GENERAL INTRODUCTION Phaedrus takes up the subject of rhetoric, to lead us allegorically into the realm of "ideas, "and thence to point out a new rhetoric, worthy of the well-trained dialectician. We get also a glimpse of the philo- sopher's duty of investigating the mutual relations of the"forms"to which his study of particular things has led him A closer interest in logical method, appearing hrough his delight in imaginative construction, is one distinctive mark of this middle stage in Plato teaching. As he passes to the next two dialogues the Theaetetus and Parmenides, he puts off the aesthetic rapture, and considers the ideas as cate gories of thought which require co-ordination. The discussion of knowledge in the former makes it evident that the Academy was now the meeting place of vigorous minds, some of which were eager to urge or hear refuted the doctrines they had learnt from other schools of thought; while the arguments are conducted with a critical caution very different from the brilliant and often hasty zeal of Socrates. The Parmenides corrects an actual or possible misconception of the theory of ideas in the domain of logic, showing perhaps how Aristotle Bw a youthful disciple of Plato, found fault with theory as he understood it. The forms are viewed in the light of the necessities of thought g is to be attained by a careful practice which will raise our minds to the vision of all particulars in their rightly distinguished and connected classes. Digitized by Microsoft(GENERAL INTRODUCTION Phaedrus takes up the subject of rhetoric, to lead us allegorically into the realm of " ideas," and thence to point out a new rhetoric, worthy of the well-trained dialectician. We get also a glimpse of the philo￾sopher's duty of investigating the mutual relations of the t( forms " to which his study of particular things has led him. A closer interest in logical method, appearing through his delight in imaginative construction, is one distinctive mark of this middle stage in Plato's teaching. As he passes to the next two Dialogues, the Theaetelus and Parmenides, he puts off the aesthetic rapture, and considers the ideas as cate- gories of thought which require co-ordination. The discussion of knowledge in the former makes it evident that the Academy was now the meeting￾place of vigorous minds, some of which were eager to urge or hear refuted the doctrines they had learnt from other schools of thought ; while the arguments are conducted with a critical caution very different from the brilliant and often hasty zeal of Socrates. The Parmenides corrects an actual or possible misconception of the theory of ideas in the domain of logic, showing perhaps how Aristotle, now a youthful disciple of Plato, found fault with the theory as he understood it. The forms are viewed in the light of the necessities of thought : knowledge is to be attained by a careful practice which will raise our minds to the vision of all particulars in their rightly distinguished and connected classes, xvi