“Now, it is this sort of cause which I would gladly put myself under any one’s teaching to learn. But I could neither find any teacher, nor make any way by myself. Having failed in this quarter, I took the second best course, and struck into a new path in search of causes.[52] Fatigued with studying objects through my eyes and perceptions of sense, I looked out for images or reflections of them, and turned my attention to words or discourses.[53] This comparison is indeed not altogether suitable: for I do not admit that he who investigates things through general words, has recourse to images, more than he who investigates sensible facts: but such, at all events, was the turn which my mind took. Laying down such general assumption or hypothesis as I considered to be the strongest, I accepted as truth whatever squared with it, respecting cause as well as all other matters. In this way I came upon the investigation of another sort of cause.[54]
[52] Plato, Phædon, p. 99 C-D. ἐπειδὴ δὲ ταύτης ἐστερήθην, καὶ οὔτ’ αὐτὸς εὑρεῖν οὔτε παρ’ ἄλλου μαθεῖν οἷός τε ἐγενόμην, τὸν δεύτερον πλοῦν ἐπὶ τὴν τῆς αἰτίας ζήτησιν ᾗ πεπραγμάτευμαι, βούλει σοὶ ἐπίδειξιν ποιήσωμαι;
[53] Plato, Phædon, p. 99 E. ἴσως μὲν οὖν ᾧ εἰκάζω, τρόπον τινὰ οὐκ ἔοικεν· οὐ γὰρ πάνυ ξυγχωρῶ τὸν ἐν τοῖς λόγοις σκοπούμενον τὰ ὄντα ἐν εἰκόσι μᾶλλον σκοπεῖν ἢ τὸν ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις.
[54] Plato, Phædon, p. 100 B. ἔρχομαι γὰρ δὴ ἐπιχειρῶν σοὶ ἐπιδείξασθαι τῆς αἰτίας τὸ εἶδος ὃ πεπραγμάτευμαι, &c.
He now assumes the separate existence of ideas. These ideas are the causes why particular objects manifest certain attributes.
“I now assumed the separate and real existence of Ideas by themselves — The Good in itself or the Self-Good, Self-Beautiful, Great, and all such others. Look what follows next upon this assumption. If any thing else be beautiful, besides the Self-Beautiful, that other thing can only be beautiful because it partakes of the Self-Beautiful: and the same with regard to other similar Ideas. This is the only cause that I can accept: I do not understand those other ingenious causes which I hear mentioned.[55] When any one tells me that a thing is beautiful because it has a showy colour or figure, I pay no attention to him, but adhere simply to my own affirmation, that nothing else causes it to be beautiful, except the presence or participation of the Self-Beautiful. In what way such participation may take place, I cannot positively determine. But I feel confident in affirming that it does take place: that things which are beautiful, become so by partaking in the Self-Beautiful; things which are great or little, by partaking in Greatness or Littleness. If I am told that one man is taller than another by the head, and that this other is shorter than the first by the very same (by the head), I should not admit the proposition, but should repeat emphatically my own creed, — That whatever is greater than another is greater by nothing else except by Greatness and through Greatness — whatever is less than another is less only by Littleness and through Littleness. For I should fear to be entangled in a contradiction, if I affirmed that the greater man was greater and the lesser man less by the head — First, in saying that the greater was greater and that the lesser was less, by the very same — Next, in saying that the greater man was greater by the head, which is itself small: it being absurd to maintain that a man is great by something small.[56] Again, I should not say that ten is more than eight by two, and that this was the cause of its excess;[57] my doctrine is, that ten is more than eight by Multitude and through Multitude: so the rod of two cubits is greater than that of one, not by half, but by Greatness. Again, when One is placed alongside of One, — or when one is bisected — I should take care not to affirm, that in the first case the juxtaposition, in the last case the bisection, was the cause why it became two.[58] I proclaim loudly that I know no other cause for its becoming two except participation in the essence of the Dyad. What is to become two, must partake of the Dyad: what is to become one, of the Monad. I leave to wiser men than me these juxtapositions and bisections and other such refinements: I remain entrenched within the safe ground of my own assumption or hypothesis (the reality of these intelligible and eternal Ideas).
[55] Plato, Phædon, p. 100 C. οὐ τοίνυν ἔτι μανθάνω, οὐδὲ δύναμαι τὰς ἄλλας αἰτίας τὰς σοφὰς ταύτας γιγνώσκειν.
[56] Plato, Phædon, p. 101 A. φοβούμενος μή τίς σοι ἐναντίος λόγος ἀπαντήσῃ, ἐὰν τῇ κεφαλῇ μείζονά τινα φῇς εἶναι καὶ ἐλάττω, πρῶτον μὲν τῷ αὐτῷ τὸ μεῖζον μεῖζον εἶναι καὶ τὸ ἔλαττον ἔλαττον, ἔπειτα τῇ κεφαλῇ σμικρᾷ οὔσῃ τὸν μείζω μείζω εἶναι, καὶ τοῦτο δὴ τέρας εἶναι, τὸ σμικρῷ τινὶ μέγαν τινὰ εἶναι.
[57] Plato, Phædon, p. 101 B. Οὔκουν τὰ δέκα τῶν ὀκτὼ δυοῖν πλείω εἶναι, καὶ διὰ ταύτην τὴν αἰτίαν ὑπερβάλλειν, φοβοῖο ἂν λέγειν, ἀλλὰ μὴ πλήθει καὶ διὰ τὸ πλῆθος; καὶ τὸ δίπηχυ τοῦ πηχυαίου ἡμίσει μεῖζον εἶναι, ἀλλ’ οὐ μεγέθει;
[58] Plato, Phædon, p. 101 B-C. τί δέ; ἑνὶ ἑνὸς προστεθέντος, τὴν πρόσθεσιν αἰτίαν εἶναι τοῦ δύο γενέσθαι, ἢ διασχισθέντος τὴν σχίσιν, οὐκ εὐλαβοῖο ἂν λέγειν, καὶ μέγα ἂν βοῴης ὅτι οὐκ οἶσθα ἄλλως πως ἕκαστον γιγνόμενον ἢ μετασχὸν τῆς ἰδίας οὐσίας ἑκαστου οὖ ἂν μετάσχῃ· καὶ ἐν τούτοις οὐκ ἔχεις ἄλλην τινὰ αἰτίαν τοῦ δύο γενέσθαι ἀλλ’ ἢ τὴν τῆς δυάδος μετάσχεσιν, &c.