登陆注册
4614100000009

第9章 PREFACE TO THE SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS.(6)

The external probability therefore against them is enormous, and the internal probability is not less: for they are trivial and unmeaning, devoid of delicacy and subtlety, wanting in a single fine expression. And even if this be matter of dispute, there can be no dispute that there are found in them many plagiarisms, inappropriately borrowed, which is a common note of forgery. They imitate Plato, who never imitates either himself or any one else; reminiscences of the Republic and the Laws are continually recurring in them; they are too like him and also too unlike him, to be genuine (see especially Karsten, Commentio Critica de Platonis quae feruntur Epistolis). They are full of egotism, self-assertion, affectation, faults which of all writers Plato was most careful to avoid, and into which he was least likely to fall. They abound in obscurities, irrelevancies, solecisms, pleonasms, inconsistencies, awkwardnesses of construction, wrong uses of words. They also contain historical blunders, such as the statement respecting Hipparinus and Nysaeus, the nephews of Dion, who are said to 'have been well inclined to philosophy, and well able to dispose the mind of their brother Dionysius in the same course,' at a time when they could not have been more than six or seven years of age--also foolish allusions, such as the comparison of the Athenian empire to the empire of Darius, which show a spirit very different from that of Plato; and mistakes of fact, as e.g. about the Thirty Tyrants, whom the writer of the letters seems to have confused with certain inferior magistrates, making them in all fifty-one. These palpable errors and absurdities are absolutely irreconcileable with their genuineness. And as they appear to have a common parentage, the more they are studied, the more they will be found to furnish evidence against themselves. The Seventh, which is thought to be the most important of these Epistles, has affinities with the Third and the Eighth, and is quite as impossible and inconsistent as the rest. It is therefore involved in the same condemnation.--The final conclusion is that neither the Seventh nor any other of them, when carefully analyzed, can be imagined to have proceeded from the hand or mind of Plato. The other testimonies to the voyages of Plato to Sicily and the court of Dionysius are all of them later by several centuries than the events to which they refer. No extant writer mentions them older than Cicero and Cornelius Nepos. It does not seem impossible that so attractive a theme as the meeting of a philosopher and a tyrant, once imagined by the genius of a Sophist, may have passed into a romance which became famous in Hellas and the world. It may have created one of the mists of history, like the Trojan war or the legend of Arthur, which we are unable to penetrate. In the age of Cicero, and still more in that of Diogenes Laertius and Appuleius, many other legends had gathered around the personality of Plato,--more voyages, more journeys to visit tyrants and Pythagorean philosophers. But if, as we agree with Karsten in supposing, they are the forgery of some rhetorician or sophist, we cannot agree with him in also supposing that they are of any historical value, the rather as there is no early independent testimony by which they are supported or with which they can be compared.

IV. There is another subject to which I must briefly call attention, lest I should seem to have overlooked it. Dr. Henry Jackson, of Trinity College, Cambridge, in a series of articles which he has contributed to the Journal of Philology, has put forward an entirely new explanation of the Platonic 'Ideas.' He supposes that in the mind of Plato they took, at different times in his life, two essentially different forms:--an earlier one which is found chiefly in the Republic and the Phaedo, and a later, which appears in the Theaetetus, Philebus, Sophist, Politicus, Parmenides, Timaeus. In the first stage of his philosophy Plato attributed Ideas to all things, at any rate to all things which have classes or common notions:

these he supposed to exist only by participation in them. In the later Dialogues he no longer included in them manufactured articles and ideas of relation, but restricted them to 'types of nature,' and having become convinced that the many cannot be parts of the one, for the idea of participation in them he substituted imitation of them. To quote Dr.

Jackson's own expressions,--'whereas in the period of the Republic and the Phaedo, it was proposed to pass through ontology to the sciences, in the period of the Parmenides and the Philebus, it is proposed to pass through the sciences to ontology': or, as he repeats in nearly the same words,--'whereas in the Republic and in the Phaedo he had dreamt of passing through ontology to the sciences, he is now content to pass through the sciences to ontology.'

