ful topics of discussion in fruitful Germany, to say nothing of Italy, France and Holland.

One of the earliest general histories of philosophy was that of Thomas Stanley, London, 1701. A fourth edition, translated into Latin by G. Olearius, was published at Leipsic in 1811. The history of philosophy most known in this country and in England is that of J. I. Brucker, first published at Leipsic in 1742-67, in five volumes quarto. From this work our current notions respecting Plato are derived, partly through the medium of Dr. Enfield's History. Brucker has never enjoyed, it has been said, a very high reputation among the learned of Germany. Dugald Stewart thinks that this fact is rather to the disadvantage of the German taste, than to that of the historian. 'Brucker is indeed,' says Stewart, 'not distinguished by any extraordinary measure of depth or of acuteness; but in industry, fidelity and sound judgment, he has few superiors."1 At the time of writing the above remarks, 1820, Stewart was not acquainted with the work of Tennemann. He had seen J. G. Buhle's Manual of the history of Philosophy, Göttingen, 1796-1804, eight volumes. In addition to this work Buhle published a History of Modern Philosophy, Göttingen, 1800-6, in six volumes. Stewart's opinion of this author is unfavorable.

William Gottlieb Tennemann was born Dec. 7, 1761, at Brembach, a village between Erfurt and Eisenach, where his father was clergyman. At four years of age he was visited by a long illness resulting from an attack of the small-pox. This delayed his intellectual development and laid the foundation for many bodily pains. The method of instruction pursued by his father, a man, according to the son's testimony, of a gloomy and stern temperament, did not hasten the mental progress of the youth. In his sixteenth year he joined a school at Erfurt. After remaining there eighteen months, he connected himself with the university then existing at Erfurt. His love for philosophical studies turned him aside from theology, to which, agreeably to his father's wishes, he had devoted himself. In 1781, he went to the university of Jena, where he was greatly excited by the writings of Kant. At first he joined the opposition, but he soon became a devoted adherent of the Critical Philosophy. In 1791, he gave a connected view of the Doctrines and Opinions of the followers of Socrates on the Immortality of the Soul.' This 1 Works of D. Stewart, Camb. ed. VI. 487.

was followed by his 'System of the Platonic Philosophy,' four volumes, Leipsic, 1792-94. This contains the life of the philosopher, which forms the preceding article in this volume. Being limited in his external means, Tennemann now devoted himself rather to academical pursuits than to those of an author. In 1798, he was appointed professor extraordinary of philosophy at Jena. In 1804, he became ordinary professor in the philosophical chair at Marburg, vacant by the death of Tiedemann. This office-to which was added, in 1816, that of second university librarian-he continued to fill till his death, Sept. 30, 1819. Besides the writings already named, he left a number of very useful essays; a translation of Hume's Inquiry into the Human Understanding, with Observations, 1793; of Locke's Essay, three volumes, 1795-7; and De Gerando's Comparative History of Systems of Philosophy, two volumes, Marburg, 1806. His principal reputation rests on his History of Philosophy, in eleven volumes, Leipsic, 1798-1819. An abstract of this work, not fully completed, entitled Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, was published in 1812. The fifth edition was edited by Professor Wendt. It has been translated into English by Arthur Johnson. Nothing of Tennemann's spirit, however, can be discovered in this skeleton. With the exception of Brucker, Tennemann was the first writer who exhibited the whole history of philosophy from the sources, in a philosophical spirit, and so as to make it accessible to the general mind. He has the merit of having awakened a manifold interest in these studies, and of having helped many thinkers to a proper recognition of them. The principal fault which has been found with Tennemann is thus mentioned by Mr. Stewart. "The history of Tennemann in particular (a work said to possess great merit) would appear to have been vitiated by this unfortunate bias [derived from Kant] in the views of its author. A very competent judge has lately said of it, that it affords, as far as it is completed, the most accurate, the most minute, and the most rational view we yet possess of the different systems of philosophy; but that the critical philosophy being chosen as the vantage ground from whence the survey of former systems is taken, the continual reference in Kant's own language to his peculiar doctrines, renders it fre

1 Wendt was born at Leipsic, Sept. 29, 1783. In 1816, he became ordinary professor of philosophy at Leipsic. In 1829 he took Bouterwek's place as ordinary professor of philosophy at Göttingen. He died Oct. 15, 1836,

quently impossible for those who have not studied the dark works of this modern Heraclitus to understand the strictures of the historian on the systems even of Aristotle or Plato." Notwithstanding this defect, Tennemann is a perspicuous and agreeable, as well as profound writer. The indiscriminate charge of obscurity and Kantism, which has been sometimes alleged against him, can by no means be supported.

In regard to the life of Plato, by Tennemann, which we have translated, Schleiermacher has the following remark: "Tennemann, in his system of the Platonic philosophy prefixed to the life of Plato, has already subjected to a sifting process the compilation of Diogenes and the other old biographies of Plato, compared with what is found scantily dispersed in other sources. As, then, since that time neither materially deeper investigations have been published, nor new facts discovered, affording any well-grounded hope of leaving far behind them, in their application, the labor already bestowed on this subject, it is best to refer such readers as wish to be instructed upon that point, to what they will there find." A high commendation of Tennemann's labors from the pen of Schleiermacher-certainly a most competent judge-we shall quote in the

sequel.

