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346 because it is right in itself, and not because He by His arbitrary decree has made it right.

33. I shall conclude this sketch of the Platonic dialectic with the remark, that in answer to the question, What is the absolute and universal truth, the truth for all intellect?—for this, you will remember, is the question which philosophy raises and endeavours to resolve—in reply to this question, Plato's answer would be: Ideas are the absolute and universal truth, the groundwork of all things; they are apprehended by all intellect, and, therefore, if that which addresses itself to all intellect, if that which all intellect apprehends, be the truest and most real, ideas must be the truest and most real of all things, for no intelligence can be intelligent except by participating in their light; they are the grounds of all conceivability, and of all intelligible or cognisable existence; the necessary laws or principles on which all Being and all Knowing are dependent. Such is the realism of Plato, a doctrine much truer and more profound than either the nominalism or conceptualism by which it has been succeeded.

34. The physics of Plato may be passed over as presenting few points of interest or intelligibility. His ethics have a much stronger claim on our attention. I shall in this paragraph give you a short summary of their scope and purport, and shall then