other is the form of sense-perception. The senses are always addressed outwardly to the world before them-they cognize what is other to them. But the reason has attained to the cognition of the eternal form of the Absolute itself as revealed in the laws of its own thought. Reason therefore knows itself. Moreover, the discursive thinking deepens as it comes to cognize in the general categories these eternal characteristics of eternal form.

The immortal passage in which Aristotle has described this is to be found in his Metaphysics, eleventh book, seventh chapter. I translate from the German paraphrase of this chapter by Hegel, and include his running commentary on it:

"The thought thinks itself through participation (ueràλnyv) in thought; it is, however, thought through contact and thinking; so that the thinking and that which is thought are the same." Thought, since it is the unmoved which moves [causes motion], has an object, which, however, passes into activity, since its contents is also what is produced through thought and hence identical with the thinking activity. [The object of thought is first begotten in the activity of thinking, which is therefore a separation of the thought from itself as an object. Here in the thinking, therefore, that which is moved and that which moves is the same; since the substance of that which is thought is the thinking activity, that which is thought is the absolute cause which, itself unmoved, is identical with the thought which is moved by it; the separation and the relation are one and the same. The chief moment of the Aristotelian philosophy is therefore this: that the energy of thinking and the object which is thought are one and the same]; for that which apprehends what is thought and the essence, is thought. Its possession is one with its activity (èvepyeî d' exwv) [for it is a continuous energy], so that this "total of activity through which it thinks itself" "is more divine than that which the thinking reason supposes to possess that attribute "—i. e., than the content of thought. Not that which is thought is the more excellent, but the energy of thinking itself; the activity of the apprehending produces that which is perceived [the total activity is more divine than one phase or moment of it, seized abstractly]. Speculation ( Dewpía) is thus the most delightful and best. If God, now, is always in this, as we are at times" [in man this eternal thinking, which is God himself, occurs only as individual condition], "then he is admirable; if still more, then more admirable. But he is thus, Life, too, is his; for the actuality [energy] of thought is life. He, however, is activity; the activity returning

into itself is most excellent and eternal life. We say, therefore, that God is the eternal and the best living Being."

On this rock is built the final definition by which Europe and the Western world distinguishes itself from the older world, the world of the Orient. God the Supreme Being is not a formless essence an empty entity-a transcendent to all thought and to all reflection, because such a supreme being has no existence or outward manifestation. But the true God is infinite form (infinite because self-related). He is divine Reason; and Reason is selfactivity that perpetually reveals itself in distinctions and categories, in creation and in human cognition. Man has the divine destiny to partake in the divine life-being endowed with Reason as the light of all his seeing-and able, by diligent application, to purify his thinking and become familiar with those eternal thoughts of the Creator in and for themselves.

A GLIMPSE INTO PLATO.

BY FLORENCE JAMES WILLIAMS.

There is among us now an abiding trust in the method of attaining knowledge that we commonly call Positive or Inductive. The great sense of certainty which it gives us is all the more remarkable and not the less secure because it is, in some minds at least, accompanied by a sense of its inadequacy, when taken alone, to account for the whole process of gaining insight into truth. This seeming paradox is being gradually satisfactorily solved by a certain rapprochement between the more liberal Positivists and the more widely informed Idealists. The bigots on either side, of course, stand apart from this rapprochement, and ignore it, or denounce it. Let them go. It is not with bigots on either side that we concern ourselves. The bigots notwithstanding to the contrary, the majority of intelligent people among us are more and more inclined to believe that there is truth on both sides; certain truth to be gained only by the methods of Positivism—a glorious impulse toward truth given only by Idealism, and without which

humanity would be halt of one foot, lame in one hand, and blind of one eye. We must keep and know how to use both Positivism. and Idealism. This is to be done only by knowing what each is good for. So much for the present attitude of thoughtful minds as appearing to the writer.

The glimpse into Plato here given is intended to show how clear this same thought was to that great, bright mind. Then it was probably impossible-owing to the paucity of proven truth, of positive knowledge-for any but a few far-seeing ones to appreciate the thought. The writer believes that it is now a common thought, more or less vague, however, and therefore that it is well it should be again expressed in such terms as the ears of the nineteenth century are more familiar with than they are with the phraseology, turns of speech, and myths of the old Greek.

It is a peculiar and well-recognized feature of Plato's writings that they are full of germs of thought which, like well-ripened seeds, have served, ever since his time, to cover many harvest fields. Look where you will among the "new ideas" of our own times, or read where you will among the books that have appeared between our times and Plato's, and you will find that the germ of most of their ideas, of their plans of conduct, of their explanations of mysteries, even of their doctrines of religious faith or of their philosophical convictions, were already lying outlined in his pages. It is one of these pregnant seed-thoughts that I take up now-viz., the relation of knowledge to conceptions.

