we attempt to conceive ideas in their connexion, or to
ascertain their relation to phenomena. Still he affirms the existence of
such ideas; and this is the position which is now in turn submitted to
the criticisms of Parmenides.

To appreciate truly the character of these criticisms, we must remember
the place held by Parmenides in the history of Greek philosophy. He
is the founder of idealism, and also of dialectic, or, in modern
phraseology, of metaphysics and logic (Theaet., Soph.). Like Plato,
he is struggling after something wider and deeper than satisfied the
contemporary Pythagoreans. And Plato with a true instinct recognizes
him as his spiritual father, whom he 'revered and honoured more than all
other philosophers together.' He may be supposed to have thought more
than he said, or was able to express. And, although he could not, as
a matter of fact, have criticized the ideas of Plato without an
anachronism, the criticism is appropriately placed in the mouth of the
founder of the ideal philosophy.

There was probably a time in the life of Plato when the ethical teaching
of Socrates came into conflict with the metaphysical theories of the
earlier philosophers, and he sought to supplement the one by the other.
The older philosophers were great and awful; and they had the charm of
antiquity. Something which found a response in his own mind seemed to
have been lost as well as gained in the Socratic dialectic. He felt no
incongruity in the veteran Parmenides correcting the youthful Socrates.
Two points in his criticism are especially deserving of notice. First
of all, Parmenides tries him by the test of consistency. Socrates is
willing to assume ideas or principles of the just, the beautiful, the
good, and to extend them to man (compare Phaedo); but he is reluctant to
admit that there are general ideas of hair, mud, filth, etc. There is an
ethical universal or idea, but is there also a universal of physics?--of
the meanest things in the world as well as of the greatest? Parmenides
rebukes this want of consistency in Socrates, which he attributes to his
youth. As he grows older, philosophy will take a firmer hold of him, and
then he will despise neither great things nor small, and he will think
less of the opinions of mankind (compare Soph.). Here is lightly touched
one of the most familiar principles of modern philosophy, that in the
meanest operations of nature, as well as in the noblest, in mud and
filth, as well