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At the end of the fifth book Plato introduces the figment of

contingent matter, which has exercised so great an influence both

on the Ethics and Theology of the modern world, and which occurs

here for the first time in the history of philosophy. He did not

remark that the degrees of knowledge in the subject have nothing

corresponding to them in the object. With him a word must answer

to an idea; and he could not conceive of an opinion which was an

opinion about nothing. The influence of analogy led him to invent

'parallels and conjugates' and to overlook facts. To us some of

his difficulties are puzzling only from their simplicity: we do

not perceive that the answer to them 'is tumbling out at our

feet.' To the mind of early thinkers, the conception of not-being

was dark and mysterious; they did not see that this terrible

apparition which threatened destruction to all knowledge was only

a logical determination.