Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/110

 96 CRITICAL NOTICES : of the senses and scientific understanding, which is ' too much with us,' to this deep-lying part of human nature as to an oracle". Myth gives us imaginative representation of the " Ideas of Eeason " God, Soul and the World which are not objects of any possible experience, and cannot therefore be conceived by the Understand- ing. It also gives us imaginative deductions of the Categories and the Moral Virtues, which, we are told (p. 45), Plato did not dis- tinguish explicitly from the Ideas of Eeason. Now this is very like some forms of Neoplatonism, but it can, I think, be shown that it is not Platonic. It is not Platonic to say that the Intellect deals in ' existential ' or ' theoretic ' rather than in " value " judgments. On the contrary, the Form of the Good is its fjLeyia-Tov pi0>7/i,a, and the judgment of value is its highest function. Nor can there be any " value- judgment " apart from intellect ; for any such judgment necessarily implies a reference to the Good, which is known by Intellect alone. The Vegetative Soul is confined to the feelings of pleasure and pain attendant on bodily evacuation and repletion, and these must be interpreted before they can express value. There is no trace in Plato of any such doctrine as Prof. Stewart's. The curious thing is that Plato's real teaching on the subject is to be found in a passage of the Timc&us (71, A-E), which Prof. Stewart himself translates thus : " And knowing this concerning it (the ' Vegetative Soul '), that it would not be able to understand Reason, and that even if it attained somehow unto some empiric knowledge of reasonable truths, it was not of such a nature as to give heed thereto, but for the most part would follow the ghostly conduct of Images and Phantasms by night and by day, God sought out a device against this, and put the Liver close by the dwelling- place of the Appetitive Soul, having fashioned it close and smooth and shining and sweet and bitter too, so that the thoughts which come from the Intelligence, striking upon it as upon a mirror which receiveth im- pressions and causeth images to be seen, might fill the Appetitive Soul, at one time, with fear, ... at another time might make it mild and gentle, and give unto it a space of calm at night, wherein it should receive the Oracles of Dreams, meet for that which is without Eeason and Understanding ; for they who made us were mindful of that which then* Father spake, commanding them to make the mortal race as perfect as possible ; therefore did they regulate even the base part of us after this wise, that it might lay hold of truth somehow, and therefore did they establish a Place of Oracles therein." The form of statement here is itself mythical, but it is quite plain that the mythology is very different from Prof. Stewart's. What he calls " this deep-lying part of human nature " Plato calls TO <pavov r)fj.(av (though this is by no means so strong an expression as the rendering ' base part ' implies) ; we are told that what is reflected in the liver is just " the thoughts of the mind " (rw Stavo^^tarwv ^ IK TOV vov (frepo/j.a'r) 8wa/xts) ', and, so far from there being an appeal from the Intellect to the Vegetative Soul "as to an Oracle," the latter was only provided with oracles at all " that it might come