“But as to the immortal,” continues Plato, “if we do not express it in accordance with an apprehending thought, but form an ordinary conception of it, owing to our lack of insight and power to comprehend the nature of God, we conclude that the immortal life of God is that which has a body and soul which, however, are united in one nature (συμπεφυκότα),[22] i.e. not only externally but intrinsically made one. Soul and body are both abstractions, but life is the unity of both; and because God’s nature is to popular conception the holding of body and soul unseparated in one, He is the Reason whose form and content are an undivided unity in themselves.” This is an important definition of God—a great idea which is indeed none other than the definition of modern times. It signifies the identity of subjectivity and objectivity, the inseparability of the ideal and real, that is, of soul and body. The mortal and finite is, on the contrary, correctly defined by Plato as that of which the existence is not absolutely adequate to the Idea, or, more definitely, to subjectivity.
Plato now further explains what happens in the life of the divine Being, which drama the soul thus has before it, and how the wasting of its wings occurs. “The chariots of the gods enter in bands, led by Zeus, the mighty leader, from his winged chariot. An array of other gods and goddesses follow him, marshalled in eleven bands. They present—each one fulfilling his work—the noblest and most blessed of scenes. The colourless and formless and intangible essence requires thought, the lord of the soul, as its only spectator, and thus true knowledge takes its rise. For there it sees what is (τὸ ὄν), and lives in the contemplation of reality, because it follows in an ever-recurring revolution” (of ideas). “In this revolution” (of gods), “it beholds justice, temperance, and knowledge, not in the form of what men call things, for it sees what in truth is absolute (τὸ ὄντως ὄν).” This is thus expressed as though it were something which had happened. “When the soul returns from thus beholding, the charioteer puts up his horses at the stall, gives them ambrosia to eat and nectar to drink. This is the life of the gods. But other souls, through fault of charioteer or horses, fall into confusion, with broken wings depart from these heavenly places, cease to behold the truth, nourish themselves on opinion as their food, and fall to the ground; according as a soul has beheld more or less of truth, it takes a higher or lower place. In this condition it retains a recollection of what it has seen, and if it perceives anything beautiful or right, it is rapt in amazement. The wings once more obtain strength, and the soul, particularly that of a philosopher, recollects its former condition in which, however, it had not seen what was beautiful, just, etc., but beauty and justice themselves.”[23] Thus because the life of the gods is for the soul, when in individual beauty it is reminded of the universal, it is implied that in the soul, as thus absolutely existing, there is the Idea of the beautiful, good and just, as absolute and as potentially and actually universal. This constitutes the general principle of the Platonic conception. But when Plato speaks of knowledge as of a recollection, he knows all the time that this is only putting the matter in similes and metaphors; he did not ask, as theologians used gravely to do, whether the soul had existed before its birth, and, if so, in what particular place. It cannot be said of Plato that he had any such belief, and he never speaks of the matter in the sense that theologians did; in the same way he never spoke about a Fall from a perfect state, for example, as if man had to look on the present life as an imprisonment. But what Plato expressed as the truth is that consciousness in the individual is in reason the divine reality and life; that man perceives and recognizes it in pure thought, and that this knowledge is itself the heavenly abode and movement.
ββ. Knowledge in the form of soul, is more clearly dealt with in the Phædo, where Plato has further developed the ideas about the immortality of the soul. What in the Phædrus is kept definitely apart as myth and truth respectively, and which is made to appear as such, appears less evidently so in the Phædo—that celebrated dialogue in which Plato makes Socrates speak of the immortality of the soul. That Plato should have connected this discussion with the account of the death of Socrates has in all time been matter of admiration. Nothing could seem more suitable than to place the conviction of immortality in the mouth of him who is in the act of leaving life, and to make this conviction living to us through the scene, just as, on the other hand, a death-scene like this is made living to us through that conviction. We must at the same time remark that in what is fitting the following conditions are implied. It must first be really appropriate for the dying person to occupy himself with himself instead of with the universal, with this certainty of himself as a “this” instead of with the Truth. We hence here meet with the ordinary point of view but slightly separated from that of the Notion, but, although this is so, this ordinary point of view is far removed from sinking into that coarse conception of the soul which considers it to be a thing, and asks about its continuance or subsistence as if it were a thing. Thus we find Socrates expressing himself to the effect that the body and what relates to the body is a hindrance in striving after wisdom, the sole business of Philosophy, because the sensuous perception shows nothing purely, or as it is in itself, and what is true becomes known through the removal of the spiritual from the corporeal. For justice, beauty and such things are what alone exists in verity; they are that to which all change and decay is foreign; and these are not perceived through the body, but only in the soul.[24]
We see in this separation the essence of the soul not considered in a material category of Being, but as the universal; we see it still more in what follows, by which Plato proves immortality. A principal point in this argument is that already considered, that the soul has existed before this life, because learning is only a recollection,[25] and this implies that the soul is already implicitly what it becomes. We must not think that the bald conception of innate ideas is hereby indicated—such an expression implies the existence of ideas by nature, as though our thoughts were in part already implanted, and had in part a natural existence which did not first produce itself through the movement of the mind. But Plato mainly founds the idea of immortality on the fact that what is put together is liable to dissolution and decay, while the simple can in no manner be dissolved or destroyed; what is always like itself and the same, is, however, simple. The beautiful, the good, the like, being simple, are incapable of all change; that, on the contrary, in which these universals are, men, things, &c., are the changeable. They are perceptible by the senses, while the former is the supersensuous. Hence the soul which is in thought, and which applies itself to this, as to what is related to it, must therefore be held to have itself a simple nature.[26] Here, then, we again see that Plato does not take simplicity as the simplicity of a thing—not as if it were of anything like a chemical ingredient, for example, which can no longer be represented as inherently distinguished; this would only be empty, abstract identity or universality, the simple as an existent.
But finally the universal really does appear to take the form of an existent, as Plato makes Simmias assert: a harmony which we hear is none else than a universal, a simple which is a unity of the diverse; but this harmony is associated with a sensuous thing and disappears with it, just as music does with the lyre. On the other hand Plato makes Socrates show that the soul is not a harmony in this sense, for the sensuous harmony first exists after its elements, and is a consequence that follows from them. The harmony of the soul is, however, in and for itself, before every sensuous thing. Sensuous harmony may further have diversities within it, while the harmony of the soul has no quantitative distinction.[27] From this it is clear that Plato receives the reality of the soul entirely in the universal, and does not place its true being in sensuous individuality, and hence the immortality of the soul cannot in his case be understood in the ordinary acceptation, as that of an individual thing. Although later on we come across the myth of the sojourn of the soul after death in another and more brilliant earth,[28] we have seen above (pp. 40, 41) what kind of heaven this would be.
