by an ultimate law of the mind, spring up through, but not from, these experiences of sense. Not so reasoned Plato. He inferred naturally that ideas which the soul has, and which could never have reached it in its contact with the world of sense in which it is now placed, must have entered it at a period anterior to its subjection to the restrictions of sense, therefore before its imprisonment in a mortal body. These cognitions must be its inheritance from a prior state of existence-the inheritance with which it enters on its earthly career; and, though lost to consciousness with the entrance of the soul into the body, they are restored through the action of the senses upon those material phenomena which act as the pictured remembrancers of the once familiar and divine originals.

In this analysis, Plato has cut deep into the central truth of modern psychology. He has anticipated what has been deemed the grand psychological achievement of our time, the distinction between ideas of the sense and conceptions of the reason those conceptions which, though coming through the senses, do not come from them, and in fact blend with and control all our subsequent experiences. And it is precisely by this close and sharp line of reasoning, utterly dissociated from myth and poetry, that Plato argues the pre-existence of the soul and his doctrine of reminiscence. The conclusion may be erroneous; but it is Plato's mode of accounting for mental phenomena, which he had observed with wonderful acuteness; and to exscind it from his system, as a mere poetical figment, is preposterous.

But our argument is made impregnable when we see the practical use to which Plato applies his doctrine. Not only does he prove it by a rigid analysis of the mental phenomena, but he makes it the main link in his chain of argument for the immortality of the soul. From the soul's possession of ideas which are independent of and prior to the action of sense, he infers successively its existence prior to its connection with the body, its natural independence of the body, and therefore the impossibility of its being affected by the body's dissolution. To this argument Plato attaches great importance. He congratulates himself for having found in this a sure refuge for his

doctrine, and anchored it safe from all the perils that attended it. He has linked the soul with the eternal ideas; demonstrated the connection by a sharp discrimination of the phenomena of thought, and thus perhaps constructed the strongest formal argument for immortality that was possible for Paganism. To the Pagan who knew nothing of the positive doctrine of creation, it was just as probable that the soul anticipated in its being its material dwelling-place, as that it will survive it. The doctrine that soul is older than body, lay near to the doctrine of its superiority to body. The doctrine of pre-existence, then, was natural, and intrinsically probable. It is, indeed, scarcely possible to see how a Pagan could believe that the soul would depart unharmed by the decay and dissolution of its corporeal tenement, without believing it altogether probable that it was equally independent in its origin. Pre-existence, then, with its consequent doctrine of reminiscence, is no mere light vapor, floating over the surface of the Platonic system, which a breath may dissipate, and, when dissipated, leave it unimpaired. It fits into it as an essential element, and when withdrawn, leaves it incoherent and unintelligible. It is the Pythagorean ligature with which Plato bound into union the Heracleitan and Eleatic dogmas. If this be mythical, his doctrine of the soul's immortality is mythical; his Heracleitan assumption of the flux and non-reality of matter is mythical; his doctrine of the "real forms" is mythical; everything in his speculations that is purely Greek is mythical; the whole peculiar structure of Platonism tumbles down, and we have in its stead a snug, compact, unexceptionable structure of Scotch metaphysics, but which has got to be spelled out from Plato through the obscurest set of hieroglyphics under which mortal man ever succeeded in concealing his ideas.

It follows from our view that Plato held the doctrine of innate ideas. Men are born not merely with capacities for knowledge, but with the elements of knowledge transferred from another state of being. These, however, are not the socalled Platonic "ideas"-i. e., the elon or forms. They are ideas in our sense of the term; ideas of the forms. They are the mind's knowledge of the forms, sustaining to them a rela

tion precisely analogous to that of our conception of an object to the object itself. The son of Socrates were abstractions which existed properly only in the mind; the eldŋ of Plato, as real entities, were always objective to the mind, which possessed and could reproduce its conceptions of them, as we call up any object of former perception or knowledge. Nor is there ground for Professor Blackie's statement, that Plato in this doctrine is asserting "the independence of the mind." He rather asserts its dependence. Plato is no mystic. He gives to the soul no power of thinking beyond the sphere of objective reality. He makes it dependent for every conception, alike the highest and the lowest, upon the world without. He does not reach the height gained by modern metaphysics, which clothes the soul with power to originate from itself those great categories of thought, which unite our sensible perceptions and exalt them into science. He remained on lower ground. He made the observations upon which modern psychology has established the higher functions of the reason, but he adopted a different and a less exalted explanation.

