418 . CRITICAL NOTICES. it is certain that Plato over and over again ascribes his own views to his master, we have no right whatever to assume that he is responsible for everything which he makes Socrates say. 1 If only Eaeder had followed out this principle more thoroughly, he would have seen that there is an element of truth even in the views of Schleiermacher and Grote, and that this must be taken into account. It is surely the most likely view, now that we know the comparatively late date of the dialectical dialogues, that Plato did not formulate a distinctive system of his own till he was well advanced in life, and that, when once he had reached it, he did not afterwards modify it in essentials. What that system was, we must discover from the later dialogues with the help of the not very luminous or sympathetic statements of Aristotle. So far we must clearly go with Dr. Jackson, whether we accept his results in detail or not. But from this point of view, we may very well "regard the intention of these later dialogues as mainly pedagogic, and we need not suppose that Plato has revealed in them his own struggles with fresh difficulties. In fact it is hardly credible that he should have published any of them until he saw his way pretty clearly to the solution of the problems they raise. It must never be forgotten that we do not possess Plato's actual lectures in the Academy, but only such parts of his teaching as he thought fit to make known to a wider public. So far, then, we may agree with Schleiermacher, but Grote's view, which is apparently the very opposite, can be partly justified too. It is quite intelligible that, in such publications, the question of method should take a pro- minent place, and we may even find it natural that some of Plato's dialogues, especially in the earlier period of his life, should stand in no definite relation to his own philosophical system at all. These remarks are only meant to show that the " Platonic question " has by no means been solved yet. It seems, however, as if Plato was at last beginning to be studied with the same sort of care that has long been bestowed upon Aristotle. If so, Eaeder's book will be an excellent a^opfjirj. We cannot go further without a clear knowledge of what has been done, and that we can gain most easily from the volume before us. JOHN SUBNET. 1 Cf. Ep. II., 314 C, SJOL ravra oi/Sev iciavor' lyia irepl rovrtav yiypcuf>a, ov$' fffn (TvyypafUfjia, Hhdreavos ovSfv ovS' (ffrai, TO 8e vvv fy6/*eva ^wKpdrovs tffrl .KoXov Kal viov yfyov6ros. The last words are wrongly translated by Grote ;
- they mean " smartened up ".