γ. The development and culture of the soul must be taken in connection with what precedes. However the idealism of Plato must not be thought of as being subjective idealism, and as that false idealism which has made its appearance in modern times, and which maintains that we do not learn anything, are not influenced from without, but that all conceptions are derived from out of the subject. It is often said that idealism means that the individual produces from himself all his ideas, even the most immediate. But this is an unhistoric, and quite false conception; if we take this rude definition of idealism, there have been no idealists amongst the philosophers, and Platonic idealism is certainly far removed from anything of the kind. In the seventh book of his Republic (p. 518 Steph., pp. 333, 334 Bekk.) Plato says in connection with what I have already stated (pp. 27-29), and in particular reference to the manner in which this learning is created, by which the universal which before was secreted in the mind, developes out of it alone: “We must believe of science and learning (παιδείας), that its nature is not as some assert” (by this he means the Sophists), “who speak of culture as though knowledge were not contained within the soul, but could be implanted therein as sight into blind eyes.” The idea that knowledge comes entirely from without is in modern times found in empirical philosophies of a quite abstract and rude kind, which maintain that everything that man knows of the divine nature comes as a matter of education and habituation, and that mind is thus a quite indeterminate potentiality merely. Carried to an extreme, this is the doctrine of revelation in which everything is given from without. In the Protestant religion we do not find this rude idea in its abstract form, for the witness of the spirit is an essential part of faith, i.e. faith demands that the individual subjective spirit shall on its own account accept and set forth the determination which comes to it in the form of something given from without. Plato speaks against any such idea, for, in relation to the merely popularly expressed myth given above, he says: “Reason teaches that every man possesses the inherent capacities of the soul and the organ with which he learns. That is, just as we might imagine the eye not capable of turning from darkness to light otherwise than with the whole body, so must we be turned with the whole soul from the world of Becoming” (contingent feelings and ideas) “to that of Being, and the soul must gradually learn to endure this sight, and to behold the pure light of Being. But we say that this Being is the good. The art of so doing is found in culture, as being the art of the conversion of the soul—that is, the manner in which a person can most easily and effectually be converted; it does not seek to implant (ἐμποιῆσαι) sight, but—inasmuch as he already possesses it only it has not been properly turned upon himself and hence he does not see the objects that he ought to see—it brings it into operation. The other virtues of the soul are more in conformity with the body; they are not originally in the soul, but come gradually through exercise and habit. Thought (τὸ φρονῆσαι) on the contrary, as divine, never loses its power, and only becomes good or evil through the manner of this conversion.” This is what Plato establishes in regard to the inward and the outward. Such ideas as that mind determines the good from out of itself are to us much more familiar than to Plato; but it was by Plato that they were first maintained.
c. In that Plato places truth in that alone which is produced through thought, and yet the source of knowledge is manifold—in feelings, sensations, &c.—we must state the different kinds of knowledge, as given by Plato. Plato is entirely opposed to the idea that the truth is given through sensuous consciousness, which is what is known and that from which we start; for this is the doctrine of the Sophists with which we met in dealing with Protagoras, for instance. As regards feeling, we easily make the mistake of placing everything in feeling, as indeed that Platonic rage for beauty contained the truth in the guise of feeling; but this is not the true form of the truth, because feeling is the entirely subjective consciousness. Feeling as such is merely a form with which men make the arbitrary will the principle of the truth, for what is the true content is not given through feeling; in it every content has a place. The highest content must likewise be found in feeling; to have a thing in thought and understanding is quite different from having it in heart and feeling, i.e. in our most inward subjectivity, in this “I”; and we say of the content that it is for the first time in its proper place when it is in the heart, because it then is entirely identical with our individuality. The mistake, however, is to say that a content is true because it is in our feeling. Hence the importance of Plato’s doctrine that the content becomes filled by thought alone; for it is the universal which can be grasped by the activity of thought alone. Plato has defined this universal content as Idea.
At the close of the sixth book of the Republic (pp. 509-511 Steph.; pp. 321-325 Bekk.) Plato distinguishes the sensuous and the intellectual in our knowledge more exactly, so that in each sphere he again presents two modes of consciousness. “In the sensuous (ὁρατόν) the one division is the external manifestation, for in it are shadows, reflections in water, and also in solid, smooth, and polished bodies, and the like. The second section, of which this is only the resemblance, includes animals, plants” (this concrete life), “and everything in art. The intelligible (νοητόν) is also divided into two parts. In the one sub-division the soul uses the sensuous figures given before, and is obliged to work on hypotheses (ἐξ ὑποθέσεων) because it does not go to the principle but to the result.” Reflection, which is not on its own account sensuous, but undoubtedly belongs to thought, mingles thought with the first sensuous consciousness, although its object is not as yet a pure existence of the understanding. “The other division” (what is thought in the soul itself) “is that in which the soul, proceeding from an hypothesis, makes its way (μέθοδον) to a principle which is above hypotheses, not by means of images, as in the former cases, but through the ideas themselves. Those who study geometry, arithmetic, and kindred sciences, assume the odd and the even, the figures, three kinds of angles, and the like. And since they start from these hypotheses, they do not think it necessary to give any account of them, for everybody is supposed to know them. You further know that they make use of figures which are risible, and speak of them, although they are not thinking of them, but of the ideals which they represent; for they think of the” (absolute) “square itself and of its diagonals, and not of the” (sensuous) “images that they draw. And so it is with other things.” Thus, according to Plato, this is certainly the place where real knowledge begins, because we have nothing further to do with the sensuous as such; at the same time this is not the true knowledge which considers the spiritual universal on its own account, but the arguing and reasoning knowledge that forms universal laws and particular kinds or species out of what is sensuous. “These figures which they draw or make, and which also have shadows and images in water, they use only as images, and seek to behold their originals, which can only be seen with the understanding” (διανοίᾳ).—“That is true.”—“This I have named above that species of the intelligible, in inquiring into which the soul is compelled to use hypotheses, not proceeding to a first principle, because it is not able to get above those hypotheses, but employing those secondary images as images which are made absolutely similar to the originals in every respect”—“I understand that you are speaking of geometry and the kindred arts”—“Now learn about the other division of the intelligible in which reason (λόγος) itself is concerned, since by the power of the dialectic it makes use of hypotheses, not as principles but only as hypotheses—that is to say, as steps and points of departure in order to reach a region above hypotheses, the first principle of all” (which is in and for itself), “and clinging to this and to that which depends on this, it descends again to the result, for it requires no sensuous aid at all, but only ideas, and thus it reaches the ideas finally through the ideas themselves.” To know this is the interest and business of Philosophy; this is investigated by pure thought in and for itself, which only moves in such pure thoughts. “I understand you, but not perfectly. You seem to me to wish to assert that what is contemplated in Being and Knowledge through the science of dialectic is clearer than what is contemplated by the so-called sciences which have hypotheses as their principle, and where those who contemplate them have to do so with the understanding and not with the senses. Yet because in their contemplation they do not ascend to the absolute principle, but speculate from hypotheses, they appear not to exercise thought (νοῦν) upon these objects, although these objects are cognizable by thought if a principle is added to them (νοητῶν ὄντων μετὰ ἀρχῆς). The methods (ἕξιν) of geometry and its kindred sciences you appear to me to call understanding; and that because it stands midway between reason (νοῦς) and ‘sensuous’ opinion (δόξα).”—“You have quite grasped my meaning. Corresponding to these four sections, I will suppose four faculties (παθήματα) in the soul—conceiving reason (νόησις) has the highest place (ἐπὶ τῷ ἀνωτάτῳ), understanding the second; the third is called faith (πίστις)”—the true conception for animals and plants in that they are living, homogeneous and identical with ourselves; “and the last the knowledge of images (εἰκασία),” opinion. “Arrange them according to the fact that each stage has as much clearness (σαφηνείας) as that to which it is related has truth.” This is the distinction which forms the basis of Plato’s philosophy, and which came to be known from his writings.