This theory is supposed to be based on Aristotle's Metaphysics, a passage containing an account of the ideas, which hitherto scholars have found impossible to reconcile with the statements of Plato himself. The preparations for the new departure are discovered in the Parmenides and in the Theaetetus; and it is said to be expressed under a different form by the (Greek) and the (Greek) of the Philebus. The (Greek) of the Philebus is the principle which gives form and measure to the (Greek); and in the 'Later Theory' is held to be the (Greek) or (Greek) which converts the Infinite or Indefinite into ideas. They are neither (Greek) nor (Greek), but belong to the (Greek) which partakes of both.

With great respect for the learning and ability of Dr. Jackson, I find myself unable to agree in this newly fashioned doctrine of the Ideas, which he ascribes to Plato. I have not the space to go into the question fully;but I will briefly state some objections which are, I think, fatal to it.

同类推荐
  • 方洲杂言

    方洲杂言

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 仙卜奇缘

    仙卜奇缘

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 青华秘文

    青华秘文

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 阿毗昙八揵度论

    阿毗昙八揵度论

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 四肢门

    四肢门

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 相爷您的医妻有点毒

    相爷您的医妻有点毒

    一个医女成为一代医圣,和六国权相携手一生的风华之路。**************她是流落在外十六年的丞相嫡女宋晚致,再次回归,却被堵在城门口三天而不得入。——我家夫人说了,什么嫡女,连老子娘都死了千八百年了,还敢上前攀亲戚?就她那没见识的样,便是我们丞相府中最下等的丫头也比她好些。不过她想要进丞相府给我家夫人洗脚,倒是可以求着夫人试试。结果,丞相夫人被扇了一巴掌之后,亲自为她擦拭着轿子说——大小姐,请。回归丞相府,一只玉手挑动掩藏在皇权深处的处处风波,暗地医术生杀在手。一国太子,权贵世子,少年将军,一个个男人凑上前来,心思叵测,只为娶她。结果,她转身嫁了回家途中遇见的一个种田农夫。——这便是我的夫君,请问诸位还有什么想说的?太子:瞎眼了!世子:没见识!将军:走着瞧!然而那位农夫却只一心待她,将她如珠似宝的捧在手里,不理会众人嘲讽,安然自在。直到有一天,一位神秘男子突然到来,对他说:“你算什么人,不过是一个最下贱的农夫而已。你以为你护得了她?你以为你看到的她就是真正的她吗?她早就嫁了人,还为了一个人,灭了一座城,绝非表面那样温雅柔和,而是杀伐果断,狠辣无双,被无数人敬仰的天下凤凰。这样的女子,你配得?”农夫微微一笑:“在下不管她曾经是谁,曾经是谁的妻子,只要她还在我身边,我便让她百岁安康。她灭一座城,我救一座城。她覆一个国,我便还这天下一个太平盛世。她的双手若有鲜血,我给她悉数洗清。”神秘男子:你到底是谁?!当真正的面纱揭开,谁都不知道,这位最平常的男人,竟然是传说中六国权相——苏梦忱!十五岁,他让陈国换皇权。十六岁,他替梁国定江山。十七岁,他使宋国灭赵国。十八岁,他将三国免战争。四年风云,三年蛰伏,再次出现,他携着她手,一同平天下。素手起,她一根银针救黎民百姓于水火。广袖拂,他一指乾坤定天下太平于战乱。且将这一碗红豆慢慢熬成汤,待这一生一世为你相思成疾,许一场地老天荒,共一次相濡以沫,可好?***************男主VS女主1,“公子是农夫?”“……是。”“姑娘是厨娘?”“……是。”——待将天下事了,我为你种田可好?——待将病人医罢,我为你做饭可好?2,——入我相思门,知我相思苦。法门何在?——汝愿进?愿剃一生无忧发,铺就相思门前红尘路;愿卸一身富贵衣,洗尽相思门前菩提树;
  • 我被他套路了好多年

