122 PROFESSOR H. LANGHORNE ORCHARD^ M.A., B.SC, ON 



H Plato identified the pre-existent and self-existent One with 

 M o Ideas with HIS purposive thoughts (voT^/xara) 



I. I'g after which as archetypes HE created the various objects of 

 ^ ^ »■ the visible world in which the Ideas are reflected or are shadowed. 

 5 ® Q These reflections and shadows suggest their Ideas to the soul, 

 J recalling them through reminiscence of knowledge of them in 

 f ^ its pre-natal state But, on account of association with matter^ 

 they are presented in an obscure confused manner which cannot 

 ^ satisfy the soul. For the soul being an emanation from GOD 

 Who is the Pure Reason, partakes of HIS character, knowing 

 ^ S 3 the Ideas as Like knows Like by direct intercourse, because 

 ^ « ^ p akin to them, loving them, seeks to know them more and more, 

 I g finding its delight in the pure pleasure* of their contemplation. 

 ^^^^ The aim of the philosopher is to keep aloof (as far as possible) 

 o o ^ from the influence of matter and the entanglements of the body. 



0 ^ §■ f The pleasures and pains, weaknesses, maladies, appetites and 

 M § I M. passions, of the body, greatly hamper and hinder the movements 



1 1 § g of the soul's activity. 



o Hence, we cannot wonder at Plato's counsel (in Republic, vii), 

 that those undergoing careful preparation to fit them to be 

 g ^ I guardians of the city should be led, when they reached the age 

 1 Q ""^ c>f fifty, to devote themselves to contemplation of the Ideas and 

 especially of Goodness, that alone being Good which is like the 

 ? Idea of The Good — The Good One, The Summum Bonum, 

 which is GOD. In the apprehension of HIM as the Self -existent 

 Source of the Ideas and as The Chief Good is involved the obliga- 

 g § tion of making it our aim to know HIM and be like HIM, as 

 r^^^ Truth of every kind involves the evidence of its own eternal 

 ^ S § stability. The Platonic doctrine of Ideas was an attempt to 

 ^ g 5' explain the possibility of such stable eternal truth. We are 

 "^•p^ taught that such truth cannot be derived from objects of sense, 

 g ^ g- they being themselves transient and unstable. But such truth 

 can be had respecting Ideas, which are themselves stable and 

 ^' cr eternal. As there is thus stable, eternal Truth, so is there stable, 

 eternal Good, " which true philosophy aspires to realise and to 

 participate in." 



^ H Socrates and Plato bid us find in the doctrine an antidote to 

 g »^ the fear of death. To the philosopher, aspiring after the supreme 

 g| p Source of all Truth and Good, death comes as a friend and 

 ^ dehverer. 



cc Ct> 



* Cf. Rom. vii, 22. 