Now if we go from knowledge to its content, in which the Idea becomes sundered, and thereby organizes itself more completely into a scientific system, this content, according to Plato, begins to fall into three parts which we distinguish as the logical, natural, and mental philosophy. The logical Philosophy the ancients called dialectic, and its addition to philosophy is by the ancient writers on the subject ascribed to Plato (Vol. I. p. 387). This is not a dialectic such as we met with in the Sophists, which merely brings one’s ideas altogether into confusion, for this first branch of Platonic philosophy is the dialectic which moves in pure Notions—the movement of the speculatively logical, with which several dialogues, and particularly that of Parmenides, occupy themselves. The second, according to Plato, is a kind of natural philosophy, the principles of which are more especially propounded in the Timæus. The third is the philosophy of the mind—an ethical philosophy—and its representation is essentially that of a perfect state in the Republic. The Critias should be taken in connection with the Timæus and the Republic, but we need not make further reference to it, for it is only a fragment. Plato makes these three dialogues one connected conversation. In the Critias and the Timæus the subject is so divided that while the Timæus dealt with the speculative origin of man and of nature, the Critias was intended to represent the ideal history of human culture, and to be a philosophical history of the human race, forming the ancient history of the Athenians as preserved by the Egyptians. Of this, however, only the beginning has come down to us.[29] Hence if the Parmenides be taken along with the Republic and the Timæus, the three together constitute the whole Platonic system of philosophy divided into its three parts or sections. We now wish to consider the philosophy of Plato more in detail in accordance with these three different points of view.
We have already remarked by way of preparation that the Notion of true dialectic is to show forth the necessary movement of pure Notions, without thereby resolving these into nothing; for the result, simply expressed, is that they are this movement, and the universal is just the unity of these opposite Notions. We certainly do not find in Plato a full consciousness that this is the nature of dialectic, but we find dialectic itself present; that is, we find absolute existence thus recognized in pure Notions, and the representation of the movement of these Notions. What makes the study of the Platonic dialectic difficult is the development and the manifestation of the universal out of ordinary conceptions. This beginning, which appears to make knowledge easier, really makes the difficulty greater, since it introduces us into a field in which there is quite a different standard from what we have in reason, and makes this field present to us; when, on the contrary, progression and motion take place in pure Notions alone, the other is not remembered at all. But in that very way the Notions attain greater truth. For otherwise pure logical movement might easily appear to us to exist on its own account, like a private territory, which has another region alongside of it, also having its own particular place. But since both are there brought together, the speculative element begins to appear as it is in truth; that is, as being the only truth, and that, indeed, through the transformation of sensuous opinion into thought. For in our consciousness we first of all find the immediate individual, the sensuous real; or there are also categories of the understanding which are held by us to be ultimate and true. But contrasted with merely external reality, it is rather the ideal that is the most real, and it was Plato who perceived that it was the only real, for he characterized the universal or thought as the true, in opposition to what is sensuous.
Thus the aim of many of Plato’s Dialogues, which conclude without any positive affirmation (Vol. I. p. 406; II. p. 13), is to show that the immediately existent, the many things that appear to us, although we may have quite true conceptions of them, are still not in themselves, in an objective sense, the true, because they alter and are determined through their relation to something else and not through themselves; thus we must even in the sensuous individuals consider the universal, or what Plato has called the Idea (p. 29). The sensuous, limited, and finite is, in fact, both itself and the other, which is also considered as existent; and thus there is an unsolved contradiction, for the other has dominion in the first. We have been before reminded (Vol. I. p. 404; II. p. 33) that the aim of the Platonic dialectic is to confuse and to resolve the finite ideas of men, in order to bring about in their consciousness what science demands, the consideration of that which is. By being thus directed against the form of the finite, dialectic has in the first place the effect of confounding the particular, and this is brought about by the negation therein present being shown forth, so that, in fact, it is proved that it is not what it is, but that it passes into its opposite, into the limitations which are essential to it. But if this dialectic is laid hold of, the particular passes away and becomes another than that which it is taken to be. Formal philosophy cannot look at dialectic in any other way than as being the art of confusing ordinary conceptions or even Notions, and demonstrating their nullity, thus making their result to be merely negative. For this reason, Plato in his Republic (VII. pp. 538, 539, Steph.; pp. 370, 371, Bekk.) advised the citizens not to allow dialectic to be studied before the thirtieth year, because by its means anyone might transform the beautiful, as he had received it from his masters, into that which is hateful. We find this dialectic a great deal in Plato, both in the more Socratic and moralizing dialogues, and in the many dialogues which relate to the conceptions of the Sophists in regard to science.
In connection with this, the second part of dialectic makes its first aim the bringing of the universal in men to consciousness, which, as we formerly remarked when speaking of Socrates (Vol. I. p. 398), was the main interest of Socratic culture. From this time on, we may look at such an aim as having been discarded, and simply remark that a number of Plato’s Dialogues merely aim at bringing to consciousness a general conception, such as we have without taking any trouble at all (Vol. I. pp. 403, 404); hence this prolixity on Plato’s part often wearies us. This dialectic is, indeed, also a movement of thought, but it is really only necessary in an external way and for reflecting consciousness, in order to allow the universal, what is in and for itself, unalterable and immortal, to come forth. Hence these first two sides of the dialectic, directed as they are towards the dissolution of the particular and thus to the production of the universal, are not yet dialectic in its true form: it is a dialectic which Plato has in common with the Sophists, who understood very well how to disintegrate the particular. A subject which Plato very often treats of with this end in view, is virtue, which he proves to be only one (Vol. I. pp. 405, 411), and thereby he makes the universal good emerge from the particular virtues.
