(2.) VERACITY (ἀλήθεια)--the utterance of what is true.--"Republic," bk. i. ch. v., bk. ii. ch. xx., bk. vi. ch. ii.
(3.) FAITHFULNESS (πιστὸτης)--the strict performance of a trust.--"Republic," bk. i. ch. v., bk. vi. ch. ii.
(4.) USEFULNESS (ώφέλτµον)--the answering of some valuable end.--"Republic," bk. ii. ch. xviii., bk. iv. ch. xviii.; "Meno," § 22.
(5.) BENEVOLENCE (εὔνοια)--seeking the well-being of others.--"Republic," bk. i. ch. xvii., bk. ii. ch. xviii.
(6.) HOLINESS (ὁσιότης)--purity of mind, piety.--"Protagoras," §§ 52-54; "Phædo," § 32; "Theætetus," § 84.
The final effort of Plato's Dialectic was to ascend from these ideas of Absolute Truth, and Absolute Beauty, and Absolute Goodness to the Absolute Being, in whom they are all united, and from whom they all proceed. "He who possesses the true love of science is naturally carried in his aspirations to the real Being; and his love, so far from suffering itself to be retarded by the multitude of things whose reality is only apparent, knows no repose until it have arrived at union with the essence of each object, by the part of the soul which is akin to the permanent and essential; so that this divine conjunction having produced intelligence and truth, the knowledge of being is won." [585]
[Footnote 585: ][ (return) ] "Republic," bk. vi. ch. v.
To the mind of Plato, there was in every thing, even the smallest and most insignificant of sensible objects, a reality just in so far as it participates in some archetypal form or idea. These archetypal forms or ideas are the "thoughts of God" [586]--they are the plan according to which he framed the universe. "The Creator and Father of the universe looked to an eternal model.... Being thus generated, the universe is framed according to principles that can be comprehended by reason and reflection." [587] Plato, also, regarded all individual conceptions of the mind as hypothetical notions which have in them an à priori element--an idea which is unchangeable, universal, and necessary. These unchangeable, universal, and necessary ideas are copies of the Divine Ideas, which are, for man, the primordial laws of all cognition, and all reasoning. They are possessed by the soul "in virtue of its kindred nature to that which is permanent, unchangeable, and eternal." He also believed that every archetypal form, and every à priori idea, has its ground and root in a higher idea, which is unhypothetical and absolute--an idea which needs no other supposition for its explanation, and which is, itself, needful to the explanation of all existence--even the idea of an absolute and perfect Being, in whose mind the ideas of absolute truth, and beauty, and goodness inhere, and in whose eternity they can only be regarded as eternal. [588] Thus do the "ideas of reason" not only cast a bridge across the abyss that separates the sensible and the ideal world, but they also carry us beyond the limits of our personal consciousness, and discover to us a realm of real Being, which is the foundation, and cause, and explanation of the phenomenal world that appears around us and within us.
[Footnote 586: ][ (return) ] Alcinous, "Doctrines of Plato," p. 262.