ints triumphantly to this instance, and bids Meno
observe that he had not taught the youth any thing, but simply
interrogated him as to his opinions, whilst the youth had recalled the
knowledge previously existing in his own mind.[559]

[Footnote 558: "To learn is to recover our own previous knowledge, and
this is properly to _recollect._"--"Phaedo" Sec. 55.]

[Footnote 559: "Meno," Sec. 16-20. "Now for a person to recover knowledge
himself through himself, is not this to _recollect_."]

Now whilst we readily grant that the instance given in the "_Meno_" does
not sustain the inference of Plato that "the boy" had learnt these
geometrical truths "in eternity," and that they had simply been brought
forward into the view of his consciousness by the "questioning" of
Socrates, yet it certainly does prove that _there are ideas or
principles in the human reason which are not derived from without--which
are anterior to all experience, and for the development of which,
experience furnishes the occasion, but is not the origin and source_. By
a kind of lofty inspiration, he caught sight of that most important
doctrine of modern philosophy, so clearly and logically presented by
Kant, _that the Reason is the source of a pure_ a priori _knowledge_--a
knowledge native to, and potentially in the mind, antecedent to all
experience, and which is simply brought out into the field of
consciousness by experience conditions. Around this greatest of all
metaphysical truths Plato threw a gorgeous mythic dress, and presented
it under the most picturesque imagery.[560] But, when divested of the
rich coloring which the glowing imagination of Plato threw over it, it
is but a vivid presentation of the cardinal truth that _there are ideas
in the mind which have not been derived from without_, and which,
therefore, the mind brought with it into the present sphere of being.
The validity and value of this fundamental doctrine, even as presented
by Plato, is unaffected by any speculations in which he may have
indulged, as to the pre-existence of the soul. He simply regarded this
doctrine of pre-existence as highly probable--a plausible explanation of
the facts. That there are ideas, innate and connatural to the human
mind, he clung to as the most vital, most precious, most certain of all
truths; and to lead man to the recognitions of these ideas, to bring
them within the field of consciousness, was, in his judgment, the great
business of philosophy.