Now because the universal which has emerged from the confusion of the particular, i.e. the true, beautiful and good, that which taken by itself is species, was at first undetermined and abstract, it is, in the third place, a principal part of Plato’s endeavours further to determine this universal in itself. This determination is the relation which the dialectic movement in thought bears to the universal, for through this movement the Idea comes to these thoughts which contain the opposites of the finite within themselves. For the Idea, as the self-determining, is the unity of these differences, and thus the determinate Idea. The universal is hence determined as that which resolves and has resolved the contradictions in itself, and hence it is the concrete in itself; thus this sublation of contradiction is the affirmative. Dialectic in this higher sense is the really Platonic; as speculative it does not conclude with a negative result, for it demonstrates the union of opposites which have annulled themselves. Here begins what is difficult for the understanding to grasp. The form of Plato’s methods being not yet, however, developed purely on its own account, this is the reason that his dialectic is still often merely reasoning, and that it proceeds from individual points of view and frequently remains without result. On the other hand, Plato’s own teaching is directed against this merely reasoning dialectic; yet we see that it gives him trouble properly to show forth the difference. The speculative dialectic which commences with him, is thus the most interesting but also the most difficult part of his work; hence acquaintance is not usually made with it when the Platonic writings are studied. Tennemann, for example, did not at all comprehend what was most important in the Platonic philosophy, and only gathered some of it together in the form of dry ontological determinations—for that was what he could comprehend. But it shows the greatest lack of intellect in a historian of Philosophy only to see in a great philosophic form whether there is anything yielding profit to himself or not.
What we have thus to deal with in the dialectic of Plato is the pure thought of reason, from which he very clearly distinguishes the understanding (διάνοια), (supra, p. 47). We may have thoughts about many things—if indeed, we do have thought at all—but this is not what Plato means. Plato’s true speculative greatness, and that through which he forms an epoch in the history of Philosophy, and hence in the history of the world, lies in the fuller determination of the Idea; this extension of knowledge is one which some centuries later constituted the main element in the ferment which took place in universal history, and in the transformation which the human mind passed through. This fuller determination may, from what has gone before, be understood thus: Plato first comprehended the Absolute as the Being of Parmenides, but as the Universal which, as species, is also end, i.e. which rules, penetrates, and produces the particular and manifold. Plato, however, had not yet developed this self-producing activity, and hence often stumbled into an external teleology. As the union of the preceding principles, Plato further led this Being into determinateness and into difference, as the latter is contained in the triad of Pythagorean number-determinations, and expressed the same in thought. That is, he grasped the Absolute as the unity of Being and non-being—in Becoming, as Heraclitus says—or of the one and the many,[30] &c. He further now took into the objective dialectic of Heraclitus the Eleatic dialectic, which is the external endeavour of the subject to show forth contradiction, so that in place of an external changing of things, their inward transition in themselves, i.e. in their Ideas, or, as they are here, in their categories, has come to pass out of and through themselves. Plato finally set forth the belief of Socrates, which the latter put forward in regard to the moral self-reflection of the subject only, as objective, as the Idea, which is both universal thought and the existent. The previous philosophies thus do not disappear because refuted by Plato, being absorbed in him.
In addition to Being and non-being, one and many, the unlimited and limiting are, for instance, likewise pure thoughts such as these, in whose absolute contemplation, from an all-embracing point of view, the Platonic investigation occupies itself. The purely logical and quite abstruse consideration of such objects certainly contrasts strongly with our conception of the beautiful, pleasing, and attractive content of Plato. Such consideration to him signifies all that is best in Philosophy, and it is that which he everywhere calls the true method of Philosophy, and the knowledge of the truth; in it he places the distinction between philosophers and Sophists. The Sophists on their part look at appearances, and these they obtain in opinion; this, indeed, implies thought, but not pure thought, or what is in and for itself. This is one reason why many turn from the study of Plato’s works unsatisfied. When we commence a Dialogue, we find, in the free Platonic method of composition, beautiful scenes in nature, a superb introduction (p. 14) that promises to lead us through flowery fields into Philosophy—and that the highest Philosophy, the Platonic. We meet with elevated thoughts, which are responded to more specially by youth, but these soon disappear. If at first we have allowed ourselves to be carried away by these bright scenes, they must now be all renounced, and as we have come to the real dialectic, and truly speculative, we must keep to the wearisome path, and allow ourselves to be pricked by the thorns and thistles of metaphysics. For behold, we then come to what is best and highest, to investigations respecting the one and many, Being and nothing; this was not what was anticipated, and men go quietly away, only wondering that Plato should seek knowledge here. From the most profound dialectic investigation, Plato then again proceeds to representations and images, to the description of dialogues amongst intelligent men. Thus in the Phædo, for example, which Mendelssohn has modernized and transformed into Wolffian metaphysics, the beginning and end are elevating and beautiful, and the middle deals with dialectic. Hence in making one’s way through Plato’s Dialogues very many mental qualities are called into play, and in their study we consequently ought to keep our minds open and free as regards the very various points of interest. If we read with interest what is speculative, we are apt to overlook what is most beautiful; if our interest lies in the elevation and culture of the mind, we forget the speculative element and find that it does not appeal to us. With some it is like the young man in the Bible, who had fulfilled his various duties, and who asked Christ what good thing he still had to do to become His follower. But when the Lord commanded him to sell what he had and give to the poor, the young man went away sorrowful; this was not what he had anticipated. Just in the same way many mean well as regards Philosophy; they study Fries, and heaven knows whom else. Their hearts are full of the true, good and beautiful; they would know and see what they ought to do, but their breasts swell with goodwill alone.
While Socrates remained at the good and universal, at implicitly concrete thoughts, without having developed them or having revealed them through development, Plato certainly goes on to the Idea as determined. His defect, however, is that this determinateness and that universality are still outside one another. We should certainly obtain the determinate Idea by reducing the dialectic movement to its result, and that forms an important element in knowledge. Yet when Plato speaks of justice, beauty, goodness, truth, their origin is not revealed; they are not shown as being results, but merely as hypotheses accepted in their immediacy. Consciousness certainly has an innate conviction that they form the highest end, but this their determination is not discovered. Since Plato’s dogmatic expositions of Ideas are lost (supra, p. 11), the dialectic of pure thought is only placed before us by the Dialogues dealing with the subject, and these, just because they deal with pure thought, are amongst the most difficult, viz.: the Sophist, the Philebus, and, more especially, the Parmenides. We here pass over the Dialogues which contain only negative dialectic and Socratic dialogue, because they treat only of concrete ideas and not of dialectic in its higher signification; they leave us unsatisfied, because their ultimate end is only to confuse one’s opinions, or awaken a sense of the necessity for knowledge. But those three express the abstract speculative Idea in its pure Notion. The embracing of the opposites in one, and the expression of this unity, is chiefly lacking in the Parmenides, which has hence, like some other Dialogues, only a negative result. But both in the Sophist and the Philebus Plato expresses the unity also.
