at the same time the sphere within which that lower consciousness is true is assigned to it throughout, and the element of right which it contains is conceded to it and defined, which even the terms themselves imply in which those untenable pretensions are stated. For we are by no means to believe that what is gained in the several parts of the dialogue by the production of objections which Socrates afterwards either allows to drop or to be refuted by Theætetus, or by investigations which with reference to the immediate subject of the dialogue are only incidental, we are not to believe that all this is intended to fall to the ground and come to nothing. So far from it, that all this matter is assuredly to be preserved and used: but better opportunities for noticing this in detail will occur in the notes on the particular passages. Again, each of the several parts is constructed precisely in the same manner. The Protagorean principle, for example, is more finely worked out at every fresh addition to the dialogue, and is at last confronted by the question as to opinions about time future held in time present. In like manner conception itself is continually more pointedly disengaged from perception, especially with reference to arithmetic, when every reader will certainly recollect the Platonic principle which Plato's disciples certainly did not forget, I mean that Geometry is a thing distinct from pure knowedge generally, and that the rank of the highest science does not belong to it. In like manner the idea of false conception is rid by the interposition of that of exchanged conception*, of the rude form under which it was commonly and

* Αλλοδοξίαν τίνα οὖσαν ψευδῆ φαμὲν εἶναι δόξαν, ὅταν τις τι τῶν ὄντων ἄλλο αὖ τῶν ὄντων, ἀνταλλαξάμενος τῇ διανοία, φῇ εἶναι. οὕτω γὰρ ἂν μὲν ἀεὶ δοξάζει, ἕτερον δὲ ἀνθ' ἑτέρου, καὶ ἁμαρτάνων οὗ ἐσκόπει δικαίως ἄν καλοιτο ψευδῆ δοξάζων.

sophistically discussed.

At last, however, the whole explanation given of knowledge is made to fall to pieces by the question, how even that true conception which is recognised most generally and authentically as right, can be knowledge. The same thing happens at last to the notion of the reasonable explanation which is taken up quite from the most idiomatic usage of the Greek language, and exhibited in its various gradations, but is nevertheless as regards the proper object of the dialogue rejected by the question, how it is possible that the conception of distinguishing quality can be wanting in conception generally, or the knowledge of that distinguishing quality explain knowledge generally*. In this manner, in short, every particular investigation fully and seriously pursued is most suddenly at the conclusion regularly ridiculed away, and thus we may say that the last conclusion of all suddenly turns to ridicule the subject of the whole dialogue, as far, that is, as the question was directed to the explanation of knowledge, although as is natural from the difference in the time and the age of the author, this ridicule is not so triumphantly proclaimed as in the Prothagoras; a comparison which must strike every one, as in fact the question as to the explicability of knowledge is the same theoretically as that of the communicability of virtue is practically.

The same uniformity is discoverable in yet another point of view. For almost in every discussion of any particular question in this dialogue a digression occurs in which immediate and distinct reference is made to the true and right, though these subjects nowhere come out in the discussions themselves. And thus also

an extensive digression is introduced into the main dialogue itself, containing its share of these allusions; but which, as regards the immediate progress of the dialogue, seems to be an extremely capricious interruption, not less violently brought in, and no better kept within rule and rein, than that so justly censured in the Phædrus. I speak of the whole passage preceding the last refutation of the Protagorean principle where the distinction between the tyros in philosophy and those in rhetoric and similar arts is pointed out, and the divine, the true and the good, come out in the full relief of their peculiar nature as perfectly opposed to the narrow sphere of the personal. And indeed this digression seems purposely placed soon after the beginning, that at all events the attentive reader may have a clear point by means of which he may find his way among the complicated mazes of the dialogue.

By these digressions then, the Theætetus connects itself immediately and, among the earlier dialogues is almost solitary in so doing, with the Parmenides as a continuation of it, although from an opposite point of view. And scarcely any other allusions to earlier works occur in what belongs to the essential matter of the dialogue. These digressions, however, are remarkable; for instance, the way in which not only the Eleatic doctrine is opposed to the Ionian, but also Parmenides to the other Eleatics, can scarcely be otherwise understood except as intending to imply that the others, especially Melissus who is particularly named, appeared to Plato to deviate as far from the truth as the Ionians, to whom however in comparison with those who would grasp every thing with their hands, he ascribes a truly philosophical tendency. For if, as he

expresses himself, the Ionians moved even the immoveable, so, probably, the Eleatics were for reducing even the untenable to rest, and Parmenides alone by his hypothesis of an opposition between the intelligible and apparent, of which we may regret that only rough outlines and particular traces have come down to us, appeared to have found, or at least to have divined the right road, although even to his doctrine Plato has objections to make in a subsequent dialogue. Even in what Plato here says about Parmenides we may easily detect the inclination to consider the doctrine of that philosopher more thoroughly at a future opportunity, in short an announcement of what he afterwards carried into effect in the Sophist. At the same time however it contains an almost tacit exposure of Zeno, who is by no means excepted from among those whom Socrates considers undeserving of much notice, and a hint implying how little any one should venture to make Parmenides the object of his satire, and how difficult it was to penetrate to the real meaning of his doctrine. Both refer manifestly enough to the dialogue of that name, and to a variety of misapprehensions in the understanding of it which from these allusions may be easily surmised.

So again, without any particular mention of the philosopher, several of the antitheses discussed in the Parmenides reappear elsewhere in this dialogue, in part accompanied by elucidations of what is there barely stated as briefly as possible, so that the position of the Theætetus between the Parmenides and Sophist is thus in every way justified. And moreover, besides these that are contained in the general plan, there occur in detail several allusions to the Gorgias, and among these too, individually considered, those

which presuppose the Gorgias have a great advantage over those which look as if the Theatetus ought to be placed before it.

In two other respects, moreover, these two counterparts especially resemble one another. One of these points of similarity is, that in both dialogues a variety of perfectly similar matter occurs incidentally. Thus also in the Theætetus important passages from the defence of Socrates are brought up, and as it were commented upon. For Plato expatiates in a peculiar manner, and one which almost warrants the conclusion that he must on some occasion have exposed a weak side in this respect, upon the extremely natural and very pardonable ignorance of a philosopher in all civil mat

: ters and usages. More skilful persons may decide whether this is to refer to that apology, or to passages in some other writings of his, or to some fact of which traces still survived. Moreover we find in several passages a manifest defence, partly of his indirect mode of speculation in general, as in the explanation of Socrates' midwife practice, partly directed against a variety of objections which must have been made to his writings, and likewise censure of the form and method in which many of his opponents probably endeavoured to confute him. Thus for example, he constantly repeats here as well as in the Gorgias, that in philosophical matters apparent consequences are not to be made the grounds of confutation, and particularly lays down the conditions under which, in the dialogue, a position of the opponent can be regarded as confuted. So that, these vivid expressions which recur so frequently in the course of the two dialogues rightly considered, we shall remark a concealed and gradually gathering indignation, which