There is another sort of progress from the general
notions of Socrates, who asked simply, 'what is friendship?' 'what is temperance?' 'what is courage?' as in the Lysis, Charmides, Laches, to the transcendentalism of Plato, who, in the second stage of his philosophy, sought to find the nature of knowledge in a prior and future state of existence.
"If vanity was a thing fit," says Square, "I might indulge some on the same occasion; for whence only he can have learnt his
notions of right or wrong, I think is pretty apparent.
For, in the first place even the principle which I have already taken as a rule, viz., that all the things which we clearly and distinctly conceive are true, is certain only because God is or exists and because he is a Perfect Being, and because all that we possess is derived from him: whence it follows that our ideas or
notions, which to the extent of their clearness and distinctness are real, and proceed from God, must to that extent be true.
Here Adeimantus interposed and said: To these statements, Socrates, no one can offer a reply; but when you talk in this way, a strange feeling passes over the minds of your hearers: They fancy that they are led astray a little at each step in the argument, owing to their own want of skill in asking and answering questions; these littles accumulate, and at the end of the discussion they are found to have sustained a mighty overthrow and all their former
notions appear to be turned upside down.
The old writer, like all of the people in the world, had got, during his long fife, a great many
notions in his head.
Arthur is not what is commonly called a bad man: he has many good qualities; but he is a man without self-restraint or lofty aspirations, a lover of pleasure, given up to animal enjoyments: he is not a bad husband, but his
notions of matrimonial duties and comforts are not my
notions.
This gossiping familiarity shocked the captain's
notions of rank and subordination, and nothing was so abhorrent to him as the community of pipe between master and man, and their mingling in chorus in the outlandish boat-songs.
Little as Catherine was in the habit of judging for herself, and unfixed as were her general
notions of what men ought to be, she could not entirely repress a doubt, while she bore with the effusions of his endless conceit, of his being altogether completely agreeable.
'Is that the way in which he is supposed to corrupt the youth?' 'Yes, it is.' 'Has he only new gods, or none at all?' 'None at all.' 'What, not even the sun and moon?' 'No; why, he says that the sun is a stone, and the moon earth.' That, replies Socrates, is the old confusion about Anaxagoras; the Athenian people are not so ignorant as to attribute to the influence of Socrates
notions which have found their way into the drama, and may be learned at the theatre.
From some quarter, or other, a rumor had got abroad that Miss Monson's governess was of a noble family, a circumstance that I soon discovered had great influence in New York, doubtless by way of expiation for the rigid democratical
notions that so universally pervade its society.
Salters protested that this kind of yarn was desperately wicked, if not indeed positively blasphemous, but he listened as greedily as the others; and their criticisms at the end gave Harvey entirely new
notions on "germans," clothes, cigarettes with gold-leaf tips, rings, watches, scent, small dinner-parties, champagne, card-playing, and hotel accommodation.
"What is his religious doctrine to me, if he carries some good
notions along with it?
