Note (return) — Chapter XV
Reading edition
This history of the normal development of the individual mind has its counterpart in the history of humanity. There is (1.) The age of popular and unconscious morality; (2.) The transitional, skeptical, or sophistical age; and (3.) The philosophic or conscious age of morality. 899 In the "Republic" of Plato, we have these three eras represented by different persons, through the course of the dialogue. The question is started--what is Justice? and an answer is given from the stand-point of popular morality, by Polemarchus, who quotes the words of the poet Simonides,