20 A. E. TAYLOR : ON THE FIRST PART OF PLATO'S PARMENIDES. considered equivalent to the constitutive relation between points of conceptual space. 1 Such appears to be, in its broad outlines, the theory for which the criticism of the Parmenides prepares the ground. If our reading of it has been on the whole correct, we may venture to make two assertions : (1) there is no disagreement between the Parmenides and the later dialogues generally and the doctrines familiar from the Phcedo and Republic, the theory of the " ideal numbers " being a natural development from principles inherent in all Plato's speculation ; (2) failure to perceive the agreement of the Parmenides with the Ph&do and Republic, or willingness to suspect its genuineness, may fairly be taken as evidence of thorough-going misapprehension of Plato's whole philosophy. 2 1 When you come to consider the case of a concrete physical thing of e.g. circular form, you further find that it is not even an exact embodiment of the circle with numerically definite coefficients ; its circularity is only approximate. This perhaps throws some light on the position assigned by Plato to TO. p.adr)fj.aTiKd as intermediate between the Idea, in its universality, and the sensible thing. 2 P.S. I should like to take this opportunity of modifying the sug- gestion made in the last of my former articles (MiND, N.S., 21) as to the comparatively early date of the Parmenides. I am now satisfied that my supposition of a depreciatory reference to the dialogue in the Philebus was mistaken, and that the inference based upon it therefore falls to the ground. As regards the general question of date of composition of the dialogues it is necessary to avoid inferring that a dialogue in which a subject is discussed at length must be earlier than one in which the same results are briefly summarised. No one now doubts that the Sophistes is a later work than the Republic, though the view of negation elaborately established in the former is taken for granted in the latter (Eep. v., 478 D). Stylistic evidence which is the only trustworthy basis for in- ference surely suggests for the Parmenides however a position nearer to the Phsedo and Republic than to the Sophistes or Philebus.
