ADDITIONAL NOTES.

NOTE A.

(See pp. 49, 90, 113, and 131.)

ON THE DISTINCTION MADE BY THE ANCIENTS BETWEEN THINGS INTELLIGIBLE AND THINGS SENSIBLE; ON THE USE OF THE TERMS SPIRITUAL AND MATERIAL AS APPLIED TO THEIR SPECULATIONS; AND ON THE NATURE OF MATTER.

THE division of substances into material and spiritual, which is so familiar to us, was not equally familiar to the ancients. Instead of this, Plato and his followers adopted another. They divided all beings into sensible, or those perceptible by the senses, and intelligible, or those which are the objects of the intellect alone. To the latter class, Plato assigned all general ideas, those derived from sensible objects, as well as others; not regarding these ideas, however, as mere conceptions either of the human or of the divine mind, but as proper separate existences, endued with life and divinity. They constituted his archetypal world, the intelligible world, after the model of which was formed the sensible world, the material universe. For example, goodness, beauty, unity, number, equality, roundness, whiteness, are, according to him, all of them be

ings existing apart in the perfect world of archetypal Ideas. But these Ideas are not merely the patterns of sensible things; they likewise form their essences. They communicate themselves to matter, and thus cause sensible things to be good, beautiful, one or many, equal, round, and white. But matter but imperfectly receives, and renders back, the impression of these archetypes, these ideal forms, which can. be discerned only by the eye of the mind. They, when compared with the material things which bear their likeness, are the only real existences. Of these archetypes, the objects of the senses are but shadowy and fleeting resemblances, coming into existence and perishing, but having no proper being. Or, to express what has been said in the words of Cicero, "Nihil Plato putat esse, quod oriatur et intereat, idque solum esse, quod semper tale sit, qualem ideam appellat ille, nos speciem."

But it may

This is an outline of the doctrine of Plato. be well to enter into a little further explanation of it. Plato, in his Timæus,† after maintaining that the created world is a living being, ‡ goes on to infer, that the pattern after which it was formed, the intelligible world of Ideas, is a perfect living being, "comprehending in itself all intelligible living beings, in the same manner as this world contains us and all other visible animals." Afterwards, he speaks of this world, with express reference to its pattern, as being "an image of the eternal gods," that is, of the eternal Ideas after which it was formed; and, in the conclusion of the Dialogue, he calls the world "a visible living

*

Tusculan. Disputat. Lib. I. § 24.

† P. 30.

t

‡ Zov, animal, living being. The word has been commonly translated "animal"; but it would seem that our modern associations with the latter term should be avoided.

§ P. 37.

being comprehending the visible animals, a sensible god, the image of the intelligible."

Cudworth, who wished to believe that Plato's intelligible world was merely an ideal image of the future creation, preexisting in the mind of the Deity, says, that, "Plato himself speaking obscurely of this intelligible world, and the Ideas of it, no wonder if many of his Pagan followers have absurdly made so many distinct animals and gods of them." * But it seems unreasonable in the present case to bring the charge of obscurity against Plato. It is difficult to perceive, how he could have expressed himself more explicitly; or how language plainer than what he has used can have been used by his followers.

Cudworth afterwards says; "It was a monstrous extravagancy of some of the later Platonists to suppose the Ideas all of them to be so many distinct substances and animals;" and, after remarking that this doctrine has been imputed to Plato himself by Tertullian and others, he adds; "Neither can it be denied, but that there are some odd expressions in Plato, sounding that way, who therefore may not be justified in this, nor I think in some other conceits of his, concerning these Ideas: as when he contends, that they are not only the objects of science, but also the proper and physical causes of all things here below; as, for example, that the Ideas of similitude and dissimilitude are the causes of the likeness and unlikeness of all things to one another by their participation of them. Nevertheless, it cannot be at all doubted, but that Plato himself, and most of his followers, very well understood, that these Ideas were, all of them, really nothing else but the noëmata, or conceptions, of that one perfect Intellect, which was their second hy

Intellectual System, Ch. IV. § 32. p. 499. Original folio Ed.

postasis [the second person of their Trinity]; and, therefore, they could not look upon them in good earnest, as so many distinct substances existing severally and apart by themselves out of any mind, however they were guilty of some extravagant expressions concerning them." *

Such is the view of the subject taken by Cudworth; but he adduces no evidence in support of his assertion, that it cannot be doubted that Plato and most of his followers did not mean what they appear to mean. †

Ibid. § 36. pp. 562, 563.

+ Mosheim in his Latin translation of Cudworth ( I. 856, 857), has a note on the passage just quoted, in which he argues for the opinion asserted by Cudworth, and held by some other modern writers, that the Ideas of Plato were only ideas in the common sense of the word, existing (primarily) in the Divine Mind. But it is difficult to determine what was Moshiem's prevailing belief on the subject. He does not claim to be confident, and he certainly was not consistent, in holding the opinion, which, in this note, he undertakes to defend; and the character of the note itself is such as to excite some suspicion, that his true purpose in it was to express indirectly his strong sense of the absurdity of what he recognised to be the real doctrine of Plato.

He says, that Cudworth "learnedly proves" his assertion; whereas Cudworth hardly makes a show of bringing any proof of it. He himself produces no passage from Plato in support of the position which he professes to maintain. He offers nothing but a general and very unsatisfactory explanation of the representations of Plato which are irreconcilable with it; and he takes notice, without attempting to controvert it, of the all but decisive authority of Aristotle, who ascribes to Plato the doctrine of Ideas subsisting by themselves. His sole argument, on which he is evidently not unwilling to employ much strength of language, is simply this, That what has been represented to be the Platonic doctrine of Ideas, is a doctrine too irrational

to be ascribed to any intelligent man. "If I find," he says, “an opinion ascribed to a man not deficient in capacity or learning, which is clearly absurd and foolish, and which is not necessarily connected with his other doctrines, I shall not readily be persuaded that no in