Pagina 567 di 1391

The paradox that the virtues are one, and the kindred notion that

all virtue is knowledge, are not entirely renounced; the first is

seen in the supremacy given to justice over the rest; the second

in the tendency to absorb the moral virtues in the intellectual,

and to centre all goodness in the contemplation of the idea of

good. The world of sense is still depreciated and identified with

opinion, though admitted to be a shadow of the true. In the

Republic he is evidently impressed with the conviction that vice

arises chiefly from ignorance and may be cured by education; the

multitude are hardly to be deemed responsible for what they do. A

faint allusion to the doctrine of reminiscence occurs in the

Tenth Book; but Plato's views of education have no more real

connection with a previous state of existence than our own; he

only proposes to elicit from the mind that which is there

already.