Christianity and Greek Philosophy / or, the relation between spontaneous and reflective thought in Greece and the positive teaching of Christ and His Apostles

by B. F. Cocker

[Footnote 640: ][ (return) ] "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.

[Footnote 641: ][ (return) ] "Ibid.," bk. vi. ch. xviii. and xix.

[Footnote 642: ][ (return) ] "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.

[Footnote 643: ][ (return) ] Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 275.

[Footnote 644: ][ (return) ] "Banquet," § 35. See Cousin, "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," Lecture IV., also Lecture VII. pp. 150-153; Denis, "Histoire des Théories et Ideés Morales dans l'Antiquité," vol. i. p. 149.

God is therefore, with Plato, the First Principle of all Principles; the Divine energy or power is the efficient cause, the Divine beauty the formal cause, and the Divine goodness the final cause of all existence.

The eternal unity of the principles of Order, Goodness, and Truth, in an ultimate reality--the ETERNAL MIND, is thus the fundamental principle which pervades the whole of the Platonic philosophy. And now, having attained this sublime elevation, he looks down from thence upon the sensible, the phenomenal world, and upon the temporal life of man; and in the light of this great principle he attempts to explain their meaning and purpose. The results he attained in the former case constitute the Platonic Physics, in the latter, the Platonic Ethics.

I. PLATONIC PHYSICS.

Firmly believing in the absolute excellence of the Deity, and regarding the Divine Goodness as the Final Cause of the universe, he pronounces the physical world to be an image of the perfection of God. Anaxagoras, no doubt, prepared the way for this theory. Every one who has read the "Phædo," will remember the remarkable passage in which Socrates gives utterance to the disappointment which he had experienced when expecting from physical science an explanation of the universe. "When I was young," he said--"it is not to be told how eager I was about physical inquiries, and curious to know how the universe came to be as it is; and when I heard that Anaxagoras was teaching that all was arranged by mind, I was delighted with the prospect of hearing such a doctrine unfolded; I thought to myself, if he teaches that mind made every thing to be as it is, he will explain how it is BEST for it to be, and show that so it is." But Anaxagoras, it appears, lost sight of this principle, and descended to the explanation of the universe by material causes. "Great was my hope," says Socrates, "and equally great my disappointment." [⁶⁴⁵]