ato," p. 261.

"What general notions are to our minds, he (Plato) held, ideas are to
the Supreme Reason (nous basileus); they are the eternal thoughts of the
Divine Intellect, and we attain truth when our thoughts conform with
His--when our general notions are in conformity with the
ideas."--Thompson, "Laws of Thought," p. 119.]

[Footnote 517: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xix.]

_Science_ is, then, according to Plato, _the knowledge of universal,
necessary, unchangeable, and eternal ideas_. The simple cognition of the
concrete phenomena of the universe is not regarded by him as _real_
knowledge. "Science, or real knowledge, belongs to _Being_, and
ignorance to _non_-Being." Whilst that which is conversant only "with
that which partakes of both--of being and non-being--and which can not
be said either to be or not to be"--that which is perpetually
"becoming," but never "really is," is "simply _opinion_, and not real
knowledge."[518] And those only are "philosophers" who have a knowledge
of the _really-existing_, in opposition to the mere seeming; of the
_always-existing_, in opposition to the transitory; and of that which
exists _permanently_, in opposition to that which waxes and wanes--is
developed and destroyed alternately. "Those who recognize many beautiful
things, but who can not see the Beautiful itself, and can not even
follow those who would lead them to it, they _opine_, but do not _know_.
And the same may be said of those who recognize right actions, but do
not recognize an absolute righteousness. And so of other ideas. But they
who look at these ideas--permanent and unchangeable ideas--these men
_really know_."[519] Those are the true philosophers alone who love the
sight of truth, and who have attained to the vision of the eternal
order, and righteousness, and beauty, and goodness in the Eternal Being.
And the means by which the soul is raised to this vision of real Being
(to ontos on) is THE SCIENCE OF REAL KNOWLEDGE.

Plato, in the "Theaetetus," puts this question by the interlocutor
Socrates, "What is Science (Episteme) or positive knowledge?"[520]
Theaetetus essays a variety of answers, such as, "Science is sensation,"
"Science is right judgment or opinion," "Science is right opinion with
logical definition." These, in the estimation of the Platonic Socrates,
are all unsatisfactory and inadequate. But after you have toiled to the
end of this remarkable discussion, in which Socrates demolishes all the
the