iversals, which have a place in the mind of
God, or in some far-off heaven. These were revealed to men in a former
state of existence, and are recovered by reminiscence (anamnesis) or
association from sensible things. The sensible things are not
realities, but shadows only, in relation to the truth.' These unmeaning
propositions are hardly suspected to be a caricature of a great theory
of knowledge, which Plato in various ways and under many figures of
speech is seeking to unfold. Poetry has been converted into dogma; and
it is not remarked that the Platonic ideas are to be found only in about
a third of Plato's writings and are not confined to him. The forms which
they assume are numerous, and if taken literally, inconsistent with one
another. At one time we are in the clouds of mythology, at another among
the abstractions of mathematics or metaphysics; we pass imperceptibly
from one to the other. Reason and fancy are mingled in the same
passage. The ideas are sometimes described as many, coextensive with
the universals of sense and also with the first principles of ethics; or
again they are absorbed into the single idea of good, and subordinated
to it. They are not more certain than facts, but they are equally
certain (Phaedo). They are both personal and impersonal. They are
abstract terms: they are also the causes of things; and they are even
transformed into the demons or spirits by whose help God made the world.
And the idea of good (Republic) may without violence be converted into
the Supreme Being, who 'because He was good' created all things (Tim.).

It would be a mistake to try and reconcile these differing modes of
thought. They are not to be regarded seriously as having a distinct
meaning. They are parables, prophecies, myths, symbols, revelations,
aspirations after an unknown world. They derive their origin from a deep
religious and contemplative feeling, and also from an observation of
curious mental phenomena. They gather up the elements of the previous
philosophies, which they put together in a new form. Their great
diversity shows the tentative character of early endeavours to think.
They have not yet settled down into a single system. Plato uses them,
though he also criticises them; he acknowledges that both he and others
are always talking about them, especially about the Idea of Good; and
that they are not peculiar to himself (Phaedo; Republic; Soph.). But in
his later writings he seems to have laid as