances of time, and look upon the absolute, everlasting, unchanging, and divine ideas of things. These al ■ are true and nal: all that is actual, sensi- ble, or derived from sense i- phenomenal, evanescent, and delusive. The doctrine of ideas will reappear, tor. as Brilcker notes, neither the metaphysics and theology of Plato, nor his physical and ethical philos- ophy, can preserve any consistency « ithoul them. Ideas form the first order ol' intelligibles, and an' apprehend- ed by the pure reason with the aid of the scientific understanding (voriott inn) \6yov irtpiAqsTrov). The second order consists ol specie.- which are united with matter and cannot he separated from it — the in-cpara-
ble species of the schoolmen. The-e are detected by
the understanding with the concurrence of the intui- tive faculty. Things sensible are. in like manner, pri- mary and secondary, and are apprehended only conject- u rally through irrational perception ($6%y UIT atczii- iliaoTov). Intelligibles belong to the intelligible and eternal universe [to vorjrov, ru iirrwe.
PLATONIC PHILOSOPHY
2S5
PLATONIC PHILOSOPHY
ov). Sensibles are the shadows of the intelligible, and appertain to the visible, phenomenal, and shitting world (to uparor, to alaSrjTOV, to ovtvuq oiwsttoti ov, to ytyvouevov). Knowledge attaches only to the former: from the latter nothing better than opinion can spring (Timceus, p. 28 ; De Rep. vi, 20, p. 509).
In contemplation, the mind regards truth and false- hood: in matters concerned with action, it judges of right and wrong. The moral or practical judgment proceeds from an ingenital sense of beauty and good- ness, and decides, in particular instances, by compari- son with the indwelling types of excellence. Truth, beauty, and goodness are thus nearly identified, and are exhibited as different aspects of the same perfect ideas. Beauty is conformity to the idea, and the idea is perfectly good and true.