Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/372

 ON PLATO'S PHAEDO. 371 serves as an illustration of the relation of ideas to things (cp. Arist., Met. i. 6). Might we suggest, therefore, that "the idea of three " is here not to be taken too literally ? In any case the number ' three ' is not an idea in the same sense or of the same dignity as the quality ' odd ' : and similarly soul belongs to a region intermediate between the idea (of life the living) and the concrete living animal. We might then compare the position assigned to the world-soul in the Timaeus as " the mediatising principle between the Idea and the Phenomenon, the first form of the existence of the idea in multiplicity " (Zeller). Nothing is said about the world- soul in the Phaedo, but we are justified in expecting that Plato, even if the Timaeus represents a different stage of his thinking, should treat it analogously to the human soul. The chief difficulty which meets us in Plato's theory of ideas is the relation of the ideas to one another. We feel that they ought to be all organically connected with one another and with the idea of the Good. But the science of dialectic which should do this exists for him only as a possible science, as an ideal. We are puzzled by his recog- nising idea of qualities, of concrete things in nature, of works of art all separately just as occasion requires ; and we do not know exactly how the idea of ' the just ' for instance stands related to the idea of ' man ' or the idea of ' table ' (I am referring only to the forms in which the theory appears within the limits of the Republic). Some of these we feel are more pro- perly ' ideas ' than others. This difficulty is partly due, doubtless, to the tentative and ' sceptical ' character of Plato's philosophy; partly perhaps to the influence of the undogmatic and vague character of popular Greek polytheism. The relation of the various gods to one another and to the supreme god is left undetermined. Plato and Aristotle them- selves talk indifferently of TO delov, o deos, ol deoi. Plato is anxious to prove that God is good and the author of good only (Rep. ii.) : it seems to be a matter of indifference to him whether God is one or many. The Timaeus does indeed suggest a hierarchy of divine beings ; but then the Timaeus stands by itself in its Pythagorean dogmatism. The result of the whole discussion in the Phaedo then amounts to this : that the particular concrete man (composed of body and soul) passes, as we saw, from life to death and death to life (cp. 70 C, 103 A-C) ; the soul which makes him live is always living. It cannot admit death, and is therefore in- destructible. This result may indeed appear to be a purely verbal statement : " Aninia est animans " ; but its signifi-