ide the old forms of them.
As he proceeds he makes for himself new modes of expression more akin to
the Aristotelian logic.

Yet amid all these varieties and incongruities, there is a common
meaning or spirit which pervades his writings, both those in which he
treats of the ideas and those in which he is silent about them. This is
the spirit of idealism, which in the history of philosophy has had many
names and taken many forms, and has in a measure influenced those
who seemed to be most averse to it. It has often been charged with
inconsistency and fancifulness, and yet has had an elevating effect on
human nature, and has exercised a wonderful charm and interest over
a few spirits who have been lost in the thought of it. It has been
banished again and again, but has always returned. It has attempted to
leave the earth and soar heavenwards, but soon has found that only
in experience could any solid foundation of knowledge be laid. It has
degenerated into pantheism, but has again emerged. No other knowledge
has given an equal stimulus to the mind. It is the science of sciences,
which are also ideas, and under either aspect require to be defined.
They can only be thought of in due proportion when conceived in relation
to one another. They are the glasses through which the kingdoms of
science are seen, but at a distance. All the greatest minds, except when
living in an age of reaction against them, have unconsciously fallen
under their power.

The account of the Platonic ideas in the Meno is the simplest and
clearest, and we shall best illustrate their nature by giving this first
and then comparing the manner in which they are described elsewhere,
e.g. in the Phaedrus, Phaedo, Republic; to which may be added the
criticism of them in the Parmenides, the personal form which is
attributed to them in the Timaeus, the logical character which they
assume in the Sophist and Philebus, and the allusion to them in the
Laws. In the Cratylus they dawn upon him with the freshness of a
newly-discovered thought.

The Meno goes back to a former state of existence, in which men did and
suffered good and evil, and received the reward or punishment of them
until their sin was purged away and they were allowed to return to
earth. This is a tradition of the olden time, to which priests and poets
bear witness. The souls of men returning to earth bring back a latent
memory of ideas, which were known to them in a former state. The
recollectio