63

Logic IV 71
After some illustrations have been given Echecrates to whom Phaedo is recounting the conversation breaks in with the exclamation how "wonderfully clearly even to a person of mediocre intelligence asll that was expressed" and Phaedo tells him that all the company thought so too. (102A.) The general statement sounds like a range of description of presumptive inference. But one does not see how that is to serve as a substitute for a knowledge of final causes. However the examples which are appended to the general statement put the matter in quire a different light. It appears that a knowledge of the final cause being unabttainable Plato seeks an understanding of the formal cause, the idea which is of an intellectual nature and unquestionably allied to the final accuse. For instance if the beauty of a beautiful object is the subject of investigation and if we are not able to ascertain what final cause has led to its being rendered beautiful we can at least makeout this much, that it is beautiful only