Note (return) — Chapter X

He found, then, that there are in all minds certain "principles" which are fundamental--principles which lie at the basis of all our cognitions of the objective world, and which, as "mental laws," determine all our forms of thought; and principles, too, which have this marvellous and undeniable character, that they are encountered in the most common experiences, and, at the same time, instead of being circumscribed within the limits of experience, transcend and govern it--principles which are universal in the midst of particular phenomena--necessary, though mingled with things contingent--to our eyes infinite and absolute, even when appearing in us the relative and finite beings that we are. 507 These first or fundamental principles Plato called IDEAS (ἰδέαι).