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THE GREEK PHILOSOPHY.401Thus in Plato we have a man of great originalmind attempting with this instrument of inductionand definition to form a scheme of the universe,which divides under his hand into a triple aspectof ethics, physics, and dialectics.46 No doubt hismain intention was to offer to the cultured andreflective few,-that inner circle to which histeaching and his writings were directed,-a philosophywhich should serve them as a religion,47which should fill up the gaps and remove theanomalies of the existing worship, purifying andrestoring it, while it preserved amity with it nwithstanding. Such being his intention, the mannerin which he treats the doctrine of the DivineBeing o is the more remarkable. Instead of basing ohis philosophy upon it, and showing its relation asa part of his system of physics, ethics, and dialectics,he speaks of it frequently indeed, but alwaysincidentally.48 It is not so with other doctrineswhich he has at heart. Three of his finest dialoguesare dedicated to setting forth as manyaspects of his doctrine as to the soul's immortality; the Phsedrus treats of its preexistence ; the46 Ueberweg, i. 120, remarks : " Die Eintlieilung der Philosophic inEthik, Pl'ysik und Dialektik (die Cicero Acad. pos. i. 5, 19, Plato zuge-schreibt), hat nach Sextus Empir (adi\ Math. vii. 16) zuerst Plato'sinIlecht, SwdfAct ihr Urheber,« See Zeller, vol. ii. part 2, p. 599. Dollinger, p. 299, sec. 122 ; p. 279,sec. 87.le (dieReligion und die Kunst) hatimraernur gelegenheitlich geaussert." *II.DD