Christianity and Greek Philosophy Part 34

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 (f????s??)--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 FORt.i.tUDE (??d??a)--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 (s?f??s???)--sound-mindedness, moderation, dignity.--"Republic," bk. iv.

ch. ix.; "Meno," -- 24; "Phaedo," -- 35.

4. _The idea of_ JUSTICE (d??a??s???)--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; "Phaedo," -- 54; "Theaetetus," ---- 84, 85.

Plato's idea of Justice comprehends--

(1) EQUITY (?s?t??)--the rendering to every man his due.--"Republic,"

bk. i. ch. vi.

(2.) VERACITY (????e?a)--the utterance of what is true.--"Republic," bk.

i. ch. v., bk. ii. ch. xx., bk. vi. ch. ii.

(3.) FAITHFULNESS (p?st?t??)--the strict performance of a trust.--"Republic," bk. i. ch. v., bk. vi. ch. ii.

(4.) USEFULNESS (?f??t??)--the answering of some valuable end.--"Republic," bk. ii. ch. xviii., bk. iv. ch. xviii.; "Meno," -- 22.

(5.) BENEVOLENCE (e????a)--seeking the well-being of others.--"Republic," bk. i. ch. xvii., bk. ii. ch. xviii.

(6.) HOLINESS (?s??t??)--purity of mind, piety.--"Protagoras," ---- 52-54; "Phaedo," -- 32; "Theaetetus," -- 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 r.e.t.a.r.ded by the mult.i.tude 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: "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 partic.i.p.ates in some archetypal form or idea. These archetypal forms or ideas are the "_thoughts of G.o.d_"[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 _a 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 _a 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: Alcinous, "Doctrines of Plato," p. 262.]

[Footnote 587: "Timaeus," ch. ix.]

[Footnote 588: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 149.]

This pa.s.sage from psychology to ontology is not achieved _per saltum_, or effected by any arbitrary or unwarrantable a.s.sumption. 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: 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 pa.s.s 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, _G.o.d_.[590]

[Footnote 590: "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

III. THE PLATONIC ONTOLOGY.

The grand object of all philosophic inquiry in ancient Greece was to attain to the knowledge of real Being--that Being which is permanent, unchangeable, and eternal. It had proceeded on the intuitive conviction, that beneath all the endless diversity of the universe there must be a principle of _unity_--below all fleeting appearances there must be a permanent _substance_--beyond all this everlasting flow and change, this beginning and end of finite existence, there must be an eternal Being, which is the _cause_, and which contains, in itself, the _reason_ of the order, and harmony, and beauty, and excellency which pervades the universe. And it had perpetually asked what is this permanent, unchangeable, and eternal substance or being?

Plato had a.s.siduously labored at the solution of this problem. The object of his dialectic was "to lead upward the soul to the knowledge of real being,"[591] and the conclusions to which he attained may be summed up as follows:

1st. _Beneath all_ SENSIBLE _phenomena there is an unchangeable subject-matter, the mysterious substratum of the world of sense, which he calls the receptacle (?p?d???) the nurse (t?????) of all that is produced_.[592]

It is this "substratum or physical groundwork" which gives a reality and definiteness to the evanescent phantoms of sense, for, in their ceaseless change, _they_ can not justify any t.i.tle whatever. It alone can be styled "_this_" or "_that_" (t?de or t??t?); they rise no higher than "_of such kind_" or "_of what kind or quality" (t????t?? or ?p??????? t?).[593] It is not earth, or air, or fire, or water, but "an invisible _species_ and formless universal receiver, which, in the most obscure way, receives the immanence of the intelligible."[594] And in relation to the other two principles (_i.e._, ideas and objects of sense), "it is _the mother_" to the father and the offspring.[595] But perhaps the most remarkable pa.s.sage is that in which he seems to identify it with _pure s.p.a.ce_, which, "itself imperishable, furnishes a _seat_ (?d?a?) to all that is produced, not apprehensible by direct perception, but caught by a certain spurious reasoning, scarcely admissible, but which we see as in a dream; gaining it by that judgment which p.r.o.nounces it necessary that all which is, be _somewhere_, and occupy a _certain s.p.a.ce_."[596] This, it will be seen, approaches the Cartesian doctrine, which resolves matter into _simple extension.[597]

[Footnote 591: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xii. and xiii.]

[Footnote 592: "Timaeus," ch. xxii.]

