there is something remaining for the dead, and better for those that
have done good than for those that have done evil.

The first of the 'psychological dialogues,' as we have called them, is
the _Philebus_. The question here is of the _summum bonum_ or chief
good. What is it? Is it pleasure? Is it wisdom? Or is it both? In
the process of answering these questions Plato lays down rules for true
definition, and establishes classifications which had an immense
influence on his successor Aristotle, but which need not be further
referred to here.

The general gist of the argument is as follows. Pleasure could not be
regarded as a sufficient or perfect good if it was entirely emptied of
the purely intellectual elements of anticipation and consciousness and
memory. This would be no better than the pleasure of an oyster. On
the other hand, a purely intellectual existence can hardly be regarded
as perfect and sufficient either. The perfect life must be a union of
both.

But this union must be an orderly and rational union; in other words,
it must be one in which Mind is master and Pleasure servant; the
finite, the regular, the universal must govern the indefinite,
variable, particular. Thus in the perfect life there are four
elements; in the body, earth, water, air, fire; in the soul, the
finite, the indefinite, the union of the {157} two, and the cause of
that union. If this be so, he argues, may we not by analogy argue for
a like four-fold order in the universe? There also we find regulative
elements, and indefinite elements, and the union of the two. Must
there not also be the Great Cause, even Divine Wisdom, ordering and
governing all things?

The second of the psychological series is the _Parmenides_, in which
the great Eleatic philosopher, in company with his disciple Zeno, is
imagined instructing the youthful Socrates when the two were on a visit
to Athens, which may or may not be historical (see above, p. 34). The
most striking portion of this dialogue is the criticism already alluded
to of Plato's own theory of Ideas, put into the mouth of Parmenides.
Parmenides ascertains from Socrates that he is quite clear about there
being Ideas of Justice, Beauty, Goodness, eternally existing, but how
about Ideas of such common things as hair, mud, filth, etc.? Socrates
is not so sure; to which Parmenides rejoins that as he grows older
philosophy will take a surer hold of him, and that he will recognise
the