region as a phantom, to exult in dismissing for ever the ideal system of Plato. The great character of the ideal essences, or original laws and reasons of things, is their independence of the mental act of apprehending them, as well as of all other influences:-as the external world discovered by sense is independent of that discovery, so the intelligible world discovered by intellect is independent of it, and of all things. In the discovery of both we draw these conclusions of both.

The intelligible element, then, gives itself to the sensible; and the intellect of man, the appointed interpreter of the universe, refers the sensible to the intelligible. But, from causes altogether mysterious, and which Plato treats with haste and brevity, the sensible result is ever inferior and disproportionate to the intelligible ground. You will reply, that, according to the interpretation already given, this is impossible; for that the effect can never be disproportionate to its own cause, the result inadequate to its own reason. But here we come upon one of those sublime arrangements of Platonism, which, even when the reason hesitates to accept them, still endear it to every elevated mind. Plato, well knowing this difficulty, aware that this balance of inferiority-this melancholy deficit in nature-must be accounted for, determined yet to do it in such a manner as to save the ideal world unharmed. Accordingly, he ascribed it to that undefinable something, the substratum of the sensible, on the nature of which I have already at some length engaged you. It followed, that the more we could detach phenomena from their sensible existence, the more we could consider qualities as in themselves, and not as elements of the visible series, the more we should have brought them into that state in which we could consider them as images of eternal realities.

Such views as these obviously extended to every form of existence; the theory included all nature, from its vastest to its minutest constituents. But, though every phenomenon of nature might thus form a step from the sensible to the ideal, some objects there were which stood as steps far higher than the rest in this ladder of the philosophic contemplatist. For if there be differences of rank in the ideal world itself,-if there be some laws of the Universal System that originate all the rest, and make, as it were, the very charter of its entire legislation,-assuredly there must be proportionate differences in the sensible embodiment, and the judicious aspirant after the true dignity of man will attach himself with anxious earnestness to these. In every object, that even feebly exhibits them, he will see the reflected light of eternity, and know the quivering beam through all its dimness and distortion; if many such objects meet his gaze, he will abstract the blessed quality from them all, and

thus condense the light in his intellectual focus; and it may be that patient contemplation shall at length enable him to gain some conception of the splendour of the original luminary. And that which encourages such a hope is the perceived fact, that the most commanding ideas of the invisible world do actually reveal themselves in this world in a form partially intelligible. For example, the qualities of sense, whiteness, sweetness, odours, sounds,-though they, doubtless, are finally referrible to ideal originals,-can at best bear but a faint analogy to their intelligibles; but it is not so with proportions, with mathematical regulations,—with first principles, the avvжÓleτа of the sciences,-above all, it is not so with moral virtues. Here, though still unable to behold except in particular manifestation, an easy effort of abstraction brings us almost within reach of the ideas themselves, and we seem to become conscious of the fact, that we have but to escape the body, and with it the world of sense, to stand in the simplicity of pure rational natures in front of the awful originals.

But when we inquire what it is, in the Platonic sense, thus to behold an idea, we cannot easily obtain a satisfactory answer. The question might be replied to in two ways. 1st, It might be said that the disembodied rational faculty can and shall apprehend, by a succession of endless generalizations, the laws of the Universal System more and more widely unfolded; perceiving in each that perfection of wisdom which gives it the highest moral necessity. The idea of virtue, or rather the various forms of the one ultimate idea, may thus expand into a vastness of glory now altogether inconceivable, and so amplify for ever, itself indeed immutable, but the reason unconsciously widening in capacity. This presents a true and noble sense; nor indeed can any one among ourselves, who has learned to hunger and thirst after knowledge as well as "righteousness," conceive, that for a little temporary endurance this infinite perspective of attainment is almost distinctly promised in the charter of our Christian hopes, without a beating heart and a resolve of high endeavour.

But there is a second sense in which the emancipation of the rational element for the direct intuition of ideas may be conceived. It may be supposed that the reason shall instantly apprehend the ultimate idea, shall grasp at once the very foundations of existence.

I need not again observe to you, that this anticipation supposes an ultimate unity between the rational element of the soul and the Ideal Realities themselves; for thus only could it be expected that the reason, when freed from its restrictions, would necessarily embrace them. It is one thing to know that there must be ideal foundations for all existences, another thing to apprehend the ideal foun

dations themselves. To suppose the latter faculty certain is, I repeat, to suppose the last reasons of things and the reason of man to be fundamentally one; a supposition which we have before seen is perfectly agreeable to the Platonic doctrine of the eternity of the soul; a supposition which wonderfully enhances, indeed, the dignity of the spiritual principle in man, by thus supposing it to hold the key of the universe; but a supposition for which, in this unlimited sense, there seems to be no foundation.

As concerns our present purpose, either of these suppositions might be accepted. I mention them because the Platonic expositions do not seem to have kept the distinction in view. But with reference to what I conceive the true and genuine value of the Platonic philosophy, speculative and practical,-with reference, especially, to the present division of the subject, you may adopt either. The infinite progression, or the changeless intuition, would alike suit the rule and tenor of the Ethics of Plato.

