Parmenides | Page 9

he grows older, philosophy will take a firmer hold of him,
and then he will despise neither great things nor small, and he will
think less of the opinions of mankind (compare Soph.). Here is lightly
touched one of the most familiar principles of modern philosophy, that
in the meanest operations of nature, as well as in the noblest, in mud
and filth, as well as in the sun and stars, great truths are contained. At
the same time, we may note also the transition in the mind of Plato, to
which Aristotle alludes (Met.), when, as he says, he transferred the
Socratic universal of ethics to the whole of nature.
The other criticism of Parmenides on Socrates attributes to him a want
of practice in dialectic. He has observed this deficiency in him when

talking to Aristoteles on a previous occasion. Plato seems to imply that
there was something more in the dialectic of Zeno than in the mere
interrogation of Socrates. Here, again, he may perhaps be describing
the process which his own mind went through when he first became
more intimately acquainted, whether at Megara or elsewhere, with the
Eleatic and Megarian philosophers. Still, Parmenides does not deny to
Socrates the credit of having gone beyond them in seeking to apply the
paradoxes of Zeno to ideas; and this is the application which he himself
makes of them in the latter part of the dialogue. He then proceeds to
explain to him the sort of mental gymnastic which he should practise.
He should consider not only what would follow from a given
hypothesis, but what would follow from the denial of it, to that which is
the subject of the hypothesis, and to all other things. There is no trace
in the Memorabilia of Xenophon of any such method being attributed
to Socrates; nor is the dialectic here spoken of that 'favourite method' of
proceeding by regular divisions, which is described in the Phaedrus and
Philebus, and of which examples are given in the Politicus and in the
Sophist. It is expressly spoken of as the method which Socrates had
heard Zeno practise in the days of his youth (compare Soph.).
The discussion of Socrates with Parmenides is one of the most
remarkable passages in Plato. Few writers have ever been able to
anticipate 'the criticism of the morrow' on their favourite notions. But
Plato may here be said to anticipate the judgment not only of the
morrow, but of all after- ages on the Platonic Ideas. For in some points
he touches questions which have not yet received their solution in
modern philosophy.
The first difficulty which Parmenides raises respecting the Platonic
ideas relates to the manner in which individuals are connected with
them. Do they participate in the ideas, or do they merely resemble them?
Parmenides shows that objections may be urged against either of these
modes of conceiving the connection. Things are 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