2. "Wherefore these intelligible ideas or essences of things, those forms by which we understand all things, exist nowhere but in the mind itself: for it was very well determined long ago by Socrates, in Plato's Parmenides, that these things are nothing but _noëmata_: these species or ideas are all of them nothing but _noëmata_, or notions that exist nowhere but in the soul itself." Now, neither of these assertions of Cudworth will be found accurate: neither the "determination" which he ascribes to the Platonic Sokrates--nor the censure of "unjust or unskilful" which he attaches to Aristotle. It is indeed true that the opinion here mentioned is enunciated by Sokrates in Plato's Parmenides. But far from being given as a "determination," it is enunciated only to be refuted and dropt.[a] In that dialogue, Sokrates is introduced as a youthful and ardent aspirant in philosophy, maintaining the genuine Platonic theory of self-existent and separate Ideas. He finds himself unable to repel several acute objections tendered against the theory by the veteran Parmenides: he is driven from position to position: and one among them, not more tenable than the rest, is the suggestion cited by Cudworth. Yet Parmenides, though his objections remain unanswered and though he alludes to others {274} not specified,--concludes by declaring[b] that nevertheless the Platonic theory of Ideas cannot be abandoned: it must be upheld as a postulate essential to the possibility of general reasoning and philosophy. [Footnote a: Plato Parmenid. p. 132, C, D.] [Footnote b: Plato Parmenid. p. 135, B, C. I have given an account of this acute but perplexing dialogue, in the twenty-fifth chapter of my work on Plato and the other Companions of Sokrates.] Even in the Parmenides itself, therefore, where Plato accumulates objections against the theory of separate and self-existent Ideas, we still find him reiterating his adherence to it. And when we turn to his other dialogues, Phædrus, Phædon, Symposion, Republic, Kratylus, &c., we see that theory so emphatically proclaimed and so largely illustrated, that I wonder how Cudworth can blame Aristotle for imputing it to him. It is by Cudworth, probably, that Mr. James Mill has been misled, when he says--p. 249--"At bottom, Aristotle's [Greek: ei)=dos] is the same as with Plato's [Greek: i)de/a], though Aristotle makes a great affair of some very trifling differences, which he creates and sets up between them."--I have pointed out Cudworth's mistake, and I maintain that the difference between Plato and Aristotle on this subject was grave and material. The latter denied, what the former affirmed, self-existence and substantiality of the Universal Ideas, apart from and independent of particulars.