You are now prepared to entertain that subject. You have seen that the phenomenal images of ideas, that ideas in their most perfect state of sensible manifestation can be obtained by the reflective mind. Separating these from all their debasing concomitants, conceiving them in a state yet purer than any which experience in its limited range can exhibit, the thoughts are raised on the ascent to absolute perfection. In the mean time, the soul is quickened by the remembrance of its own dignity and capacities, it laments the ignoble confinement to which it is reduced, it knows the path to freedom lies through self-purification, terminated by the brief and happy gate of death; it, therefore, resolves to exert its anticipated freedom by realizing the high vision of perfection for ever before it. Distinctly to know these truths, the necessary requisite to all useful effort,-practically to fix them as the rules of life, this is prudence or wisdom—Ppovýσis,—the leading excellence according to the views of Plato; the virtue without which all others are but specious vices. You perceive from hence that the idea of the Rational in man is the leading idea of the Platonic morals; and the main exercise of the Rational, the separation of soul, as far as possible, from body and all bodily adjuncts.

This principle of Rationality is a direct consequence from the entire scheme of Platonism. The system supposes the original unity of the Beautiful, the Just, and the Good, in the True; the True being, as it were, the supporting or substantiating; the Good the characterizing idea; the Beautiful and Just accompanying both: the True being the very reality of things; the Good, the final cause of their being; and the others investing the True out of the strength of that final cause,-for wherever is the dya@ov there will infallibly

be the highest measure of harmonious proportion, and proportion is the essential idea of both the Beautiful and the Just. Now the soul of man is originally formed to meet these governing ideas of the Universe, it is congenial, it is (in its rational element) co-eternal with them. This must apply equally to every human soul, however debased by its contact with, and slavery to, the body; the depth of its degradation cannot efface the fact of its original adaptation; and though the vast majority of the race live unconscious of their privileges, the privileges nevertheless exist, and it is the function of philosophy" to instruct how to enjoy them. The great requisite of virtue, then, is to gain the intuition of these ideal excellencies; and the original fitness of the soul to meet them is so certain, that it cannot be conceived that it can really apprehend these eternal objects without yielding to their divine attraction. But the intuition of ideas is knowledge or science in its highest, its only genuine sense; the moral and the intellectual are thus identified in their highest point; and the voŋois of the philosophic mind sees beneath it, on one side, all the infinite varieties of human learning, on the other, all the diversities of human virtue, as its subordinate results, or dependent developments.

From this leading conception of the nature of the human soul consequences naturally follow, which have often startled the readers of Plato, but which are really the necessary fruits of this principle.

For example, Plato inherits with Socrates, the maxim that no man is voluntarily evil, kakòs èkùv ovdels. The rationale of this doctrine seems to be,—that the immortal element of the soul, the directive power, is essentially formed to make good its object; that, therefore, it can only be through a suspension, or eclipse of that power, that evil can in fact become the aim of the man; a suspension which even then does not allow him to choose evil as evil, but which hides from his view the perfect idea of the good. Even when he is admonished, he may pursue the delusive phantom, but it is still from a belief of its reality; it is as the reality of excellence he follows it; and the original, the indestructible law of his rational being, still proclaims him a devoted worshipper of virtue, at the very moment that in his temporary blindness he adores its opposite. This doctrine, which in a certain degree is true and profitable, but which may obviously, by overlooking the operation of habit and passion, be carried to a very extravagant length", is made the basis of

For it surely is most erroneous to deny, what all men can attest, that the force of habit or of violent propension may urge to the commission of vice at the very instant that the intellect is most abundantly cognizant of the excellence of virtue. To call this blindness, or the substitution of a false for a true good, seems wholly unwar

many admirable arguments on the advantage of philosophy, the coucher of the eye of reason, the legislator of true and apparent goods. In its fullest form it resolves into the proposition that all vice is ignorance.

The principle, often directly or indirectly propounded by Plato, that all virtue is "one," that no man can be truly virtuous by halves, is not far removed from the same leading notion. To us the doctrine seems easily derivable from the consideration that the same principle, whatever it be,-whether the will of God, or the fitness of things, or both,-which urges to partial virtue, must, if genuine, urge to all, as equally applicable to all. This seems to have been in Plato's mind, but not this only. Virtue itself, when contemplated from without, seemed to consist in a certain happy proportionality in all the elements of the system; this (which was justice) was the last result of the possession and exercise of that wisdom of which we have spoken. Now the very notion of just proportion brings with it the idea of unity in the midst of multiplicity; it is the diversified governed by the uniform. Virtue, then, the result of the presidency of the Rational, takes from this singleness of control a character of unity, for the harmonious relation of parts is a thing in itself indivisible. To these views contemplations more metaphysical allied themselves; the very unity of the supreme idea of good, in which all inferior manifestations were absorbed and lost, reduced to its own simplicity all human efforts to copy and embody it.

Lastly, the maxim which is the subject of so much discussion in the Platonic dialogues,-the maxim, "that virtue cannot be scholastically taught," finds its explanation in the same system of the human soul. It is Plato's perpetual admonition, that true knowledge is incommunicable, in the way of information, from man to man,—that it must be recovered out of the depths of the soul itself. On this principle turns the singular passage in the Phædrus, so alien to our modern habits of thought, in which Plato denounces the invention of writing as a misfortune to man,—as the prolific parent of borrowed, sophistical, and illusory wisdom. Now we have seen that the fontal ideas of virtue and science are blended in the póvnois, or wisdom, of Plato. The same principle must, therefore, apply to virtue as to knowledge. In its true essence, it cannot be conveyed; no series of practical maxims, however judicious, can reach this hidden reality; it must discover itself to the reflective mind by its own inherent light. It is when Plato treats of this subject that he rises into

rantable. Plato argues that we commit vice for the sake of a supposed good, and that it is good which still is in view. This supposes man always to act with an ulterior view, which is likewise quite gratuitous.