464 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. BookV. 



* and unmixed with every thing elfe ; whereas, the fubjedts that only 



* participate of it, and from thence receive their denomination, are no 



* more than imper'ed refemblancesofit, in which there is always a mix- 



* ture of matter^ and likewife of other ideas ; fo that, to fingle it out by 



* itfelf, and to perceive the pure ideal fonn by itfelf, feparated from e- 



* very thing material, and from every other idea, is the higheft perfec- 

 ' tion of human reafon.' 



This was the opinion of Plato \. As to Ariftotle, he denied the 

 fubjlantiality or feparate exiftence of ideas, and maintained that they 



only 



f There are many, at prefent, who cannot believe that Plato maintained an opinion, 

 which feems to them fo abfurd ; and it appears, from a pafTage of Philoponus's com- 

 mentary upon the Firft 15ook of Ariftotle's /a/? Analytics, folio 53. That there were 

 fome in his time who faid, that Plato, when he fpoke of his ideas as being real things, 

 meant no more, than that they really exifled in the mind of the Deity : And, in this 

 way, they endeavoured to reconcile the mafler and the fcholar. But this explanation 

 of the ideas of Plato, Philoponus rejects. And in this, and another pafTage in his 

 commentary upon the Second Book of Ariftotle's Phyfics, he exprefsly aflerts, that 

 Plato maintained his ideas to be fubftances, having a feparate exiftence by themfelves ; 

 whereas, the ideas of Ariftotle exifted primarily only in the fupreme intelligence, 

 and from thence were derived to corporeal forms, and from them to human inteiligen- 

 ces. And, indeed, it is impoflible to believe that Ariftotle, whatever freedom he may 

 have taken with more antient phiiofophers, would have imputed fuch an opinion to his 

 mafter, and difputed againft it at fo great length, if it had not been really his opinion, 

 when he could have been contradi£led by fo many living at the ti.ne he wrote. And, 

 befides, as Philoponus has oblerved, in the paftage above quoted from his commentary 

 upon the laji Analytics, we know, from what is preferved of the hiftory of thofe two 

 phiiofophers, that it was the chief point upon which they differed j and that Ariftotle, 

 even during the life of Plato, difputed with him very warmly upon that point. 



And, if there were any doubt in the matter, Plato himfelf has faid enough to con- 

 vince us, that his fcholar did not mifreprefent his opinion ; for, in the Parmenides, 

 where he treats profefledly of ideas, he fays exprefsly that the idea exifts, avrn kx6' '«•- 

 T>i», and denies in fo many words that it exifts in our minds, p. 1 1 14. Eclitio ficini : And 



the 