It is, I think, a relation often misunderstood and misinterpreted even by those who consider themselves ardent Platonists, or by those who are admittedly learned in his writings. I, who am but a seeker after truth, can only hope to use Plato's teachings as a help in that search, and even then I must be guided by my own. understanding of the writings and of truth, for the search is now no longer his, but mine. Plato himself has wrapped in many seeming contradictions his understanding of this relation between conceptions and knowledge. In the Apology we are told that Socrates seeks to find the man that really knows, and that he seeks in vain, coming to the conclusion that he himself is called "wise" by the oracle only because he knows that he does not know. He seeks this knowledge which is to lead him to wisdom, among great statesmen, and does not find it there. From the statesmen-prac

tical men of affairs, men whose lives are devoted to mastering the science of human life-he goes to the poets and finds their best work done, not by knowledge, but by a certain natural gift about which they know actually less than many of the bystanders. Among the artisans he finds real knowledge, but it is so narrow that each man knows only his own art, and misjudges all other things, so that his knowledge is misleading rather than enlightening, as in another part of his teaching Socrates concludes all knowledge must be which is derived from perceptions only. (See the Phado.)

So, then, knowledge alone, however accurate, is not the same thing as wisdom or as virtue-a conclusion in which we shall be forced to concur if we take heed to the character of some of the learned men we may have known or certainly have read about, and contrast them with others who, though unlearned and possessed of very little real knowledge, were both wise and virtuous. Socrates himself had far less knowledge than many an undergraduate has to-day, and there may be much learning with very little wisdom. Yet Socrates holds knowledge to be the chief good of life. Nevertheless, he states distinctly: it is not so much knowledge that is good as it is virtue which is the only good and above all possessions. Knowledge and virtue, then, are not identical. Neither, as we have seen, must knowledge and wisdom be confounded together. What a web of contradictions! Knowledge, Wisdom, Virtue-these are the things that Socrates is seeking. How shall he seek so that he may surely find?

Knowledge is the only thing worth living for. No. Virtue is the chief good. Knowledge alone is no good to guide human life. Neither is Virtue an unmixed good without knowledge.

Yet all men are without knowledge of the higher things of life; they have only conceptions of them, and he is wisest who does not even think that he knows. Is this the conclusion of Socrates, or does he carry out this line of thought still further?

Many men reach just thus far with Socrates, and then sink down into the inertness or despair, plunge into the life of the senses, or pin their faith to perceptions only, and so their intellectual life. becomes sterile, vicious, or, at best, of incomplete development. They dare not, they cannot, or at least they do not, “take refuge in conceptions." This, however, is what Socrates decides he had better do, seeking in them the truths of existence.

But what are conceptions? A conception is an image formed in the mind of something not objectively perceived. It is the formation of an idea in the mind.

A perception is an image formed in the mind from something objectively apprehended by our eyes or by other senses. All knowledge as knowledge only must be perceptive, a knowledge of results only. These are its limits. Therefore it alone is insufficient for the purpose of Socrates. The perception of phenomena, even the careful observation of them, whether in human life or in external nature, may go on for thousands of years without adding anything to our lives, to our wisdom, our virtues, our happiness, or even to our wealth. Not until the true conception of the meaning of the things observed dawns on some one mind can they become fully useful. Wild Indians roamed over this rich continent for centuries, and starved in the midst of its then unknown wealth. Their observations on natural phenomena were extensive and correct, but their conception of the things observed was erroneous or incomplete. The observation of electrical phenomena went on for thousands of years before one came who could even begin to see into their true relations. Phenomena must await conceptions to become valuable to men. Perception and observation alone are inadequate to the development of this value. It is in this sense I affirm that knowledge depends upon conceptions.

Now, it is this conceptive faculty, this beginning to see with the mind's eye, that can alone transform observation into either wisdom or wealth. Desiring above all things that knowledge which leads to wisdom, and that too about the highest things of existence, Socrates recognizes that he must seek it first in true conceptions.

True conceptions are those only that are in accordance with facts—that is, according to the use of language as commonly accepted by us all. Any other conceptions would lead us to superstitions, to fancies; these have always been over-abundant in the world, and have done more to retard moral and material progress than acknowledged ignorance has done.

They are that very conceit of knowledge against which Socrates was always fighting. It is, then, all-important to discern between true and false conceptions. The one may enable a man to attain to genuine knowledge; the other will lead him all astray.

The true conception, or first power in the mind to conceive a