Many (1) fine expressions, and (2) remarks full of wisdom, (3) also germs of a metaphysic of the future, are scattered up and down in the dialogue. Such, for example, as (1) the comparison of Theaetetus’ progress in learning to the “noiseless flow of a river of oil”; the satirical touch, “flavouring a sauce or fawning speech”; or the remarkable expression, “full of impure dialectic”; or the lively images under which the argument is described—“the flood of arguments pouring in,” the fresh discussions “bursting in like a band of revellers.” (2) As illustrations of the second head, may be cited the remark of Socrates, that “distinctions of words, although sometimes pedantic, are also necessary”; or the fine touch in the character of the lawyer, that “dangers came upon him when the tenderness of youth was unequal to them”; or the description of the manner in which the spirit is broken in a wicked man who listens to reproof until he becomes like a child; or the punishment of the wicked, which is not physical suffering, but the perpetual companionship of evil (compare “Gorgias”); or the saying, often repeated by Aristotle and others, that “philosophy begins in wonder, for Iris is the child of Thaumas”; or the superb contempt with which the philosopher takes down the pride of wealthy landed proprietors by comparison of the whole earth. (3) Important metaphysical ideas are: a. the conception of thought, as the mind talking to herself; b. the notion of a common sense, developed further by Aristotle, and the explicit declaration, that the mind gains her conceptions of Being, sameness, number, and the like, from reflection on herself; c. the excellent distinction of Theaetetus (which Socrates, speaking with emphasis, “leaves to grow”) between seeing the forms or hearing the sounds of words in a foreign language, and understanding the meaning of them; and d. the distinction of Socrates himself between “having” and “possessing” knowledge, in which the answer to the whole discussion appears to be contained.
There is a difference between ancient and modern psychology, and we have a difficulty in explaining one in the terms of the other. To us the inward and outward sense and the inward and outward worlds of which they are the organs are parted by a wall, and appear as if they could never be confounded. The mind is endued with faculties, habits, instincts, and a personality or consciousness in which they are bound together. Over against these are placed forms, colours, external bodies coming into contact with our own body. We speak of a subject which is ourselves, of an object which is all the rest. These are separable in thought, but united in any act of sensation, reflection, or volition. As there are various degrees in which the mind may enter into or be abstracted from the operations of sense, so there are various points at which this separation or union may be supposed to occur. And within the sphere of mind the analogy of sense reappears; and we distinguish not only external objects, but objects of will and of knowledge which we contrast with them. These again are comprehended in a higher object, which reunites with the subject. A multitude of abstractions are created by the efforts of successive thinkers which become logical determinations; and they have to be arranged in order, before the scheme of thought is complete. The framework of the human intellect is not the peculium of an individual, but the joint work of many who are of all ages and countries. What we are in mind is due, not merely to our physical, but to our mental antecedents which we trace in history, and more especially in the history of philosophy. Nor can mental phenomena be truly explained either by physiology or by the observation of consciousness apart from their history. They have a growth of their own, like the growth of a flower, a tree, a human being. They may be conceived as of themselves constituting a common mind, and having a sort of personal identity in which they coexist.
So comprehensive is modern psychology, seeming to aim at constructing anew the entire world of thought. And prior to or simultaneously with this construction a negative process has to be carried on, a clearing away of useless abstractions which we have inherited from the past. Many erroneous conceptions of the mind derived from former philosophies have found their way into language, and we with difficulty disengage ourselves from them. Mere figures of speech have unconsciously influenced the minds of great thinkers. Also there are some distinctions, as, for example, that of the will and of the reason, and of the moral and intellectual faculties, which are carried further than is justified by experience. Any separation of things which we cannot see or exactly define, though it may be necessary, is a fertile source of error. The division of the mind into faculties or powers or virtues is too deeply rooted in language to be got rid of, but it gives a false impression. For if we reflect on ourselves we see that all our faculties easily pass into one another, and are bound together in a single mind or consciousness; but this mental unity is apt to be concealed from us by the distinctions of language.
A profusion of words and ideas has obscured rather than enlightened mental science. It is hard to say how many fallacies have arisen from the representation of
