how they all work together in the world and in man.

Plato arranges in order the stages of knowledge and of existence. They are
the steps or grades by which he rises from sense and the shadows of sense
to the idea of beauty and good. Mind is in motion as well as at rest
(Soph.); and may be described as a dialectical progress which passes from
one limit or determination of thought to another and back again to the
first. This is the account of dialectic given by Plato in the Sixth Book
of the Republic, which regarded under another aspect is the mysticism of
the Symposium. He does not deny the existence of objects of sense, but
according to him they only receive their true meaning when they are
incorporated in a principle which is above them (Republic). In modern
language they might be said to come first in the order of experience, last
in the order of nature and reason. They are assumed, as he is fond of
repeating, upon the condition that they shall give an account of themselves
and that the truth of their existence shall be hereafter proved. For
philosophy must begin somewhere and may begin anywhere,--with outward
objects, with statements of opinion, with abstract principles. But objects
of sense must lead us onward to the ideas or universals which are contained
in them; the statements of opinion must be verified; the abstract
principles must be filled up and connected with one another. In Plato we
find, as we might expect, the germs of many thoughts which have been
further developed by the genius of Spinoza and Hegel. But there is a
difficulty in separating the germ from the flower, or in drawing the line
which divides ancient from modern philosophy. Many coincidences which
occur in them are unconscious, seeming to show a natural tendency in the
human mind towards certain ideas and forms of thought. And there are many
speculations of Plato which would have passed away unheeded, and their
meaning, like that of some hieroglyphic, would have remained undeciphered,
unless two thousand years and more afterwards an interpreter had arisen of