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others do, that these, too, involve correlations that are contingent only. In this reference, Bacon, for example, has the following in The Advancement of Learning (ii. 7.7): "The cause rendered, that the hairs about the eyelids are for the safeguard of the sight, doth not impugn the cause rendered, that pilosity is incident to the orifices of moisture: muscosi fontes," etc. One is happy to see here that Bacon does still not deny, but admit final causes: "both causes," he expressly says, in the immediate reference are "true and compatible, the one declaring an intention, the other a consequence only." But one does not find it merely self-evident for all that, that eyelids must be pilous, even as fountains are mossy. The fountain makes a soil for low germs even out of its stony lip; but the tears can hardly be conceived to do as much by the covered cartilage that borders the eye; while the eyebrow and perspiration bring no analogy. I hold that an eye is immanent in nature, that an eye is a necessity of nature, and that, consequently, all is at first hand complete in that idea, - I hold this, and I am not ignorant of the vast varieties of the vast gradation of eyes which nature shows, I hold this, and it is to me nothing against it that a lion's eyebrow, or a horse's eyebrow, is not exactly as is a man's eyebrow, or that such and such a tiny insect, microscopic insect if you will, has a score or twice a score of eyes. Nature is externality, nature is boundless external contingency, and the idea can only appear in nature as in externality, as in boundless external contingency.

One hears of "the open secret of the universe : " now the open secret of the universe is just that idea-an idea and a secret, the bearing of which, on design at least, was not hid from Socrates, more than two thousand years ago. He tells Aristodemus that whatever manifests design is a product of thought and not of chance. He tells him all these things about the eyebrows, and the eyelids, and the eyelashes; and I daresay he could have told Bacon that it is not absolutely necessary for all moist animal orifices to be pilous. Among others, there are the lips, for example; the beard does not exactly grow on the lips; neither is it the moisture of the lips that has anything to do with the pilosity of the beard. Besides what concerns the eye, etc., Socrates refers to the teeth, the front ones to cut, and the back ones to grind. I mention this as it is insisted on also by Aristotle. Then it is really matter for congratulation to find Socrates dwelling on the thought that is present in the general structure of the world. Is it to be supposed, he asks, that it is only we have reason, and that there is none in the whole? It is really wonderful how this man must reflect on everything, and give himself account of everything - the bare-footed, poorly - clad, street wanderer, pot-bellied and Silenus-faced, that was, perhaps, the wisest, best, and bravest man that was then alive. His God-and he was sincerely pious, he worshipped devoutly-His God was the God of the γνώμη, the understanding, the reason, which in admonishing Aristodemus he opposed to the τύχη, the chance, the accident and chance which, at least, as science rules, alone seem worshipped now-a-days. Nor had the pupil Plato missed the lesson; but of this again in our next.

GIFFORD LECTURE THE SIXΧΤΗ.

Plato-His position-His prose-Indebted to Socrates-Monotheism -The popular gods-Socrates' one principle-His methodUniversalized by Plato-Epinomis-The Timaeus-The eyes, etc.-Kant here-Subject and object-Mechanical and final causes-The former only for the latter-Identity and difference -Creation, the world-Time and eternity-The Christian Trinity-The two goods-Religion, the Laws-Prayer-Superstition-Hume, Dugald Stewart, Samuel Johnson, Buckle-The Platonic duality-Necessity and contingency Plato's work.

WITH the name of Plato, we feel that we are approaching one of the greatest figures in all time. As a philosopher, the first place, and without a single dissentient voice, was universally accorded him throughout the whole of antiquity. So completely was this the case, that it does not seem for a moment to have been as much as dreamt that even Aristotle could dispute it with him. Nay, it cannot be doubted that, at this very day, were the question put to the world at large as to which of the two philosophers were the greater, an immense majority of votes would be handed in for Plato. The very quality of his writing would, with the general public, readily secure for him this. With an ease and fulness that are natural simplicity merely, there is, as we can only name it, that amenity in the compositions of Plato that constitutes him, unapproachably, the greatest, sweetest, most delicate and delightful master of prose that ever wrote it. One can feel oneself here, then, in such a presence, only with a certain apprehension. What, however, comes to save us from being altogether oppressed at the call to

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speak on Plato, is the consideration that it is not of the great whole that we are required to give an account, but only of what in it has a bearing historically on the proofs for the Being of a God. And here we can see at once that Plato, as usual, only receives the torch from his master Socrates, not merely to carry it and hand it on to his further fellow, but to make it blaze withal both brighter and wider. That, too, is as much as to say that, said proofs being concerned, we have here, on the part of Socrates and Plato, two degrees in the advance to monotheism. What Socrates actually said in this regard comes to us in the course of his conversation, now with Aristodemus, and again with Euthydemus, as respectively recorded in the first and fourth books of the Memorabilia. It is as τὸ θεῖον, simply as the Divinity, he characterizes the gods, when he speaks of them to the former as "seeing and hearing all things at once, as being everywhere present, and as equally caring for all things;" while to Euthydemus he names one sovereign god, and others subordinate. "The other gods," he says, “who give us good things do not come before us visibly in so doing, and he who regulates and keeps together the whole world-he is manifest as thus effecting what is greatest, but even in such consummation he, too, is invisible to us." There is (no doubt) in such words as these a monotheistic tinge; but it is not yet pure. In that regard, there is a certain advance in Plato; he still makes respectful reference to the popular gods, in whatever has a public bearing, at the same time that, in other circumstances, he reprobates, as in the second book of the Republic, the traditional fables about the particular gods almost as though these gods themselves were fabulous.

If we do but consider, however, the scientific principles which dominated the thoughts, whether of Plato

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or Socrates, we shall not wonder at this. As we have seen, the one great principle of Socrates was the good, whether in a moral or a physical regard; for even in the adjustment of the external universe, he took it with enthusiasm from the hand of Anaxagoras that all was for the best, or that everything precisely was where it best should be. Now, there was unity in the very thought here. If all was for a purpose, and if we were all to strive to a single end, there was necessarily a direction given in our thoughts and wills towards a single power. The whole tendency of such teaching could not but be monotheistic-could not but lead away from the traditional gods with question and doubt. Plato directly says, "God, least of all, should have many shapes;" and again, "God is what is absolutely simple and true" (Rep. 381 B and 382 E).

The mental attitude on the part of Socrates, to which his principle was the vital force, has been made abundantly plain to us both by Xenophon and Plato. Almost any single conversation in the one, or dialogue in the other, will suffice for proof. So far, there is a certain sameness in them all. For example, let us but hear, on the one hand, Socrates ask Hippias what Beauty is; and, on the other hand, Hippias answer Socrates that it is a beautiful maiden, let us but hear such question and answer, knowing well the retort of Socrates in the end, that he does not want to know what a beautiful person is, but what is Beauty itself, and we are well - nigh admitted to the very heart of the mystery. Beauty itself, courage itself, justice itself-that was the perpetual quest of Socrates. This quest of his, too, was, on the whole, always in a moral direction. It was always, also, by a certain dissection of the very thinking of his respondent, or opposite, that he came to his result. Now, what Plato did was simply to universalize all this. As he