§ 154. This consideration, however, does not receive its most effective formulation in Spinoza. The isolation of the parts, the actual severalty and irrelevance of the modes, still presents a grave problem. Is there a kind of whole to which not only parts but fragments, or parts in their very incompleteness, are indispensable? This would seem to be true of a _progression_ or _development_, since that would require both perfection as its end, and degrees of imperfection as its stages. Spinoza was prevented from making much of this idea by his rejection of the principle of _teleology_. He regarded appreciation or valuation as a projection of personal bias. "Nature has no particular goal in view," and "final causes are mere human figments." "The perfection of things is to be reckoned only from their own nature and power."[318:7] The philosophical method which Spinoza here repudiates, the interpretation of the world in moral terms, is _Platonism_, an independent and profoundly important movement, belonging to the same general realistic type with Eleaticism and Spinozism. Absolute being is again the fundamental conception. Here, however, it is conceived that being is primarily not affirmation or self-sufficiency, but the _good_ or _ideal_. There are few great metaphysical systems that have not been deeply influenced by Platonism; hence the importance of understanding it in its purity. To this end we must return again to the early Greek conception of the philosopher; for Platonism, like Eleaticism, is a sequel to the philosopher's self-consciousness. [Sidenote: Early Greek Philosophers not Self-critical.] § 155. Although the first Greek philosophers, such men as Thales, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Empedocles, were clearly aware of their distinction and high calling, it by no means follows that they were good judges of themselves. Their sense of intellectual power was unsuspecting; and they praised philosophy without definitely raising the question of its meaning. They were like unskilled players who try all the stops and scales of an organ, and know that somehow they can make a music that exceeds the noises, monotones or simple melodies of those who play upon lesser instruments. They knew their power rather than their instrument or their art. The first philosophers, in short, were self-conscious but not self-critical. [Sidenote: Curtailment of Philosophy in the Age of the Sophists.]