n he sought
his first principle in "_numbers_" as symbols, and, in some sense, as
the embodiment of the rational conceptions of order, proportion, and
harmony,--God is the original _monas_--unity--One;--or else he sought it
in purely abstract "_ideas_" as unity, infinity, identity, and all
things are the evolution of an eternal thought, one and identical, which
is God. And here again he fails. Then he supposes an unlimited
_migma_--a chaotic mixture of elements existing from eternity, which was
separated, combined, and organized by the energy of a Supreme Mind, the
_nous_ of Anaxagoras. But he holds not firmly to this great principle;
"he recurs again to air, and ether, and water, as _causes_ for the
ordering of all things."[876] And after repeated attempts and failures,
he is disappointed in his inquiry, and falls a prey to doubt and
skepticism. This was the early youth of our humanity, the period that
opens with Thales and ends with the Sophists.

[Footnote 876: Thus Socrates complains of Anaxagoras. See "Phaedo," Sec.
108.]

The problem of existence still waits for and demands a solution. The
heart of man, also, still cries out for the living God. The Socratic
maxim, "know thyself," introverts the mental gaze, and self-reflection
now becomes the method of philosophy. The Platonic analysis of thought
reveals elements of knowledge which are not derived from the outer
world. There are universal and necessary principles revealed in
consciousness which, in their natural and logical development, transcend
consciousness, and furnish the cognition of a world of Real Being,
beyond the world of sense. There are absolute truths which bridge the
chasm between the seen and the unseen, the fleeting and the permanent,
the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal. There are
necessary laws of thought which are also found to be laws of things, and
which correlate man to a living, personal, righteous Lord and Lawgiver.
From absolute ideas Plato ascends to an _absolute Being_, the author of
all finite existence. From absolute truths to an _absolute Reason_, the
foundation and essence of all truth. From the principle of immutable
right to an _absolutely righteous Being_. From the necessary idea of the
good to a being of _absolute Goodness_--that is, to _God_. This is the
maturity of humanity, the ripening manhood of our race which was
attained in the Socratic age.

The inevitable tendency of this effort of speculative tho