Note (return) — Chapter IX

Truth has a rational, à priori foundation in the constitution of the human mind. There are ideas connatural to the human reason which are the copies of those archetypal ideas which belong to the Eternal Reason. The grand problem of philosophy, therefore, now is--What are these fundamental IDEAS which are unchangeable and permanent, amid all the diversifies of human opinion, connecting appearance with reality, and constituting a ground of certain knowledge or absolute truth? Socrates may not have held the doctrine of ideas as exhibited by Plato, but he certainly believed that there were germs of truth latent in the human mind--principles which governed, unconsciously, the processes of thought, and that these could be developed by reflection and by questioning. These were embryonate in the womb of reason, coming to the birth, but needing the "maieutic" or "obstetric" art, that they might be brought forth. 476 He would, therefore, become the accoucheur of ideas, and deliver minds of that secret truth which lay in their mental constitution. And thus Psychology becomes the basis of all legitimate metaphysics.