Plato commences this inquiry by first defining his understanding of the word δύναμις--_power_ or _faculty_. "We will say _faculties_ (δυνάμεις) are a certain kind of real existences by which we can do whatever we are able (_e.g._, to know), as there are powers by which every thing does what it does: the eye has a _power_ of seeing; the ear has a _power_ of hearing. But these powers (of which I now speak) have no color or figure to which I can so refer that I can distinguish one power from another. _In order to make such distinction, I must look at the power itself, and see what it is, and what it does. In that way I discern the power of each thing, and that is the same power which produces the same effect, and that is a different power which produces a different effect_."[522] That which is employed about, and accomplishes one and the same purpose, this Plato calls a _faculty_. [Footnote 521: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xviii.] [Footnote 522: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxi.] We have seen that our first conceptions (_i.e._, first in the order of time) are of the mingled, the concrete (τὸ συγκεχυμένον), "the multiplicity of things to which the multitude ascribe beauty, etc.[523] The mind "contemplates what is great and small, not as distinct from each other, but as confused.[524] Prior to the discipline of _reflection_, men are curious about mere sights and sounds, love beautiful voices, beautiful colors, beautiful forms, but their intelligence can not see, can not embrace, the essential nature of the Beautiful itself.[525] Man's condition previous to the education of philosophy is vividly presented in Plato's simile of the cave.[526] He beholds only the images and shadows of the ectypal world, which are but dim and distant adumbrations of the real and archetypal world. Primarily nothing is given in the abstract (τὸ κεγωρισμένον), but every thing in the concrete. The primary faculties of the mind enter into action spontaneously and simultaneously; all our primary notions are consequently synthetic. When reflection is applied to this primary totality of consciousness, that is, when we analyze our notions, we find them composed of diverse and opposite elements, some of which are variable, contingent, individual, and relative, others are permanent, unchangeable, universal, necessary, and absolute. Now these elements, so diverse, so opposite, can not have been obtained from the same source; they must be supplied by separate powers. "Can any man with common sense reduce under one what _is infallible_, and what is _not infallible?_"[527] Can that which is "_perpetually becoming_" be apprehended by the same faculty as that which "_always is?_"[528] Most assuredly not. [Footnote 523: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxii.] [Footnote 524: Ibid., bk. vii. ch. viii.] [Footnote 525: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xx.] [Footnote 526: Ibid., bk. vii. ch. i., ii.] [Footnote 527: "Republic," bk. v. ch. xxi.] [Footnote 528: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxii.; also "Timæus," § 9.]