Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/315

260 the knowledge of necessary truths, as distinguished from historical knowledge, which certainly cannot be elicited from the mind by any process of manipulation, however skilful. But it is only of rational knowledge, knowledge which depends altogether on thinking, that Socrates and Plato speak. In subsequent times this opinion—all rational knowledge is reminiscence—has reappeared in the doctrine of innate ideas; a doctrine which Locke was supposed at one time to have completely overthrown and extirpated, but which has so much vitality that it has shown itself again and again since his time, and flourishes even now with renovated youth and vigour. The ultimate ground of this opinion is to be found in the doctrine I formerly explained to you, the doctrine of thought as a free and self-originated act. No external power, no force brought to bear upon him ab extra, can make a man think; because thinking is in fact a freedom from all external compulsion, and a rejection thereof; therefore a man must think, if he thinks at all, for and from himself. He cannot be made to think at the bidding and under the compulsion of others, as he may be made to feel at the bidding and under the compulsion of others. Hence every science, the truths of which are truths of thought, must be called forth from within the mind of the learner, and cannot be impressed upon him from without.

36. The second point is the assertion that all virtue