William Atkinson - The Complete Works of William Walker Atkinson

As an authority says: “It was the custom of Socrates to carry on his investigations from propositions generally received as true, and to place the particular statement to be examined in a variety of combinations, thus implying that each thought must, if true, maintain its validity under every possible combination.… This method was employed by its author in the form of dialogue, from which arose the term, the Socratic Method.…All previous philosophers had been occupied with the universe as a whole; the chief business of Socrates was with man as a moral being. Bishop Bloomfield says: “Socrates taught that the divine attributes might be inferred from the works of creation. He maintained the omniscience, ubiquity, and providence of the Deity; and from the existence of conscience in the human breast he inferred that man is a moral agent, the object of reward and punishment; and that the great distinction of virtue and vice was ordained by Deity.”

PLATO

Plato, by many considered the greatest philosopher of ancient Greece, lived from 429 to 348 b.c. He was the founder of the famous Academic school of philosophy. His influence over the thought of his time was very great, and it extended long after his time, influencing the great Neo-Platonic school, and having much to do with the formation of many conceptions in the early Christian Church. His influence, through the channel of Neo-Platonism, reached Emerson and the Transcendental Movement, hundreds of years later, as we saw in a recent chapter, and many of his ideas are now in evidence in the advanced thought of the twentieth century.

Lewes, in his “History of Philosophy,” says of Plato: “I come to the conclusion that he never systemized his thoughts, but allowed free play to skepticism, taking opposite sides in every debate, because he had no steady conviction to guide him, unsaying to-day what he said yesterday, satisfied to show the weakness of an opponent.” But other authorities see in this apparent shifting attitude of Plato rather a desire to consider all sides and phases of each and every question under discussion, in order to arrive at the whole truth. There were certain fundamental theoretical views held and taught by Plato which appear in his writings, and which are likened to the golden thread upon which the varied beads of his general thought are strung. These fundamental theories are as follows: (1) The existence of Ideas; (2) the doctrine of Pre-existence and Immortality of the Soul; and (3) the subjection of the popular divinities to the one Supreme Being.

The Platonic Doctrine of Ideas embodies the fundamental conception of idealism which has since played an important part in the shifting conceptions of the various schools of philosophical thought. Plato’s idealism was the first Western presentation of the underlying principle of that school of thought. “Idealism” is the term applied in metaphysics to any theory which holds that the universe, as a whole, and throughout, is the embodiment of mind—that reality is to be found only in mind, and that the only reality in the external world consists in its perceptibility. Larousse says: “Idealism is the name given to certain systems which deny the individual existence of object apart from subject, or of both apart from God or the Absolute.” Another authority says: “Idealism denies the existence of bodies, holding that their appearances are merely ideas of the subject cognized. Subjective idealism holds that these ideas are produced by the mind; while objective idealism holds that they exist only in God or the Absolute. Zeno, or Elea, in classic times, anticipated modern idealism. His teachings were subject to many changes, finally appearing in the refined conception of Plato, which in turn was modified by modern schools of idealistic thought.”

Plato held that reality inhered in the general idea of a thing, and not in the individual; that there was no reality in the individual, tree, stone or man, but that reality was to be found in the general idea of tree, stone or man, which existed on the ideal plane alone. The essence or ideal form of things was held to be the only real thing; the objects of phenomenal appearance being merely fleeting, perishable copies of the real form or idea, the latter existing and being in a state of changeless unity eternally. These real ideas, forms or essences, existed on a plane of their own, and could be described only by metaphors. Plato’s Ideal World was a realm of pure mind possessing substance and power. Reality could not be discovered by the ordinary mental process, but “The soul discovers the universal of things by herself.” The true home of the soul was in the world of the “universals”—of the changeless ideas—separate and apart from sensations and individual mind.

Plato held that the world of phenomena lacked reality, as all reality is vested in the Noumenon, which is reality itself—the Noumenon is the cause and mover of all things, ever behind the veil of the senses and mortal mind. This Noumenon is that which all philosophies that acknowledge an Absolute are compelled to postulate as being. It was to be known only through pure thought, or intuition, rather than by the ordinary intellectual faculties. It had as its essence the Nous, an immaterial principle of pure mind, the reason and cause of the universe. The Nous is also considered as the Supreme Good, the source of all end and aims, and the supreme principle of all the ideas. The Nous was held to be transcendent, moving the world only as a rational immanent causer. It was Being, itself—the Absolute.

Plato also held that all true knowledge arises from the recollection or reminiscences of the soul, which has lived before, and has dwelt awhile on the transcendental plane of the ideas. The soul has perceived these ideas on that plane, and remembers them faintly in its subsequent earth life. As Wordsworth said: “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.” True knowledge and wisdom, Plato held, are but more or less dim recollections of the previously known Ideas, awakened by the associations, suggestions and experiences of earth life—by the imperfect copies of the Idea seen therein. He held that some Ideas, firmly implanted in the soul in the form of transcendent memories, can not be fully perceived in earth life, put always remain as idealistic dreams, toward the realization of which the soul intuitively yearns. Among these unexpressed ideas were “the Good, the Beautiful, and the True,” all of which are incapable of expression, but which are recognized by the soul as real, and which awaken ecstatic thrills when contemplated. The earth-bound souls experience the ecstasy of transcendental memories—the recollection of the beatific visions of the past world of Ideas. The plane or world of ideas represent absolute wisdom, absolute being, absolute bliss.

Plato did not attempt to define his conception of Transcendent Being—wisdom—bliss—his absolute Nous. Like Spinoza, centuries afterward, he felt that “to define God is to deny Him,” and he confined himself to metaphors and abstract terms. He regarded the phenomenal universe as but an appearance, mode, aspect, limitation, or aspect, of the One Absolute Being which was above human thought or mortal mind; and this universe, being what it was, had no separate or real existence apart from that One Being. An authority speaks of “Plato’s conception of the Nous, or One Absolute Being, from whom emanated as radiations all the phenomenal universe, which was made apparent only through the medium of an element of negation, or non-being, which men called matter.”

ARISTOTLE

Aristotle (384–322 b.c.) is generally thought of as opposing Plato’s philosophy, because of his substitution of his own terms, and because of his difference of interpretation of certain doctrines. While he did not agree with Plato upon some points, yet the two channels of Socratic thought were closely allied. Aristotle was a man of marvelous intellect, and he exerted a tremendous influence upon both ancient and modern philosophical and scientific thought. He joined Plato’s school, and dwelt in Athens for twenty years. He was the tutor of Alexander the Great; a distinguished scholar; a great teacher. As an authority says: “Aristotle was the author of treatises on nearly every subject of human thought, and the founder of the Peripatetic philosophy, his writings on that theme and on Logic being venerated during the Middle Ages as no other book was but the Bible.” Through Aristotle, Plato’s fundamental thought concerning the Nous strongly influenced the Stoic schools, and from them descended through various channels to the present day.