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230 are not satisfied that this is the fact, then, any attempt to explain what this something more is, would of course be thrown away; for you do not admit there is anything more to your thought than the object manifestly before you. But if you are satisfied that this is the fact, then, although you may be altogether in the dark as to what this something more is, still, you now know what the fact is, in the clearing up of which every generation of philosophers has been sedulously occupied from the days of Socrates until now. And such knowledge, knowledge of fact, whether we can explain it or not, this is, I conceive, no inconsiderable acquisition; for before we can understand, or even approach, the solution of any problem, we must know what the fact is in which that problem has originated. This you now know; you now know what the fact is, that in all thinking there is "something more" than the thing directly thought, and that this fact has given rise to the problem, What is that "something more"? and that the Platonic theory of ideas, and all the modifications which that theory has undergone, are so many attempts to compass a solution of that question.

15. Without going at present at all deep into the discussion as to what this "something more" is, this something over and above the particular which is involved in all thought, I may just remark that this "something more" has been designated by the names of class, genus, general conception or concept, or