ts essential purpose is to assert the
absolute existence and independence of that innate type and its
imperishability. Though it requires the agency of external circumstances
for its complete realization, its being is altogether irrespective of
them. There are, therefore, in such a case, two elements concerned--an
internal and an external. A like duality is perceived in many other
physiological instances, as in the relationship of mind and matter,
thought and sensation. It is the aim of the Platonic philosophy to
magnify the internal at the expense of the external in the case of man,
thereby asserting the absolute supremacy of intellect; this being the
particular in which man is distinguished from the brutes and lower
organisms, in whom the external relatively predominates. The development
of any such organism, be it plant or animal, is therefore nothing but a
manifestation of the Divine idea of Platonism. Many instances of natural
history offer striking illustrations, as when that which might have been
a branch is developed into a flower, the parts thereof showing a
disposition to arrange themselves by fives or by threes. The persistency
with which this occurs in organisms of the same species, is, in the
Platonic interpretation, a proof that, though individuals may perish,
the idea is immortal. How else, in this manner, could the like extricate
itself from the unlike; the one deliver itself from, and make itself
manifest among the many?

Such is an instance of Plato's views; but the very illustration, thus
serving to bring them so explicitly before us, may teach us another,
and, perhaps, a more correct doctrine. For, considering the duality
presented by such cases, the internal and external, the immortal hidden
type and the power acting upon it without, the character and the
circumstances, may we not pertinently inquire by what authority does
Plato diminish the influence of the latter and enhance the value of the
former? Why are facts to be burdened with such hypothetical creations,
when it is obvious that a much simpler explanation is sufficient? Let us
admit, as our best physiological views direct, that the starting-point
of every organism, low or high, vegetable or animal, or whatever else,
is a simple cell, the manner of development of which depends altogether
on the circumstances and influences to which it is exposed; that, so
long as those circumstances are the same the resulting form will be the
same, and that a