Note (return) — Chapter X
Reading edition
Therefore the grand, the vital, the most urgent question for his times, as indeed for all times, was, What is Truth? What is Right? In the midst of all this variableness and uncertainty of human opinion, is there no ground of certainty? Amid all the fluctuations and changes around us and within us, is there nothing that is immutable and permanent? Have we no ultimate standard of Right? Is there no criterion of Truth? Plato believed most confidently there was such a criterion and standard. He had learned from Socrates, his master, to cherish an unwavering faith in the existence of an Eternal Truth, an Eternal Order, an Eternal Good, the knowledge of which is essential to the perfection and happiness of man, and which knowledge must therefore be presumed to be attainable by man. Henceforth, therefore, the ceaseless effort of Plato's life is to attain a standard (κριτήριον) 506--a CRITERION OF TRUTH.