    我被他套路了好多年

    【国家欠我一个男朋友系列】洛微微发誓,她这辈子走过最长的路是韩卓言的……套、路!!欢脱日常文,简介无能,请直接跳坑(坑里见
  • 圣经学规纂论学

    圣经学规纂论学

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 想做先生的小尾巴

    想做先生的小尾巴

    第一次住进他家,他对她说的第一句话便是:“哪里来的丑丫头?”后来却是:“喵小七,我允许你喜欢我!”“喵小七,你亲我一下!”…“不管你是什么妖魔鬼怪,鬼魅魍魉,喵小七,我都喜欢你!”在喵小七还没有出现之前,慕熙南认为他喜欢的人应该是有淑女的气质,飘逸的长发,好听的声音,娴雅的性格。但当喵小七出现之后,慕熙南才发现他真正喜欢的人是,会撒娇,会卖萌,不温柔,不优雅,除了可爱一无是处。【甜宠/软萌小甜心vs腹黑大恶魔】
  • 欧亨利短篇小说精选

    欧亨利短篇小说精选

    本书精选了欧·亨利以不同背景创作的二十八篇作品——所有著名代表作品均已包含其中,并特别收录了他一生中最后一篇尚未完成的小说《梦》。在这些作品中,欧·亨利以风趣犀利的语言解构了生存的种种窘迫,用峰回路转的结尾为人生扩展出无数的可能性。正如他在小说《麦琪的礼物》中所言:人世间所谓的生活是由哭泣、抽噎、破涕为笑组合而成的。而他的文章如同冬夜里一盏小小的烛火,让你在想要落泪的时候,绽开一个“泛着泪光的微笑”。
  • 毒步天下,无良太子妃

    毒步天下,无良太子妃

    他是当朝废物太子,她是出了名的药罐子。他装傻,她充楞。他背地里玩转乾坤,她暗地里以毒服人。两人联手,上斗奸臣,下斗所谓的亲人,层层迷局,不断揭发,当揭发出她的身份乃前朝遗孤时。他只道:我只认她是本宫的太子妃!--情节虚构,请勿模仿
  • 我想再见你一面

    我想再见你一面

    瑾瑜在一个雨天遇见了那个叫做颖萱的女孩,瑾瑜对她一见钟情,慢慢地,便爱上了这个女孩,两个青年人互相爱着对方,可谁知天有不测风云人有旦夕祸福,年轻的瑾瑜竟然患上了骨病之王——“骨化性肌炎”,为了后半生不拖累颖萱,瑾瑜便隐瞒住了这个消息,接着他“甩”了颖萱,为了防止真相被颖萱知道,瑾瑜便选择了离开那座城市,离开所有的朋友,尤其是瑾瑜和颖萱共同的朋友,振华,雯雯,还有婉婷。真正的爱不是同甘共苦,而是将所有的“苦”留给自己,将所有的“甘”留给对方。
  • 佛说大乘八大曼拏罗经

    佛说大乘八大曼拏罗经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 长得漂亮不如说得漂亮:女人享用一生的口才书

    长得漂亮不如说得漂亮:女人享用一生的口才书

    一个女人可以生得不漂亮,但是一定要说得漂亮。无论什么时候,渊博的知识、良好的修养、文明的举止、优雅的谈吐、出口不凡的表达,一定可以让她活得足够漂亮,一个女人只要口才佳,相信没有谁可以阻碍她幸福的脚步。
  • 修罗女将:邪王追悍妃

    修罗女将:邪王追悍妃

    冷峻,狂傲,睥睨天下,悲悯苍生的是她。沙场点兵,她一身战甲挥斥方遒!腹黑,妖孽,颜如美玉,权戏天下的是他。宫夺皇权,他以铁血手腕翻覆九州四海!她说:这山河疆域之广,终不过你手中一盘棋。他笑:那这江山棋局,只有你配与我对弈共掌天下!【狡黠隐忍,沉潜厚黑!男强女强,强强碰撞!美男可以有,但是1V1独宠!】