THREE:The substantial forms of Aristotle, combining as they do the notion of a definition with that of a moving cause and a fulfilled purpose, are evidently derived from the Platonic Ideas; a reflection which at once leads us to consider the relation in which he stands to the spiritualism of Plato and to the mathematical idealism of the Neo-Pythagoreans. He agrees with them in thinking that general conceptions are the sole object of knowledgethe sole enduring reality in a world of change. He differs from them in maintaining that such conceptions have no existence apart from the particulars in which they reside. It has been questioned whether Aristotle ever really understood his masters teaching on the subject. Among recent critics, M. Barthlemy Saint-Hilaire asserts,336 with considerable vehemence, that he did not. It is certain that in some respects Aristotle is not just to the Platonic theory, that he exaggerates its absurdities, ignores its developments, and occasionally brings charges against it which might be retorted with at least equal effect against his own philosophy. But on the most important point of all, whether Plato did or did not ascribe a separate existence to his Ideas, we could hardly believe a disciple of twenty years standing229 to be mistaken, even if the master had not left on record a decisive testimony to the affirmative side in his Parmenides, and one scarcely less decisive in his Timaeus.230 And so far as the controversy reduces itself to this particular issue, Aristotle is entirely right. His most powerful arguments are not, indeed, original, having been anticipated by Plato himself; but as they were left unanswered he had a perfect right to repeat them, and his dialectical skill was great enough to make him independent of their support. The extreme minuteness of his criticism is wearisome to us, who can hardly conceive how another opinion could ever have been held. Yet such was the fascination exercised by Platos idealism, that not only was it upheld with considerable acrimony by his immediate followers,231 but under one form or another it has been revived over and over again, in the long period which has elapsed since its first promulgation, and on every one of these occasions the arguments of Aristotle have been raised up again to meet it, each time with triumphant success. Ockhams razor, Entia non sunt sine necessitate multiplicanda, is borrowed from the Metaphysics; Lockes principal objection to innate ideas closely resembles the sarcastic observation in337 the last chapter of the Posterior Analytics, that, according to Platos theory, we must have some very wonderful knowledge of which we are not conscious.232 And the weapons with which Trendelenburg and others have waged war on Hegel are avowedly drawn from the Aristotelian arsenal.233The woman moved on without further sound or protest. She came at length to a room at the back of the house, and fumbled along the wall. There was a click, and the place was flooded with brilliant light.
