APPENDIX. BOOK I. CHAP. III. Concerning Plato's doctrine of the Chief or Ideal Good. CONSIDERABLE difficulties present themselves in the explanation of this Chapter. Not so much from any intricacy or obscurity in Aristotle's reasoning, as because the theory of Plato respecting the Chief Good, and more than all, the process by which he arrived at his results, are so little known to us. Nor does Aristotle enter here very fully or very deeply into the refutation of Plato's notions, which he appears to have done in another treatise expressly directed to this subject unfortunately both the books in which Plato developed this intricate part of his philosophy, and the writings of Aristotle on the same subject, have been lost; and consequently all our knowledge respecting it must be gathered from scattered and indirect notices which occur in the different parts of his writings, and some of his Greek com mentators. Many such passages have been collected both from books and commentaries yet remaining in manuscript by Brandis; and were published by him in an unpresuming but excellent little dissertation, in which he has thrown considerable light upon this subject. Three years after, another essay appeared upon the same subject by Trendelenburg", the a Christiani Augusti Brandis Diatribe Academica de perditis Aristotelis libris de ideis et de bono sive philosophia. Bonnæ, apud E. Weber, 1823. 8vo. pp. 69. b Platonis de ideis et numeris doctrina ex Aristotele illustrata, scripsit Friderichus Adolphus Trendelenburg. Lipsiæ, 1826. Sumtibus F. C. G. Vogelii. 8vo. pp. 100. industrious editor of Aristotle's Treatise De Anima, and a valuable contributor to the Rhenish Museum. By a careful comparison of Plato with Aristotle, in such passages as appeared to bear upon this subject, a consistent and correct view has been endeavoured to be formed of Plato's doctrine of the Ideal Good, although unfortunately much must be still left to conjecture. But the history and origin of this peculiarity in the philosophy of Plato, is not entirely insulated from the systems of his predecessors: in them will be found many of the separate component parts of this doctrine of Ideas. The desire of Plato to reconcile the discordant tenets of his teachers, first directed him to this theory, whilst he amalgamated into a uniform and perfect whole the discordant elements as they passed through the crucible of his mind. In the earlier part of his life he had associated with Cratylus, and had been a disciple in the school of Heraclitus". That philosopher taught him that all things sensible were in ⚫ Some other foreign writers have also composed treatises upon this subject, but generally only with a slight acquaintance with the writings of Aristotle; and some under that old delusion, that Aristotle, the careful, exact and learned disciple of Plato for twenty years, either would not or could not fairly present to us the tenets of his master; that he who has so carefully preserved and explained the doctrines of the earlier philosophers, has not shown the same fairness and ability in regard to Plato. To this objection Trendelenburg most justly replies: "quod si nescivisset Aristoteles tanti ingenii vir, per tot annos Platonis familiaris, quis tandem sciret? Noluisse vero, ii sibi suadeant, qui iis, quæ hic illic apud seriores scriptores de dissidio inter Platonem et Aristotelem et de quadam Aristotelis in præceptorem superbia leguntur, fidem habere malunt, quam magno et sincero Aristotelis ingenio, quale in scriptis ubique cernitur, et iis ipsis ex Platone apud Aristotelem exemplis, quæ cum Platone collata optime conspirant. Sed fuerint dissidia, de quibus minime satis constat. Num ex his consequens est Aristotelem Platonis philosophiam in pejus detorsisse? Veteres Aristotelis obtrectatores, quodcumque invidia finxit, in eum congerere non verentur. In Platonem ingratum fuisse criminantur; nec tamen ullum hoc ausum esse scio, Aristotelem Platonis sententias falso interpretatum esse. Quare quidquid fabularum est de Aristotelis aut impia malignitate aut sordida æmulatione (quo enim quis major, eo magis multitudinis infra se positæ obtrectationibus objectus), impedimento esse nequit, quominus Aristoteles Platonis sententias exponens locuples testes habeatur." Platonis de Ideis, &c. p. 3. d See Aristot. Met. i. 6. from whom this account of Plato's progression in philosophy is derived. a constant flux, and of such consequently there could be no certain science (ὡς ἁπάντων τῶν αἰσθητῶν ἀεὶ ῥεόντων καὶ ἐπιστήμης tegì aútŵv oủx ouons). By his master Socrates, on the contrary, whose enquiries were confined exclusively to ethics, his