a. The fully worked-out and genuine dialectic is, however, contained in the Parmenides—that most famous masterpiece of Platonic dialectic. Parmenides and Zeno are there represented as meeting Socrates in Athens; but the most important part of it is the dialectic which is put in the mouths of Parmenides and Zeno. At the very beginning the nature of this dialectic is given in detail as follows: Plato makes Parmenides praise Socrates thus: “I notice that in conversing with Aristoteles,” (one of those present; it might quite well have been the philosopher, but that he was born sixteen years after Socrates’ death) “you were trying to define in what the nature of the beautiful, just and good, and all such ideas lay. This your endeavour is noble and divine. But train and exercise yourself even more in what the multitude call idle chatter, and look on as useless, as long as you are young, for otherwise the truth will escape you.—In what, Socrates asks, does this exercise consist?—I was much pleased because you said before that we must not be content with contemplating the sensuous and its illusions, but must consider that which thought alone can grasp, and that which alone exists.” I have before[31] remarked that men at all times have believed that the truth could be found through reflection only, for in reflection thought is found, and that which we have before us in the guise of ordinary conception and of belief is transformed into thought. Socrates now replies to Parmenides: “I believed that I should in that way best discern the like and unlike, and the other general determinations in things.” Parmenides replies, “Certainly. But if you begin from a point of view such as that, you must not only consider what follows from such an hypothesis, but also what follows from the opposite of that hypothesis. For example, in the case of the hypothesis ‘the many is,’ you have to consider what will be the consequences of the relation of the many to itself and to the one, and likewise what the consequences of the relation of the one to itself and to the many.” The marvellous fact that meets us in thought when we take determinations such as these by themselves, is that each one is turned round into the opposite of itself. “But again we must consider, if the many is not, as to what will be the result as regards the one and the many, both to themselves and to one another. The same consideration must be employed in respect of identity and non-identity, rest and motion, origination and passing away, and likewise in regard to Being and non-being. We must ask what is each of these in relation to itself, and what is their relation in event of the one or the other being accepted? In exercising yourself fully in this, you will learn to know real truth.”[32] Plato thus lays great stress on the dialectical point of view, which is not the point of view of the merely external, but is a living point of view whose content is formed of pure thoughts only, whose movement consists in their making themselves the other of themselves, and thus showing that only their unity is what is truly justified.
Plato makes Socrates say, as regards the meaning of the unity of the one and many, “If anyone proved to me that I am one and many, it would not surprise me. For since he shows me that I am a many, and points out in me the right and left side, an upper and lower half, a front and back, I partake of the manifold; and again I partake of unity because I am one of us seven. The case is the same with stone, wood, &c. But if anyone, after determining the simple ideas of similarity and dissimilarity, multiplicity, and unity, rest and movement, and so on, were to show that these in their abstract form admit of admixture and separation, I should be very much surprised.”[33] The dialectic of Plato is, however, not to be regarded as complete in every regard. Though his main endeavour is to show that in every determination the opposite is contained, it can still not be said that this is strictly carried out in all his dialectic movements, for there are often external considerations which exercise an influence in his dialectic. For example, Parmenides says: “Are either of the two parts of the one which is—I mean the One and Being—ever wanting to one another? Is the One ever set free from being a part (τοῦ εἶναι μόριον) and Being set free from the one part (τοῦ ἑνὸς μόριου)? Once more, each part thus possesses both the one and Being, and the smallest part still always consists of these two parts.”[34] In other words: “The one is; from this it follows that the one is not synonymous with ‘is,’ and thus the one and ‘is’ are distinguished. There hence is in the proposition ‘the one is’ a distinction; the many is therefore contained in it, and thus even with the one I express the many.” This dialectic is certainly correct, but it is not quite pure, because it begins from this union of two determinations.
The result of the whole investigation in the Parmenides is summarized at the close by saying “that whether the one is or is not, it, as also the many (τἆλλα), in relation to themselves and in relation to one another—all of them both are and are not, appear and do not appear.”[35] This result may seem strange. We are far from accepting, in our ordinary conception of things, quite abstract determinations such as the one, Being, non-being, appearance, rest, movement, &c., as Ideas; but these universals are taken by Plato as Ideas, and this Dialogue thus really contains the pure Platonic doctrine of Ideas. He shows of the one that when it is as well as when it is not, whether like itself or not like itself, both in movement and rest, origination and decay, it both is and is not; or the unity as well as all these pure Ideas, both are and are not, the one is one as much as it is many. In the proposition “the one is,” it is also implied that “the one is not one but many;” and, conversely, “the many is” also indicates that “the many is not many, but one.” They show themselves dialectically and are really the identity with their ‘other’; and this is the truth. An example is given in Becoming: in Becoming Being and non-being are in inseparable unity, and yet they are also present there as distinguished; for Becoming only exists because the one passes into the other.
In this respect, perhaps, the result arrived at in the Parmenides may not satisfy us, since it seems to be negative in character, and not, as the negation of the negation, expressive of true affirmation. Nevertheless, the Neo-platonists, and more especially Proclus, regard the result arrived at in the Parmenides as the true theology, as the true revelation of all the mysteries of the divine essence. And it cannot be regarded as anything else, however little this may at first appear, and though Tiedemann (Platon. Argumenta, p. 340) speaks of these assertions as merely the wild extravagances of the Neo-platonists. In fact, however, we understand by God the absolute essence of things, which even in its simple Notion is the unity and movement of these pure realities, the Ideas of the one and many, &c. The divine essence is the Idea in general, as it is either for sensuous consciousness or for thought. In as far as the divine Idea is the absolute self-reflection, dialectic is nothing more than this activity of self-reflection in itself; the Neo-Platonists regarded this connection as metaphysical only, and have recognized in it their theology, the unfolding of the secrets of the divine essence. But here there appears the double interpretation already remarked upon (p. 19), which has now to be more clearly expounded. It is that God and the essential reality of things may be understood in two different ways. For, on the one hand, when it is said that the essential reality of things is the unity of opposites, it would seem as though only the immediate essence of these immediately objective things were indicated, and as if this doctrine of real essence or ontology were distinguished from the knowledge of God, or theology. These simple realities and their relation and movement seem only to express moments of the objective and not mind, because there is lacking in them one element—that is to say, reflection into themselves—which we demand for the existence of the divine essence. For mind, the truly absolute essence, is not only the simple and immediate, but that which reflects itself into itself, for which in its opposition the unity of itself and of that which is opposed is; but these moments and their movement do not present it as such, for they make their appearance as simple abstractions. On the other hand, they may also be taken to be pure Notions, which pertain purely to reflection into itself. In this case Being is wanting to them, or what we likewise demand for reflection into itself as essential to the divine essence; and then their movement is esteemed an empty round of empty abstractions, which belong only to reflection and have no reality. For the solution of this contradiction we must know the nature of apprehension and knowledge, in order to obtain in the Notion everything there present. Thus shall we have the consciousness that the Notion is in truth neither the immediate only, although it is the simple, nor merely that which reflects itself into itself, the thing of consciousness; for it is of spiritual simplicity, thus really existent—as it is thought turned back on itself, so it is also Being in itself, i.e. objective Being, and consequently all reality. Plato did not state this knowledge of the nature of the Notion so expressly, nor did he say that this essential Being of things is the same as the divine essence. But really it is simply not put into words, for the fact is undoubtedly present, and the only distinction is one of speech as between the mode of the ordinary conception and that of the Notion. On the one hand, this reflection into itself, the spiritual, the Notion, is present in the speculation of Plato; for the unity of the one and many, &c., is just this individuality in difference, this being-turned-back-within-itself in its opposite, this opposite which is implicit; the essential reality of the world is really this movement returning into itself of that which is turned back within itself. But, on the other hand, for this very reason, this being reflected into self—like the God of ordinary conception—still remains with Plato something separated; and in his representation of the Becoming of Nature in the Timæus, God, and the essential reality of things, appear as distinguished.