We see again how admirably Plato harmonizes the three great systems of Greek speculation, and crowns them with the sublime ethics of Socrates. The Heracleitan flux of matter, the metaphysical unity of the Eleatics, the mathematical unity of the Pythagoreans, together with their dogma of pre-existence, are all wrought into a comprehensive system, and assume each a significance which was wanting to it in its isolated state. With the Pythagoreans, pre-existence was probably but a fragmentary and half-mythical conception; with Plato it became inwrought into the very texture of his philosophy. The central and all-pervading element, however, is the doctrine of the "forms." In physics these appear as the patterns after which the universe of sensible things was moulded, and from which it derives its partial reality. In metaphysics they are the only objects of real knowledge, and the true basis of science. In ethics they are the sublime spiritual essences, the proper end of all virtuous and philosophical striving, the highest of all being "the good," in which perfect wisdom and perfect virtue become identical. It is that he may learn to converse with

those glorious essences that the philosopher keeps aloof from the thraldom of the body, and wars with its sensual appetites; and it is that he may re-ascend to them that he welcomes its dissolution, as the breaking down of a barrier between himself and the goal of his strivings.

In estimating, finally, the scientific value of the Platonic system, we do not find it standing the test of a rigid examination. It is marked by the striking errors and faults which characterized the Greek school philosophy; and yet, all things considered, we cannot hesitate to pronounce it one of the most wonderful creations of the human mind, one of the profoundest struggles of the indwelling divinity of the soul against the debasing influence of Paganism. The "forms" are a noble creation, alike in their origin and their application. In their origin they rest on a clear distinction between the ideas springing from the sense and those which transcend it, and though the explanation is erroneous, yet the distinction itself has received the sanction of modern science. As to their spirit and purpose, they are Plato's assertion of truth against error, of faith against skepticism, of the possibility of a permanent science against a degrading sensationalism. They are Plato's mode, from his stand-point, of vindicating the reality and the perpetuity of truth, and stemming the current which threatened to sweep away all true knowledge and true virtue. Plato built up against this incoming flood his doctrine of the ideal forms; with these he fought against the Materialists of his day substantially the same battle which has been fought over in ours against Hume and Helvetius. Plato's errors, we repeat, are the product of his age, his truths are his own. Philosophical science was yet in its infancy, and in the analysis of the faculties of the soul he was absolutely a pioneer. The student of philosophy, who sees how the field of the ages is strewn with the wrecks of demolished systems, will not deal harshly with the formal errors of Plato. He will rather admire the varied elements of truth with which it is everywhere fraught, and reverence the loftiness of aim, the integrity of purpose, the earnest religiousness of spirit, which place him in the front rank of the world's champions of truth for all ages. Plato appears before

us in a Greek garb, and discusses formally the Greek problems from the Greek stand-point. But in spirit he is the philosopher of all ages, fighting the moral battles of humanity. To this spirit, time, while it discredits his specific explanations, renders more abundant honor. His truth is broader and deeper than his errors. His whole philosophy is like one of his own gorgeous myths, in which the outward drapery may be swept away, but the essence of truth remains. The arithmetical expressions of his system may be erroneous, but its algebraic generalizations remain valid. No man can doubt where Plato would have stood, in any age, in the contest that is always going on between a spiritual and a materializing philosophy. In an age of skepticism he argues manfully for the truth; amidst the superstitions of heathenism he pleads for virtue and piety with almost the zeal of an apostle. We must reserve some further account of his philosophy, and a survey of his historical influences for another occasion.

ARTICLE III.-ARNOLD'S RHODE ISLAND.*

THE little state that rests upon the islands and shores of Narragansett Bay is invested with more than common historic interest. Her territory, indeed, ranks her among the very least of the states of the Union; but her population is larger than that of several of her sisters that boast of ampler dimensions, while the native resources which her industry has developed, the wealth which her people have accumulated, and the eminent names she has given to the varied service of the republic, in the arts both of peace and of war, place her in an enviable position among the confederate sovereignties of the land. But that which more than any other attribute distinguishes Rhode

*History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. By Samuel Greene Arnold. Volume I. 1636 to 1700. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1859.