ed from a previous
state of existence, is a note of progress in the philosophy of Plato.
The transcendental theory of pre-existent ideas, which is chiefly
discussed by him in the Meno, the Phaedo, and the Phaedrus, has given
way to a psychological one. The omission is rendered more significant
by his having occasion to speak of memory as the basis of desire. Of
the ideas he treats in the same sceptical spirit which appears in his
criticism of them in the Parmenides. He touches on the same difficulties
and he gives no answer to them. His mode of speaking of the analytical
and synthetical processes may be compared with his discussion of the
same subject in the Phaedrus; here he dwells on the importance of
dividing the genera into all the species, while in the Phaedrus he
conveys the same truth in a figure, when he speaks of carving the whole,
which is described under the image of a victim, into parts or members,
'according to their natural articulation, without breaking any of
them.' There is also a difference, which may be noted, between the two
dialogues. For whereas in the Phaedrus, and also in the Symposium,
the dialectician is described as a sort of enthusiast or lover, in the
Philebus, as in all the later writings of Plato, the element of love
is wanting; the topic is only introduced, as in the Republic, by way of
illustration. On other subjects of which they treat in common, such as
the nature and kinds of pleasure, true and false opinion, the nature of
the good, the order and relation of the sciences, the Republic is less
advanced than the Philebus, which contains, perhaps, more metaphysical
truth more obscurely expressed than any other Platonic dialogue. Here,
as Plato expressly tells us, he is 'forging weapons of another make,'
i.e. new categories and modes of conception, though 'some of the old
ones might do again.'

But if superior in thought and dialectical power, the Philebus falls
very far short of the Republic in fancy and feeling. The development of
the reason undisturbed by the emotions seems to be the ideal at which
Plato aims in his later dialogues. There is no mystic enthusiasm or
rapturous contemplation of ideas. Whether we attribute this change to
the greater feebleness of age, or to the development of the quarrel
between philosophy and poetry in Plato's own mind, or perhaps, in some
degree, to a carelessness about artistic effect, when he was absorbed in
abstract ideas, we can hardly be wrong in as