b. In the Sophist Plato investigated the pure Notions or Ideas of movement and rest, self-identity and other-being, Being and non-being. He here proves, as against Parmenides, that non-being is, and likewise that the simple self-identical partakes of other-being, and unity of multiplicity. He says of the Sophists that they never get beyond non-being, and he also refutes their whole ground-principle, which is non-being, feeling, and the many. Plato has thus so determined the true universal, that he makes it the unity of, for example, the one and many, Being and non-being; but at the same time he has avoided, or it was his endeavour to avoid, the double meaning which lies in our talk of the unity of Being and nothing, &c. For in this expression we emphasize the unity, and then the difference disappears, just as if we merely abstracted from it. Plato tried, however, to preserve the difference likewise. The Sophist is a further development of Being and non-being, both of which are applicable to all things; for because things are different, the one being the other of the other, the determination of the negative is present. First of all, however, Plato expresses in the Sophist a clearer consciousness of Ideas as abstract universalities, and his conviction that this point of view could not endure, because it was opposed to the unity of the Idea with itself. Plato thus first refutes what is sensuous, and then even the Ideas themselves. The first of these points of view is what is later on called materialism, which makes the corporeal alone to be the substantial, admitting nothing to have reality excepting what can be laid hold of by the hand, such as rocks and oaks. “Let us,” says Plato, in the second place, “proceed to the other, to the friends of Ideas.” Their belief is that the substantial is incorporeal, intellectual, and they separate from it the region of Becoming, of change, into which the sensuous falls, while the universal is for itself. These represent Ideas as immovable, and neither active nor passive. Plato asserts, as against this, that movement, life, soul, and thought, cannot be denied to true Being (παντελῶς ὄντι), and that the holy reason (ἄγιον νοῦν) can be nowhere, and in nothing that is unmoved.[36] Plato thus has a clear consciousness of having got further than Parmenides when he says:—
“Keep your mind from this way of inquiry,
For never will you show that non-being is.”
Plato says that Being in anyone partakes both of Being and non-being; but what thus participates is different both from Being and non-being as such.[37]
This dialectic combats two things in particular; and in the first place it is antagonistic to the common dialectic in the ordinary sense, of which we have already spoken. Examples of this false dialectic to which Plato often comes back, are specially frequent amongst the Sophists; yet he did not show sufficiently clearly how they are distinguished from the purely dialectical knowledge which is in the Notion. For example, Plato expressed his dissent when Protagoras and others said that no determination is absolutely certain—that bitter is not objective, for what to one person is bitter, to another is sweet. Similarly, large and small, more and less, &c., are relative, because the large will be, in other circumstances, small, and the small will be great. That is to say, the unity of opposites is present to us in everything we know, but the common way of looking at things, in which the rational does not come to consciousness, always holds the opposites asunder, as though they were simply opposed in a determinate way. As in each thing we demonstrate unity, so do we also show its multiplicity, for it has many parts and qualities. In the Parmenides, Plato, as we saw above (p. 58), objected to this unity of opposites, because it must thereby be said that something is one in quite another respect from that in which it is many. We thus do not here bring these thoughts together, for the conception and the words merely go backwards and forwards from the one to the other; if this passing to and fro is performed with consciousness, it is the empty dialectic which does not really unite the opposites. Of this Plato says, “If anyone thinks he has made a wonderful discovery in ascertaining that he can drag thoughts this way and that, from one determination to another, he may be told that he has done nothing worthy of praise; for in so doing there is nothing excellent or difficult.” The dialectic that annuls a determination because it reveals in it some defect, and then goes on to establish another, is thus wrong. “The point of difficulty, and what we ought to aim at, is to show that what is the other is the same, and what is the same, is another, and likewise in the same regard and from the same point of view to show that the one has in them come into existence if the other determination is revealed within them. But to show that somehow the same is another, and the other also the same, that the great is also small” (e.g. Protagoras’s die), “and the like also unlike, and to delight in thus always proving opposites, is no true inquiry (ἔλενχος), but simply proves that he who uses such arguments is a neophyte,” in thought, “who has just begun to investigate truth. To separate all existences from one another is the crude attempt of an uncultured and unphilosophical mind. To cause everything to fall asunder means the perfect annihilation of all thought, for thought is the union of ideas.”[38] Thus Plato expressly speaks against the dialectic of showing how anything may be refuted from some point of view or another. We see that Plato, in respect of content, expresses nothing excepting what is called indifference in difference, the difference of absolute opposites and their unity. To this speculative knowledge he opposes the ordinary way of thinking, which is positive as well as negative; the former, not bringing the thoughts together, allows first one and then the other to have value in their separation; the latter is, indeed, conscious of a unity, though it is of a superficial, differentiating unity in which the two moments are separate, as standing in different aspects.
The second point against which Plato argues is the dialectic of the Eleatics, and their assertion, which in its nature resembles that of the Sophists, that only Being is, and non-being is not. To the Sophists this means, as Plato puts it: Since the negative is not, but only Being is, there is nothing false; everything existent, everything which is for us, is thus necessarily true, and what is not, we do not know or feel. Plato reproaches the Sophists for thus doing away with the difference between true and false.[39] Having arrived at this stage in the knowledge of the dialectic (and the whole matter is merely a difference of stages) the Sophists could allow what they promise—that everything that the individual, according to his belief, makes his end and interest, is affirmative and right. Hence it cannot be said that such and such an act is wrong, wicked, a crime; for this would be to say that the maxim of the action is wrong. No more can it be said that such and such opinion is deceptive, for in the opinion of the Sophists the proposition implies that what I feel or represent to myself, in as far as it is mine, is an affirmative content, and thus true and right. The proposition in itself seems quite abstract and innocent, but we first notice what is involved in such abstractions when we see them in concrete form. According to this innocent proposition there would be no wickedness and no crime. The Platonic dialectic is essentially different from this kind of dialectic.
