re little by partaking of
littleness, great by partaking of greatness, and the like. But they
cannot partake of a part of greatness, for that will not make them
great, etc.; nor can each object monopolise the whole. The only answer
to this is, that 'partaking' is a figure of speech, really corresponding
to the processes which a later logic designates by the terms
'abstraction' and 'generalization.' When we have described accurately
the methods or forms which the mind employs, we cannot further criticize
them; at least we can only criticize them with reference to their
fitness as instruments of thought to express facts.

Socrates attempts to support his view of the ideas by the parallel of
the day, which is one and in many places; but he is easily driven from
his position by a counter illustration of Parmenides, who compares the
idea of greatness to a sail. He truly explains to Socrates that he has
attained the conception of ideas by a process of generalization. At
the same time, he points out a difficulty, which appears to be
involved--viz. that the process of generalization will go on to
infinity. Socrates meets the supposed difficulty by a flash of light,
which is indeed the true answer 'that the ideas are in our minds
only.' Neither realism is the truth, nor nominalism is the truth, but
conceptualism; and conceptualism or any other psychological theory falls
very far short of the infinite subtlety of language and thought.

But the realism of ancient philosophy will not admit of this answer,
which is repelled by Parmenides with another truth or half-truth of
later philosophy, 'Every subject or subjective must have an object.'
Here is the great though unconscious truth (shall we say?) or error,
which underlay the early Greek philosophy. 'Ideas must have a real
existence;' they are not mere forms or opinions, which may be changed
arbitrarily by individuals. But the early Greek philosopher never
clearly saw that true ideas were only universal facts, and that there
might be error in universals as well as in particulars.

Socrates makes one more attempt to defend the Platonic Ideas by
representing them as paradigms; this is again answered by the
'argumentum ad infinitum.' We may remark, in passing, that the process
which is thus described has no real existence. The mind, after having
obtained a general idea, does not really go on to form another which
includes that, and all the individuals contained under it, and another