MENO
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aspirations after an unknown world. They derive their origin from a deep
religious and contemplative feeling, and also from an observation of
curious mental phenomena. They gather up the elements of the previous
philosophies, which they put together in a new form. Their great diversity
shows the tentative character of early endeavours to think. They have not
yet settled down into a single system. Plato uses them, though he also
criticises them; he acknowledges that both he and others are always talking
about them, especially about the Idea of Good; and that they are not
peculiar to himself (Phaedo; Republic; Soph.). But in his later writings
he seems to have laid aside the old forms of them. As he proceeds he makes
for himself new modes of expression more akin to the Aristotelian logic.

Yet amid all these varieties and incongruities, there is a common meaning
or spirit which pervades his writings, both those in which he treats of the
ideas and those in which he is silent about them. This is the spirit of
idealism, which in the history of philosophy has had many names and taken
many forms, and has in a measure influenced those who seemed to be most
averse to it. It has often been charged with inconsistency and
fancifulness, and yet has had an elevating effect on human nature, and has
exercised a wonderful charm and interest over a few spirits who have been
lost in the thought of it. It has been banished again and again, but has
always returned. It has attempted to leave the earth and soar heavenwards,
but soon has found that only in experience could any solid foundation of
knowledge be laid. It has degenerated into pantheism, but has again
emerged. No other knowledge has given an equal stimulus to the mind. It
is the science of sciences, which are also ideas, and under either aspect
require to be defined. They can only be thought of in due proportion when
conceived in relation to one another. They are the glasses through which
the kingdoms of science are seen, but at a distance. All the greatest
minds, except when living in an age of reaction against them, have
unconsciously fallen under their power.