And now we are prepared to form a clear conception of the Platonic doctrine of Ideas. Viewed in their relation to the Eternal Reason, as giving the primordial thought and law of all being, these principles are simply εἴδη αὐτὰ καθ᾽ αὑτά--_ideas in themselves_--the essential qualities or attributes of Him who is the supreme and ultimate Cause of all existence. When regarded as before the Divine imagination, giving definite forms and relations, they are the τύποι, the παραδείγματα--_the types_, _models, patterns, ideals_ according to which the universe was fashioned. Contemplated in their actual embodiment in the laws, and typical forms of the material world, they are εἰκόνες--_images_ of the eternal perfections of God. The world of sense pictures the world of reason by a participation (μέθεξις) of the ideas. And viewed as interwoven in the very texture and framework of the soul, they are ὁμοιώματα--copies of the Divine Ideas which are the primordial laws of knowing, thinking, and reasoning. Ideas are thus the nexus of relation between God and the visible universe, and between the human and the Divine reason.[516] There is something divine in the world, and in the human soul, namely, _the eternal laws and reasons of things_, mingled with the endless diversity and change of sensible phenomena. These ideas are "the light of the intelligible world;" they render the invisible world of real Being perceptible to the reason of man. "Light is the offspring of the Good, which the Good has produced in his own likeness. Light in the visible world is what the _idea of the Good_ is in the intelligible world. And this offspring of the Good--light--has the same relation to vision and visible things which the Good has to intellect and intelligible things."[517] [Footnote 516: "Now, Idea is, as regards God, a mental operation by him (the notions of God, eternal and perfect in themselves); as regards us, the first things perceptible by mind; as regards Matter, a standard; but as regards the world, perceptible by sense, a pattern; but as considered with reference to itself, an existence."--Alcinous, "Introduction to the Doctrines of Plato," p. 261. "What general notions are to our minds, he (Plato) held, ideas are to the Supreme Reason (νοῦς βασιλευς); they are the eternal thoughts of the Divine Intellect, and we attain truth when our thoughts conform with His--when our general notions are in conformity with the ideas."--Thompson, "Laws of Thought," p. 119.] [Footnote 517: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xix.]