Plato is the first of all thinkers who feels that the presence of the ethical idea in man is what it is: something profoundly puzzling. That is his greatest distinction. Hence he cannot profess to be satisfied with the attempt of the historic Socrates to explain the Good as that which is rationally pleasure-giving. It is clear to him that it is something unconditional, with a compelling force of its own, and to preserve for it this character seems to him, as later to Kant, to be the great task of thought. But what is the result of his undertaking? A fundamental principle for ethics which is devoid of content. In order to secure its lofty character it is allowed to be born of abstract considerations in the country of the supra-sensuous. It can, therefore, never find itself at home in reality and become familiar with it, nor can any rules for concrete ethical conduct be developed from it. Thus Plato, when he treats practically of ethics, is compelled to abide by the chief virtues, as popularly conceived. In the _Republic_ he names four of them: wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice, and he founds them not on his general idea of the Good, but on his psychology. But the characteristic ethic of Plato has nothing whatever to do with such virtues. If the conception of the Good is supra-sensible and the immaterial world is the only real one, then it is only thought and conduct which deal with the [pg 042] immaterial that can have any ethical character. In the world of appearance there is nothing of value to be made actual. Man is simply compelled to be an impotent spectator of its shadow-play. All willing must be directed to enabling oneself to turn away from this, and get sight of that true activity which goes on in the light. The true ethic, then, is world-negation. To this view Plato was committed the moment he allowed the ethical to find its home in the world of pure Being. Thoughts of ascetic inactivity find expression in him side by side with the Greek feeling for reality, and it is confusing that he does not recognize the conflict between them, but speaks now in one sense, now in the other. His ethic is a chaos, and he himself an expert in inconsistency.