So that the system against which the philosophy of Plato was directed, presented itself in a twofold character: it was a vulgar error, an inadvertency incident to our natural and unreflective thinking; and it was, moreover, an error supported and ratified and reduced to system by the exertions of the Sophistical philosophers. And corresponding to the two-fold character of this sensational scheme, the philosophy of Plato had a twofold aim: it had to correct sensationalism considered as a product of ordinary thinking, as the creed of the unreflective mind; and also considered as a philosophical and systematised speculation. Platonism, therefore, in its general character, is to be regarded as at once a rectification of the inadvertencies incident to natural or ordinary thinking, and of the aberrations into which the popular philosophy of the day (the system, namely, of the Sophists) had run. To correct these inadvertencies and errors, it advocated the claims of thought against those of sensation. It showed how impotent the senses are without the aid of the intellect. It put forward its great theory of ideas and idealism in opposition to the current theory of sensations and sensationalism. Such was the general character, both negative and positive, both combative and constructive, of the Platonic philosophy, as gathered from the general consideration of the system of doctrine to which it stood opposed.
2. This philosophy has exercised a very deep and
