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344 have been fabricated on any other principles. You must not suppose that when we say that ideas are objective, we mean to assign to them any sort of outward existence. Objective in the sense of outward, is certainly not to be applied to them.

31. That these laws and ideas have a reality, a binding and irresistible authority, need scarcely be insisted on as part of the Platonic theory. This follows necessarily from all that has been said in regard to their nature. They are, in fact, the most real existences in the universe, for without them there would either be no universe at all, or that universe would be without form and void, an absolute chaos. To repeat, then, in a very few words, the chief characteristics of the Platonic ideas, they are these: first, their necessity; secondly, their universality; thirdly, their power of giving unity to our multifarious cognitions; fourthly, their innateness; fifthly, their objectivity; and, sixthly, their reality.

32. It has been a disputed point among philosophers, whether, according to Plato, ideas were dependent on the will of the Deity, whether they were, in fact, portions of the Divine reason, or whether they were antecedent to and independent of the will and existence of the Deity. Some have held that Plato regarded them as constituents of the Divine reason, others that he viewed them as independent