antheist, and very far from confounding God with
the world, tends to identify the first with the final cause. The cause
of the union of the finite and infinite might be described as a higher
law; the final measure which is the highest expression of the good
may also be described as the supreme law. Both these conceptions are
realized chiefly by the help of the material world; and therefore when
we pass into the sphere of ideas can hardly be distinguished.

The four principles are required for the determination of the relative
places of pleasure and wisdom. Plato has been saying that we should
proceed by regular steps from the one to the many. Accordingly, before
assigning the precedence either to good or pleasure, he must first
find out and arrange in order the general principles of things. Mind
is ascertained to be akin to the nature of the cause, while pleasure is
found in the infinite or indefinite class. We may now proceed to divide
pleasure and knowledge after their kinds.

III. 1. Plato speaks of pleasure as indefinite, as relative, as a
generation, and in all these points of view as in a category distinct
from good. For again we must repeat, that to the Greek 'the good is of
the nature of the finite,' and, like virtue, either is, or is nearly
allied to, knowledge. The modern philosopher would remark that the
indefinite is equally real with the definite. Health and mental
qualities are in the concrete undefined; they are nevertheless real
goods, and Plato rightly regards them as falling under the finite class.
Again, we are able to define objects or ideas, not in so far as they are
in the mind, but in so far as they are manifested externally, and can
therefore be reduced to rule and measure. And if we adopt the test
of definiteness, the pleasures of the body are more capable of being
defined than any other pleasures. As in art and knowledge generally, we
proceed from without inwards, beginning with facts of sense, and passing
to the more ideal conceptions of mental pleasure, happiness, and the
like.

2. Pleasure is depreciated as relative, while good is exalted as
absolute. But this distinction seems to arise from an unfair mode
of regarding them; the abstract idea of the one is compared with the
concrete experience of the other. For all pleasure and all knowledge may
be viewed either abstracted from the mind, or in relation to the mind
(compare Aristot. Nic. Ethics). The first is an idea only, which may be
con