Philebus | Page 7

small, but he
would have equally denied the claim of either to true existence. Of that

positive infinity, or infinite reality, which we attribute to God, he had
no conception.
The Greek conception of the infinite would be more truly described, in
our way of speaking, as the indefinite. To us, the notion of infinity is
subsequent rather than prior to the finite, expressing not absolute
vacancy or negation, but only the removal of limit or restraint, which
we suppose to exist not before but after we have already set bounds to
thought and matter, and divided them after their kinds. From different
points of view, either the finite or infinite may be looked upon
respectively both as positive and negative (compare 'Omnis
determinatio est negatio')' and the conception of the one determines that
of the other. The Greeks and the moderns seem to be nearly at the
opposite poles in their manner of regarding them. And both are
surprised when they make the discovery, as Plato has done in the
Sophist, how large an element negation forms in the framework of their
thoughts.
2, 3. The finite element which mingles with and regulates the infinite is
best expressed to us by the word 'law.' It is that which measures all
things and assigns to them their limit; which preserves them in their
natural state, and brings them within the sphere of human cognition.
This is described by the terms harmony, health, order, perfection, and
the like. All things, in as far as they are good, even pleasures, which are
for the most part indefinite, partake of this element. We should be
wrong in attributing to Plato the conception of laws of nature derived
from observation and experiment. And yet he has as intense a
conviction as any modern philosopher that nature does not proceed by
chance. But observing that the wonderful construction of number and
figure, which he had within himself, and which seemed to be prior to
himself, explained a part of the phenomena of the external world, he
extended their principles to the whole, finding in them the true type
both of human life and of the order of nature.
Two other points may be noticed respecting the third class. First, that
Plato seems to be unconscious of any interval or chasm which separates
the finite from the infinite. The one is in various ways and degrees
working in the other. Hence he has implicitly answered the difficulty
with which he started, of how the one could remain one and yet be
divided among many individuals, or 'how ideas could be in and out of

themselves,' and the like. Secondly, that in this mixed class we find the
idea of beauty. Good, when exhibited under the aspect of measure or
symmetry, becomes beauty. And if we translate his language into
corresponding modern terms, we shall not be far wrong in saying that
here, as well as in the Republic, Plato conceives beauty under the idea
of proportion.
4. Last and highest in the list of principles or elements is the cause of
the union of the finite and infinite, to which Plato ascribes the order of
the world. Reasoning from man to the universe, he argues that as there
is a mind in the one, there must be a mind in the other, which he
identifies with the royal mind of Zeus. This is the first cause of which
'our ancestors spoke,' as he says, appealing to tradition, in the Philebus
as well as in the Timaeus. The 'one and many' is also supposed to have
been revealed by tradition. For the mythical element has not altogether
disappeared.
Some characteristic differences may here be noted, which distinguish
the ancient from the modern mode of conceiving God.
a. To Plato, the idea of God or mind is both personal and impersonal.
Nor in ascribing, as appears to us, both these attributes to him, and in
speaking of God both in the masculine and neuter gender, did he seem
to himself inconsistent. For the difference between the personal and
impersonal was not marked to him as to ourselves. We make a
fundamental distinction between a thing and a person, while to Plato,
by the help of various intermediate abstractions, such as end, good,
cause, they appear almost to meet in one, or to be two aspects of the
same. Hence, without any reconciliation or even remark, in the
Republic he speaks at one time of God or Gods, and at another time of
the Good. So in the Phaedrus he seems to pass unconsciously from the
concrete to the abstract conception of the Ideas in the same dialogue.
Nor in the Philebus is he careful to show in what relation the idea of the
divine mind stands to the supreme principle