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NOTE IN BEPLY TO MR. A. E. TAYLOR. 237 to do with the question. Plato is assuming rather tentatively and provisionally as it seems to me, but that does not matter that whatever exists, exists wholly (yiyoviv oov). It is "in itself complete," so to speak ; it either is or is not. Even Becoming whatever a Greek Hegel might say to the contrary verily is, and is not half in and half out of existence. Let Mr. Taylor if he likes call this existing perfectly, and let him say that with Plato the idea of existence involves the idea of perfection. But this which sounds rather Spinozistic is not what I mean by perfection, nor what Descartes meant. This can be easily proved. No fact in the history of philosophy is more certain or better known than that Descartes was quite sure of his own existence. It is equally certain, though less well known, that he was also sure of his own imper- fection, and on the same evidence, namely, that he doubted. Now if oA.oj/ means what Mr. Taylor seems to think it means Descartes should have thought himself perfect, at least if he agreed with Plato. But I submit that he took perfect in an all round sense, including above all moral excellence. And it is in that sense that I predicate perfection of the idea of the Good, which according to Plato so far from involving the idea of existence actually excludes it. If Mr. Taylor were right, the passage from the Sophistes would imply a belief on Plato's part that the Athenian democracy was perfect, which, as another Greek writer would say, is absurd. And now I come to the most important allegation of all, which is that I wrote my article in such haste as to overlook a passage in the Timaus which Mr. Taylor considers "the strongest and most emphatic declaration of the ' separation ' in some sense or other of Idea and sensible thing to be met with in the whole of the dialogues." For in his opinion this passage contradicts what I call Plato's refusal to acknowledge an independent and isolated existence of the Ideas. " In some sense or other " is a very con- venient phrase ; and I wish for the sake of variety it might replace the eternal " more or less " of the cultured classes. Any sense you like except the crude realism of an independent and isolated existence. And my point is that Plato by making ovcrta a product of TO.VTOV and Odrepov Identity and Difference does refuse such existence to the Idea in its isolation. So far, if I rightly under- stand them, I am in agreement with Mr. Archer Hind and Dr. Jackson, whom I suppose Mr. Taylor would not accuse of writing hastily or of ignoring decisive passages. The chief difference be- tween my interpretation and theirs is that they take the world-soul in a purely spiritual sense, while I take it in a semi-materialistic or dynamic sense. Mr. Taylor seems rather displeased with me for not referring to his former articles on the Parmenides. As well as I can remem- ber I read them twice through, but, doubtless owing to my own stupidity, they seemed to me considerably more obscure than the dialogue they were supposed to elucidate. And his new paper leaves me in the same bewildered state. But I cannot avoid an