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The God of the Timaeus is not really at variance with the idea of

good; they are aspects of the same, differing only as the

personal from the impersonal, or the masculine from the neuter,

the one being the expression or language of mythology, the other

of philosophy.

This, or something like this, is the meaning of the idea of good

as conceived by Plato. Ideas of number, order, harmony,

development may also be said to enter into it. The paraphrase

which has just been given of it goes beyond the actual words of

Plato. We have perhaps arrived at the stage of philosophy which

enables us to understand what he is aiming at, better than he did

himself. We are beginning to realize what he saw darkly and at a

distance. But if he could have been told that this, or some

conception of the same kind, but higher than this, was the truth

at which he was aiming, and the need which he sought to supply,

he would gladly have recognized that more was contained in his

own thoughts than he himself knew. As his words are few and his

manner reticent and tentative, so must the style of his

interpreter be. We should not approach his meaning more nearly by

attempting to define it further.