the ultimate reality, is the ground of all other Ideas. Plato
ought therefore to have derived all other Ideas from it, but
this he has not done. He merely asserts, in a more or less
dogmatic way, that the Idea of the Good is the highest,
but does nothing to connect it with the other Ideas. It
is easy to see, however, why he made this assertion. It
is, in fact, a necessary logical outcome of his system. For
every Idea is perfection in its kind. All the Ideas have
perfection in common. And just as the one beauty is the
Idea which presides over all beautiful things, so the one
perfection must be the supreme Idea which presides {201}
over all the perfect Ideas. The supreme Idea, therefore,
must be perfection itself, that is to say, the Idea of the
Good. On the other hand it might, with equal force, be
argued that since all the Ideas are substances, therefore
the highest Idea is the Idea of substance. All that can be
said is that Plato has left these matters in obscurity, and
has merely asserted that the highest Idea is the Good.
Consideration of the Idea of the Good leads us naturally to
enquire how far Plato’s system is teleological in character.
A little consideration will show that it is out and out tele-
ological. We can see this both by studying the many lower
Ideas, and the one supreme Idea. Each Idea is perfection
of its kind. And each Idea is the ground of the existence
of the individual objects which come under it. Thus the
explanation of white objects is the perfect whiteness, of
beautiful objects the perfect beauty. Or we may take as
our example the Idea of the State which Plato describes in
the “Republic.” The ordinary view is that Plato was de-
scribing a State which was the invention of his own fancy,
and is therefore to be regarded as entirely unreal. This is
completely to misunderstand Plato. So far was he from
thinking the ideal State unreal, that he regarded it, on the
contrary, as the only real State. All existent States, such
as the Athenian or the Spartan, are unreal in so far as they
differ from the ideal State. And moreover, this one reality,
the ideal State, is the ground of the existence of all actual
States. They owe their existence to its reality. Their ex-
istence can only be explained by it. Now since the ideal
State is not yet reached in fact, but is the perfect State to-
wards which all actual States tend, it is clear that we have
here {202} a teleological principle. The real explanation of
the State is not to be found in its beginnings in history, in
an original contract, or in biological necessities, but in its
end, the final or perfect State. Or, if we prefer to put it
so; the true beginning is the end. The end must be in the
beginning, potentially and ideally, otherwise it could never
begin: It is the same with all other things. Man is explained
by the ideal man, the perfect man; white things by the per-
fect whiteness, and so on. Everything is explained by its
end, and not by its beginning. Things are not explained by
mechanical causes, but by reasons.And the teleology of Plato culminates in the Idea of the
Good. That Idea is the final explanation of all other Ideas,
and of the entire universe. And to place the final ground of
all things in perfection itself means that the universe arises
out of that perfect end towards which all things move.Another matter which requires elucidation here is the place
which the conception of God holds in Plato’s system. He
frequently uses the word God both in the singular and the