What is further present to the mind of Plato is that the Idea, the absolute universal, good, true, and beautiful, is to be taken for itself. The myth, which I have already quoted (p. 27 et seq.), indeed goes to prove that we must not consider a good action, a noble man—not the subject of which these determinations are predicated. For that which appears in such conceptions or perceptions as predicate, must be taken for itself, and this is the absolute truth. This tallies with the nature of the dialectic which has been described. An action, taken in accordance with the empirical conception, may be called right; in another aspect, quite opposite determinations may be shown to be in it. But the good and true must be taken on their own account without such individualities, without this empirical and concrete character; and the good and true thus taken alone, constitute that which is. The soul which, according to the divine drama, is found in matter, rejoices in a beautiful and just object; but the only actual truth is in absolute virtue, justice, and beauty. It is thus the universal for itself which is further determined in the Platonic dialectic; of this several forms appear, but these forms are themselves still very general and abstract. Plato’s highest form is the identity of Being and non-being. The true is that which is, but this Being is not without negation. Plato’s object is thus to show that non-being is an essential determination in Being, and that the simple, self-identical, partakes of other-being. This unity of Being and non-being is also found in the Sophists; but this alone is not the end of the matter. For in further investigation Plato comes to the conclusion that non-being, further determined, is the essence of the ‘other’: “Ideas mingle, and Being and the other (θάτερον) go through everything and through one another; the other, because it participates (μετασχόν) in Being, certainly is through this indwelling Being, but it is not identical with that of which it partakes, being something different, and being other than Being, it is clearly non-being. But since Being likewise partakes of other-being, it also is different from other Ideas, and is not any one of them; so that there are thousands of ways in which it is not, and as regards all else, whether looked at individually or collectively, it in many respects is, and in many respects is not.”[40] Plato thus maintains that the other, as the negative, non-identical, is likewise in one and the same respect the self-identical; there are not different sides which are in mutual opposition.
These are the principal points in Plato’s peculiar dialectic. The fact that the Idea of the divine, eternal, beautiful, is absolute existence, is the beginning of the elevation of consciousness into the spiritual, and into the consciousness that the universal is true. It may be enough for the ordinary idea to be animated and satisfied by the conception of the beautiful and good, but thinking knowledge demands the determination of this eternal and divine. And this determination is really only free determination which certainly does not prevent universality—a limitation (for every determination is limitation) which likewise leaves the universal in its infinitude free and independent. Freedom exists only in a return into itself; the undistinguished is the lifeless; the active, living, concrete universal is hence what inwardly distinguishes itself, but yet remains free in so doing. Now this determinateness consists in the one being identical with itself in the other, in the many, in what is distinguished. This constitutes the only truth, and the only interest for knowledge in what is called Platonic philosophy, and if this is not known, the main point of it is not known. While in the example already often quoted (pp. 58, 64),[41] in which Socrates is both one and many, the two thoughts are made to fall asunder, it is left to speculative thought alone to bring the thoughts together, and this union of what is different, of Being and non-being, of one and many, &c., which takes place without a mere transition from one to another, constitutes the inmost reality and true greatness of Platonic philosophy. This determination is the esoteric element in Platonic philosophy, and the other is the exoteric; the distinction is doubtless an unwarranted one, indicating, as it seems to do, that Plato could have two such philosophies—one for the world, for the people, and the other, the inward, reserved for the initiated. But the esoteric is the speculative, which, even though written and printed, is yet, without being any secret, hidden from those who have not sufficient interest in it to exert themselves. To this esoteric portion pertain the two dialogues hitherto considered, along with which the Philebus may in the third place be taken.
c. In the Philebus Plato investigates the nature of pleasure; and the opposition of the infinite and finite, or of the unlimited (ἄπειρον) and limiting (πέρας), is there more especially dealt with. In keeping this before us, it would scarcely occur to us that through the metaphysical knowledge of the nature of the infinite and undetermined, what concerns enjoyment is likewise determined; but these pure thoughts are the substantial through which everything, however concrete or seemingly remote, is decided. When Plato treats of pleasure and wisdom as contrasted, it is the opposition of finite and infinite. By pleasure we certainly represent to ourselves the immediately individual, the sensuous; but pleasure is the indeterminate in respect that it is the merely elementary, like fire and water, and not the self-determining. Only the Idea is the self-determinate, or self-identity. To our reflection the infinite appears to be what is best and highest, limitation being inferior to it; and ancient philosophers so determined it. By Plato, however, it is, on the other hand, shown that the limited is the true, as the self-determining, while the unlimited is still abstract; it certainly can be determined in many different ways, but when thus determined it is only the individual. The infinite is the formless; free form as activity is the finite, which finds in the infinite the material for self-realization. Plato thus characterizes enjoyment dependent on the senses as the unlimited which does not determine itself; reason alone is the active determination. But the infinite is what in itself passes over to the finite; thus the perfect good, according to Plato, is neither to be sought for in happiness or reason, but in a life of both combined. But wisdom, as limit, is the true cause from which what is excellent arises.[42] As that which posits measure and end, it is what absolutely determines the end—the immanent determination with which and in which freedom likewise brings itself into existence.
Plato further considers the fact that the true is the identity of opposites, thus. The infinite, as the indeterminate, is capable of a more or less, it may be more intensive or not; thus colder and warmer, drier and moister, quicker and slower, &c., are all such. What is limited is the equal, the double, and every other measure; by this means the opposite ceases to be unlike and becomes uniform and harmonious. Through the unity of these opposites, such as cold and warm, dry and moist, health arises; similarly the harmony of music takes its origin from the limitation of high tones and deep, of quicker and slower movement, and, generally speaking, everything beautiful and perfect arises through the union of opposites. Health, happiness, beauty, &c., would thus appear to be begotten, in as far as the opposites are allied thereto, but they are likewise an intermingling of the same. The ancients make copious use of intermingling, participation, &c., instead of individuality; but for us these are indefinite and inadequate expressions. But Plato says that the third, which is thus begotten, pre-supposes the cause or that from which it is formed; this is more excellent than those through whose instrumentality that third arose. Hence Plato has four determinations; first the unlimited, the undetermined; secondly the limited, measure, proportion, to which pertains wisdom; the third is what is mingled from both, what has only arisen; the fourth is cause. This is in itself nothing else than the unity of differences, subjectivity, power and supremacy over opposites, that which is able to sustain the opposites in itself; but it is only the spiritual which has this power and which sustains opposition, the highest contradiction in itself. Weak corporeality passes away as soon as ‘another’ comes into it. The cause he speaks of is divine reason, which governs the world; the beauty of the world which is present in air, fire, water, and in all that lives, is produced thereby.[43] Thus the absolute is what in one unity is finite and infinite.
