that the world was throughout mathematical; the proportions are constant
of oxygen, azote, and lime; there is just so much water, and slate,
and magnesia; not less are the proportions constant of moral elements.

This eldest Goethe, hating varnish and falsehood, delighted in revealing
the real at the base of the accidental; in discovering connection,
continuity, and representation, everywhere; hating insulation; and
appears like the god of wealth among the cabins of vagabonds, opening
power and capability in everything he touches. Ethical science was new
and vacant, when Plato could write thus:--"Of all whose arguments are
left to the men of the present time, no one has ever yet condemned
injustice, or praised justice, otherwise than as respects the repute,
honors, and emoluments arising therefrom; while, as respects either
of them in itself, and subsisting by its own power in the soul of the
possessor, and concealed both from gods and men, no one has yet
sufficiently investigated, either in poetry or prose writings,--how,
namely, that the one is the greatest of all the evils that the soul
has within it, and justice the greatest good."

His definition of ideas, as what is simple, permanent, uniform, and
self-existent, forever discriminating them from the notions of the
understanding, marks an era in the world. He was born to behold the
self-evolving power of spirit, endless generator of new ends; a power
which is the key at once to the centrality and the evanescence of
things. Plato is so centered, that he can well spare all his dogmas.
Thus the fact of knowledge and ideas reveals to him the fact of
eternity; and the doctrine of reminiscence he offers as the most
probable particular explication. Call that fanciful,--it matters not;
the connection between our knowledge and the abyss of being is still
real, and the explication must be not less magnificent.