Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/400

Rh entities. The latter seems, on the whole, when rightly explained, to be the truer interpretation, and it may be explained by saying that the ideas are laws to which even the will and reason of the Deity conforms; for example, there is a law, i.e., idea, of good and right according to which the will even of the Deity shapes itself, and this doctrine would make the law or idea of right to be in some sense antecedent to and independent of the Deity. In the dialogue called Euthyphro, the principal question discussed is this: Is an action good and holy because the gods approve of it, or do the gods approve of it because it is good and holy? If we say an action is good and holy because the gods approve of it, that would be equivalent to saying that good and evil depend on the arbitrary will of the gods: in this case their will would determine what was right and what was wrong. But if we say that an action is approved of by the gods because it is good and holy, this makes the idea of good and holy to be prior to the will of the gods; to be independent of their arbitration; to be rather that which determines their will, than that which their will determines. This, rather than the other, is the doctrine to which Plato and Socrates incline. Ideas may, in the Platonic theory, be perhaps coeval with the Divine will and reason; but if there be in either case a priority, the ideas are to be regarded as existing antecedent even to the mind of the Deity. But all that is really meant by this assertion is, that God approves of what is right