When Plato speaks thus of the beautiful and good, these are concrete ideas, or rather there is only one idea. But we are still far from these concrete ideas when we begin with such abstractions as Being, non-being, unity, and multiplicity. If Plato, however, has not succeeded in bringing these abstract thoughts through further development and concretion, to beauty, truth, and morality, there at least lies in the knowledge of those abstract determinations, the criterion by which the concrete is determined, as also its sources. This transition to the concrete is made in the Philebus, since the principle of feeling and of pleasure is there considered. The ancient philosophers knew very well what they had of concrete in those abstract thoughts. In the atomic principle of multiplicity we thus find the source of a construction of the state, for the ultimate thought-determination of such state-principles is the logical. The ancients in their pure Philosophy had not the same end in view as we—they had not the end of a metaphysical sequence placed before them like a problem. We, on the other hand, have something concrete before us, and desire to reduce it to settled order. With Plato Philosophy offers the path which the individual must follow in order to attain to any knowledge, but, generally speaking, Plato places absolute and explicit happiness, the blessed life itself, in the contemplation during life of the divine objects named above.[44] This contemplative life seems aimless, for the reason that all its interests have disappeared. But to live in freedom in the kingdom of thought had become the absolute end to the ancients, and they knew that freedom existed only in thought.
With Plato Philosophy likewise commenced to devote more attention to the understanding of what is further determined, and in this way the matter of knowledge began to fall into divisions. In the Timæus the Idea thus makes its appearance as expressed in its concrete determinateness, and the Platonic Philosophy of Nature hence teaches us to have a better knowledge of the reality of the world; we cannot, however, enter into details, and if we did, they have little interest. It is more especially where Plato treats of physiology that his statements in no way correspond with what we now know, although we cannot fail to wonder at the brilliant glimpses of the truth there found, which have been only too much misconceived by the moderns. Plato derived a great deal from the Pythagoreans; how much is theirs, however, cannot be satisfactorily determined. We remarked before (p. 14) that the Timæus is really the fuller version of a Pythagorean treatise; other would-be wise persons have indeed said that the treatise is only an abstract made by a Pythagorean of the larger work of Plato, but the first theory is the more probable. The Timæus has in all times been esteemed the most difficult and obscure of the Platonic dialogues. This difficulty is due in part to the apparent mingling of conceiving knowledge and ordinary perception already mentioned (p. 20), just as we shall presently find an intermingling of Pythagorean numbers; and it is due still more to the philosophic nature of the matter in hand, of which Plato was as yet unconscious. The second difficulty lies in the arrangement of the whole, for what at once strikes one is that Plato repeatedly breaks off the thread of his argument, often appearing to turn back and begin again from the beginning.[45] This moved critics such as August Wolff and others, who could not understand it philosophically, to take the Timæus to be an accumulation of fragments put together, or else to be several works which had only been loosely strung together into one, or into the Platonic portion of which much that is foreign had been introduced. Wolff accordingly thought it was evident from this that the dialogue, like Homer’s poems, had been, in its first form, spoken and not written. But although the connection seems unmethodical, and Plato himself makes what maybe called copious excuses for the confusion, we shall find how the whole matter really falls into natural divisions, and we shall also find the deep inward reason which makes necessary the frequent return to what apparently is the beginning.
An exposition of the reality of nature or of the becoming of the world is introduced by Plato in the following way: “God is the Good,” this stands also at the head of the Platonic Ideas in the verbally delivered discourses (supra, p. 11); “goodness, however, has no jealousy of anything, and being free from jealousy, God desired to make all things like Himself.”[46] God here is still without determination, and a name which has no meaning for thought; nevertheless, where Plato in the Timæus again begins from the beginning, he is found to have a more definite idea of God. That God is devoid of envy undoubtedly is a great, beautiful, true, and childlike thought. With the ancients, on the contrary, we find in Nemesis, Dike, Fate, Jealousy, the one determination of the gods: moved by this they cast down the great and bring it low, and suffer not what is excellent and elevated to exist. The later high-minded philosophers controverted this doctrine. For in the mere idea of the Nemesis no moral determination is as yet implied, because punishment there is only the humiliation of what oversteps limits, but these limits are not yet presented as moral, and punishment is thus not yet a recognition of the moral as distinguished from the immoral. Plato’s thought is thus much higher than that of most of our moderns, who, in saying that God is a hidden God who has not revealed Himself to us and of whom we can know nothing, ascribe jealousy to God. For why should He not reveal Himself to us if we earnestly seek the knowledge of Him? A light loses nothing by another’s being kindled therefrom, and hence there was in Athens a punishment imposed on those who did not permit this to be done. If the knowledge of God were kept from us in order that we should know only the finite and not attain to the infinite, God would be a jealous God, or God would then become an empty name. Such talk means no more than that we wish to neglect what is higher and divine, and seek after our own petty interests and opinions. This humility is sin—the sin against the Holy Ghost.
Plato continues: “God found the visible” (παραλαβών)—a mythical expression proceeding from the necessity of beginning with an immediate, which, however, as it presents itself, cannot in any way be allowed—“not at rest, but moving in an irregular and disorderly manner; and out of disorder he brought order, considering that this was far better than the other.” From this it appears as if Plato had considered that God was only the δημιοῦργος, i.e. the disposer of matter, and that this, being eternal and independent, was found by Him as chaos; but in view of what has been said, this is false. These are not the philosophic doctrines which Plato seriously held, for he speaks here only after the manner of the ordinary conception, and such expressions have hence no philosophic content. It is only the introduction of the subject, bringing us, as it does, to determinations such as matter. Plato then comes in course of his progress to further determinations, and in these we first have the Notion; we must hold to what is speculative in Plato, and not to the first-mentioned ordinary conception. Likewise, when he says that God esteemed order to be the best, the mode of expression is naïve. Nowadays we should ask that God should first be proved; and just as little should we allow the visible to be established without much further ado. What is proved by Plato from this more naïve method of expression is, in the first place, the true determination of the Idea, which only appears later on. It is further said: “God reflecting that of what is visible, the unintelligent (ἀνόητον) could not be fairer than the intelligent (νοῦς), and that intelligence could not exist in anything devoid of soul, for these reasons put intelligence in the soul, and the soul in the body, and so united them that the world became a living and intelligent system, an animal.” We have reality and intelligence, and the soul as the bond connecting the two extremes, without which intelligence could not have part in the visible body; we saw the true reality comprehended by Plato in a similar way in the Phædrus (supra, p. 39). “There is, however, only one such animal, for were there two or more, these would be only parts of the one, and only one.”[47]