[Footnote 593: "Timaeus," ch. xxiii.]

[Footnote 594: Ibid., ch. xxiv.]

[Footnote 595: Ibid., ch. xxiv.]

[Footnote 596: Ibid., ch. xxvi.]

[Footnote 597: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.

171.]

It should, however, be distinctly noted that Plato does not use the word ???--matter. This term is first employed by Aristotle to express "the substance which is the subject of all changes."[598] The subject or substratum of which Plato speaks, would seem to be rather a logical than a material ent.i.ty. It is the _condition or supposition_ necessary for the production of a world of phenomena. It is thus the _transition-element_ between the real and the apparent, the eternal and the contingent; and, lying thus on the border of both territories, we must not be surprised that it can hardly be characterized by any definite attribute.[599] Still, this unknown recipient of forms or ideas has a _reality_; it has "an abiding nature," "a constancy of existence;"

and we are forbidden to call it by any name denoting quality, but permitted to style it "_this_" and "_that_" (t?de ?a? t??t?).[600]

Beneath the perpetual changes of sensible phenomena there is, then, an unchangeable subject, which yet is neither the Deity, nor ideas, nor the soul of man, which exists as the means and occasion of the manifestation of Divine Intelligence in the organization of the world.[601]

[Footnote 598: "Metaphysics," bk. vii. ch. i.]

[Footnote 599: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.

178.]

[Footnote 600: "Timaeus," ch. xxiii.]

[Footnote 601: Ibid., ch. xiiii]

There has been much discussion as to whether Plato held that this "_Receptacle_" and "_Nurse_" of forms and ideas was eternal, or generated in time. Perhaps no one has more carefully studied the writings of Plato than William Archer Butler, and his conclusions in regard to this subject are presented in the following words: "As, on the one hand, he maintained a strict system of dualism, and avoided, without a single deviation, that seduction of pantheism to which so many abstract speculators of his own school have fallen victims; so, on the other hand, it appears to me that he did not scruple to place this principle, the opposite of the Divine intelligence, in a sphere independent of temporal origination.... But we can scarcely enter into his views, unless we ascertain his notions of the nature of _Time_ itself. This was considered to have been created with the rest of the sensible world, to finish with it, if it ever finished--to be altogether related to this phenomenal scene.[602] 'The generating Father determined to create a moving image of eternity (a?????); and in disposing the heavens, he framed of this eternity, reposing in its own unchangeable unity, an eternal _image_, moving according to numerical succession, which he called _Time_. With the world arose days, nights, months, years, which all had no previous existence. The past and future are but forms of time, which we most erroneously transfer to the eternal substance (??d??? ??s?a?); we say it was, and is, and will be, whereas we can only fitly say _it is_. Past and future are appropriate to the successive nature of generated beings, for they bespeak motion; but the Being eternally and immovably the same is subject neither to youth nor age, nor to any accident of time; it neither was, nor hath been, nor will be, which are the attributes of fleeting sense--the circ.u.mstances of time, imitating eternity in the shape of number and motion. Nor can any thing be more inaccurate than to apply the term _real being_ to past, or present, or future, or even to non-existence. Of this, however, we can not now speak fully. _Time_, then, was formed with the heavens, that, together created, they may together end, _if indeed an end be in the purpose of the Creator_; and it is designed as closely as possible to resemble the eternal nature, its exemplar. The model exists through all eternity; the world has been, is, and will be through all _time_.'[603] In this ineffable eternity Plato places the Supreme Being, and the archetypal ideas of which the sensible world of time partakes.

Whether he also includes under the same mode of existence the _subject-matter_ of the sensible world, it is not easy to p.r.o.nounce; and it appears to me evident that he did not himself undertake to speak with a.s.surance on this obscure problem."[604] The creation of matter "out of nothing" is an idea which, in all probability, did not occur to the mind of Plato. But that he regarded it as, in some sense, a _dependent_ existence--as existing, like time, by "the purpose or will of the Creator"--perhaps as an eternal "generation" from the "eternal substance," is also highly probable; for in the last a.n.a.lysis he evidently desires to embrace all things in some ultimate _unity_--a tendency which it seems impossible for human reason to avoid.

[Footnote 602: See _ante_, note 4, p. 349.]

[Footnote 603: "Timaeus," ch. xiv.]

[Footnote 604: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.

171-175.]