Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/572

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SOCRATES, SCHLEIERMACHER, AND DELBRUECK iHE two little pieces which have just been laid before the reader were intended, in some degree, to redeem a kind of promise made in a preceding number (i. p. 532.), where I had occasion to touch on some of the subjects discussed in them. The first of them, though small in bulk, perhaps deserves to be considered as one of the most important contributions made in modern times to the study of Greek philosophy, and I am not without hopes that, notwithstanding the disadvantages of its foreign dress, it may be able to make its way to the understand- ing and convictions of some of the persons who take an interest in the subject, and that it may in time supersede or at least materially modify the notion that has hitherto prevailed, as far as I know without any exception, in all English works on the history of ancient philosophy, with respect to the character of Socrates as a philosopher. Independently of this peculiar value of its contents it would have deserved a place here, if it had been only for the sake of giving a specimen, which is per- haps one of the most characteristic that could be found within the same compass, of the author'^s powers ; and thus of making some amends, if not to him, to ourselves, for the treatment he has received in a work which has recently disgraced our litera- ture — the so-called translation of Tennemann. The ignorance and incapacity of the person who has disguised that useful compendium in an English dress, have been sufficiently exposed in an article of the Edinburgh Review, which is only defective in not laying quite sufficient stress on the other prominent fea- ture of the work, its wilful, deliberate, shameless dishonesty. Schleiermacher is one of the persons in whose case the translator has immolated justice and truth to something which he takes, or would have taken, for religion : for this is the name under which he covers frauds and forgeries, such as we are apt to