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THE GREEK PHILOSOPHY.399as well as the collective approved elements of formersystems.The principle of Socrates concerning the unionf knowledge and virtue invited his followers twork out a system of dialectics and ethics.41 Andfurther the dialectic process of induction and definition,which Aristotle tells us that Socrates introduced,was made by Plato the foundation of hisphilosophy.42 Its central point is the doctrine ofIdeas. Now the Platonic Idea is the object of theconception. As a single object becomes known byits representation, so the Idea becomes known byits conception, It is not the essence as such whichdwells in many similar individual objects, but thatessence as represented perfectly in its kind, unal-terably, in unity, independence, and self-existence.The Idea points to the general, but is representedby Plato as an original image of the individualprojected as it were outside of time and space.Conceive individuals which have a similar being,or belong 4 to the same class, delivered from thelimits of time and space, of materiality and individualimperfections, and so reduced to that unitywhich is the groundwork of their existence, andsuch unity is the Platonic Idea. The highest Ideais the Idea of the srood,43 which is as it were thesun in the realm of Ideas, viewed as the first causeof being and of knowledge. Plato seems to identifyUeberweg, i. 91. 42 Ibid. i. 117.Ibid. i. 118.