152

Logic IV. 158

in which the world is represented as created in six stages.
[ancient greek?]
It is not Plato's best self who has this confused and not very elevated notion of the Good. The result is due in part to the imperfection of the method of investigation employed and in part to a little violence being done to the method so as to force it to this conclusion. The truth is that, although ethics is the subject of the dialogue, the interest is not in ethics but in the dialectic method. The real purpose was evidently to place before his scholars an example of the application of his Dialectic which should cause them to think highly of it. For that purpose, it was requisitefirst to show that it would lead to definite conclusions in regard to a very important and difficult question; and than that of the Good none could better fulfill this requisite; and in the Second Place, it was requisite that the answer given