attention was turned in a Logical direction; he was taught to disregard particulars, and to look to universals and general notions. In unison, therefore, with his master Socrates, and perhaps the Megaric philosophers before him, Plato saw that all knowledge of the truth must be destroyed, unless it could be proved in opposition to Heraclitus, that continued motion is not the essence of things; and secondly, that truth and real essence is not throughout so entirely identical as to have no diversity, (as the Eleatic School asserted,) but embraced within itself many particular ideas, each of which in its own way is expressive of the eternal essence of things. The method in which he or his predecessors proceeded to prove that there were such things as Ideas entirely and essentially distinct, and having a separate and independent existence from things sensible, was in the following way. If every science always performs its gyov, keeping in view some one and the same thing (πρὸς ἕν τι καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ἐπαναφέgoura), and not regarding particulars or individuals, there must be something else in every science beyond and beside things sensible, which is eternal, and a type of all those things which are produced according to each science; and this is the Idea. Farther, those things must exist of which there is any science. But all sciences are of something beyond individuals or particulars, (for these are infinite and indefinite, whereas the sciences are finite and definite); there is then something in every science beyond the particulars (τà xað' exaσra) of science, and this is the Idea. Further, if the science of medicine is not a science of any particular or individual health, (Tÿode TŶs úɣielas,) but of health absolutely, there is a certain absolute health (aurov e See the MS. commentary of Alexander on the Metaph. quoted by Brandis 1. c. p. 16. & g yuía); and if Geometry is not a science merely of this or that particular equal or commensurate quantity, but of the equal and commensurate absolutely there must be some absolute equal and commensurate (τὸ αὐτοῖσον καὶ αὐτοσύμμετρον), and these are the Ideas. 2dly, If every one of the multitude of men is a man, and of animals an animal, and so on, and there is no individual of them of which the absolute, sole and very man can be predicated, (καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐφ ̓ ἑκάστου αὐτῶν αὐτὸ αὐτοῦ τι κατηγορούμενον), but there is something which is predicated of all of them, yet not identical with any one of them, there must be this something besides these particulars, separate and distinct from them; which also must be eternal, for it is always and equally predicated of all things differing in number. But that single thing which may be predicated of the many (vì moλλois), but yet distinct and separate from the many, and eternal, is the Idea. 3dly, When we take into our minds the notion of man or animal, we do not consider any particular living man or animal. For if every individual man or animal were destroyed, the notion itself of them would still remain. It is clear, therefore, that there is something besides and beyond particulars, of which, whether they exist or whether they do not exist, we have a conception, which itself must have an existence, (for we cannot have a conception of that which has no existence, or of a non-entity); this then is the Idea'. f In this Plato differed from his master, (see Metaph. xii. 4.), for Socrates βαλεν· οἱ μὲν γὰρ Πυθαγόρειος μίμησει τὰ ὄντα φασιν εἶναι τῶν ἀριθμῶν, Πλάτων δὲ separated not definitions from the things. (Arist. Met. i. 6.) Plato dif themselves (τὰ καθόλου οὐ χώριστα ἐποιεῖ), as did the authors of the doctrine of Ideas, (οἱ δ ̓ ἐχώρισαν καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα τῶν ὄντων ἰδέας προσηγόρευσαν), and according to these, all things received their appellations, (καὶ κατὰ ταῦτα λέγεσθαι πάντα). For things sensible are of the same name but not of the same essence with the Ideas. In this point Plato differed from Pythagoras. κατὰ μέθεξιν γὰρ εἶναι τὰ πολλὰ τῶν συνωνύμων ὁμώνυμα τοῖς εἴδεσι τὴν δὲ μέθεξιν τοὔνομα μόνον μετέ fered from Pythagoras, as it appears to me, only in a different view of the subject; Plato said that things sensible were the same as the Idea, only homonymously, the same in name, but not in essence, Pythagoras that they were the same by imitation; which amounts to the same thing. For as a painted horse imitates a real horse, so is it homonymous with a real horse. So that whether we say that a painted horse is a horse, because it is the representation of a horse (μinou, according |