In the early part of the present century, Dr. Frederic Schleiermacher betook himself to an examination of all known systems of morals; and it is he to whom is mainly owing the new ardor for the study of Plato. His translation of the Platonic dialogues appeared at Berlin in the years 1804-9. It was accompanied by a general introduction, and also by particular introductions. It was his intention to publish the whole of the works of Plato upon this plan; but we have to regret the want of introductions to the Timaeus, the Critias, the Laws and a number of the pieces which are not regarded as genuine. He viewed the works of Plato as a whole, and endeavored to arrange them in their natural connection; and he conceived that by internal evidence he had found in them the order in which the author's thoughts were developed, being also that in which the several works were written. Though details of his scheme have been loosened by later inquirers, the main principles are regarded by good judges as finally fixed.3

1 Stewart's Works, VI. 486.

3 London Quart. Rev. No. 122. p. 258.

Translated by Wm. Dobson.

In his general introduction, Schleiermacher, after remarking upon the impracticable modes of arranging Plato's dialogues proposed by Diogenes, Eberhard, Geddes and others, thus proceeds: "Quite different, however, from all that has hitherto been done is the character of the attempt made in Tennemann's system of the Platonic Philosophy; the first, at all events, with any pretensions to completeness, to discover the chronological order of the Platonic dialogues from various historical traces impressed upon them; for this is certainly critical in its principles, and a work worthy in every way of an historical investigator like the author of that treatise. In this undertaking, indeed, his view is directed less to discover, by the methods he adopts, the real and essential relation of the works of Plato to one another, than to discover in general the dates of their composition, in order to avoid confounding early and imperfect attempts with an exposition of the philosophy of the mature and perfect Plato. And to that undertaking, generally, the present is a necessary counterpart; and thus, on the other hand, that method, resting as it does entirely upon outward signs, provided it could only be universally applied, and provided also, it could definitely assign to any Platonic dialogue its place between any two others, would be the natural test of our own method, which goes entirely upon what is internal. It may not indeed be necessary on that account that the results of the two should perfectly coincide, for the reason that the external production of a work is subjected to other external and accidental conditions than its internal development, which follows only such as are inward and necessary; whence slight deviations might equally arise, so that what was internally in existence sooner than something else, does not appear yet externally until a later period."

Schleiermacher divides the works of Plato into three classes. In the first class, the development of the dialogistic method is the predominant object; and hence manifestly the Phaedrus is the first and the Parmenides is the last in this class, partly as a most perfect exhibition of it, partly as a transition to the second part, because it begins to philosophize upon the relation of ideas to actual things. The Phaedrus, Protagoras and Parmenides, have a character of youthfulness quite peculiar. They appear in the first glitter and awkwardness of early youth. They are not worked up into one whole, with a definite purpose, and with much art. In them also

are shown the first breathings of what is the basis of all that follows, of logic as the instrument of philosophy, of ideas as its proper object, consequently of the possibility and of the conditions of knowledge. In the second part, the explanation of knowledge, and of the process of acquiring knowledge, is the predominant subject. At the head of this part stands the Theaetetus beyond the possibility of a mistake, taking up, as it does, this question by its first root; the Sophistes with the annexed Politicus is in the middle, while the Phaedon and the Philebus close it, as transitions to the third part; the first, from the anticipatory sketch of natural philosophy, the second, because in its discussion of the idea of the good, it begins to approximate to a totally constructive exposition, and passes into the direct method. This second part is distinguished by a great artificialness, as well in the construction of particular dialogues as in their progressive connection, and which might be named for distinction's sake, the indirect method, since it commences almost universally with the juxta-position of antitheses. Some of the Platonic dialogues are distinguished above all the rest by the fact that they alone contain an objective, scientific exposition, the Republic for instance, the Timaeus and the Critias. Everything coincides when we assign to these the last place, tradition, as well as internal character though in different degrees of the most advanced maturity and serious old age; and even the imperfect condition which, viewed in connection, they exhibit. But more than all this, the nature of the thing decides the question; inasmuch as these expositions rest upon the investigations previously pursued; upon the nature of knowledge generally, and of philosophical knowledge in particular; and upon the applicability of the idea of science to the objects treated of in those works,―man himself, and nature.

In 1816, Prof. Frederic Ast published a volume entitled,' Plato's Life and Writings.' Thirteen pages are occupied by a general introduction, twenty one only with Plato's life, and four hundred and eighty on his writings. The work is thus described in the Halle Journal. "Ast has here suggested considerations on the nature of the Platonic philosophy, on the spirit which shows itself in the exhibition of Plato's philosophical ideas, and has made them, in connection with the analysis of particular dialogues, together with the historical notices of Plato and of other authors, the basis of the entire introduction. The work is particularly characterized by a