minations, unity, permanency, etc.; secondly, it is the continuous substratum of the corporeal world. For this inconsequence Slonimsky suggests reasons latent in Parmenides' method of thought.

In 1911 W. Roscher1 developed a theory, that the first eleven chapters of the Hippocratic tract Περὶ ἑβδομάδων were a very ancient work representing a pre-Pythagorean standpoint, and issuing from the circle of Anaximander and Anaximenes. His grounds were—(1) a map of the world described in c. 11, which he thought must have been drawn by a Milesian of the sixth century; and (2) the tract's cosmological and numerical doctrines, which appeared to him old Ionian rather than Pythagorean. Diels argued with great force that Roscher's hypothesis was wrong in every respect, dating the work c. 450-350 B.C., and explaining its old-fashioned doctrines as due to archaistic compilation. Diels' criticism brings a reply 2 from Roscher dealing mainly with the question of the map, but doing little to strengthen his case. The pseudo-Hippocratean IIepì réxvns, wrongly believed by T. Gomperz to have emanated from the Protagorean school, Diels assigns to one of the 'vain polymaths' of about 400 B.C. He comments at length on various difficulties in the text, due in part to the 'precious' style of the author.

3

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Among the most notable books of the year is H. Gomperz' Sophistik und Rhetorik, or the educational ideal of Eû Xéyew in its relation to the philosophy of the fifth century.' The main thesis of the book is that the Sophists were only concerned with rhetorical form. Herein the son seeks to upset the views of the father, who, in his Greek Thinkers, maintained that the Sophists were not merely showy rhetoricians and logic-choppers, but represented a

1 Über Alter, Ursprung und Bedeutung der hippokratischen Schrift von der Siebenzahl, Teubner; 7 m.

2 Die neuentdeckte Schrift eines altmilesischen Naturphilosophen und ihre Beurteilung durch H. Diels, Stuttgart (Kohlhammer), 1912; 2 m. 50. See Berl. Phil. Woch. 1912, pp. 1369-76 and 1878 f.

3 Hermes, 1913, pp. 378-407.

4 Teubner, 1912; 10 m.

profound intellectual movement. A typical instance of H. Gomperz' method is his treatment of Gorgias. This philosopher's Περὶ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος, commonly regarded as a kind of text-book of philosophical nihilism, was, he thinks, not meant seriously at all. It was a playful study in paradox, subsequently misunderstood by the author of de Melisso Xenophane Gorgia. H. Gomperz' reactionary theories have aroused considerable opposition.1

Prof. Taylor's Varia Socratica, as might be expected, has found vigorous assailants. Mr A. S. Ferguson's article, 'The Impiety of Socrates,' is a 22 is a closely reasoned criticism of Prof. Taylor's contention that the impiety for which Socrates was condemned consisted in his connection with an Orphic-Pythagorean cult. Socrates' Pythagorean friends, so far from bringing him into suspicion, could be cited by the orthodox Xenophon as witnesses in his favour. Mr G. C. Field's Socrates and Plato3 is a brilliant onslaught on the whole of Prof. Taylor's position. He defends Xenophon's account of Socrates from the strictures of Prof. Taylor, and argues that Aristotle's evidence is thoroughly unfavourable to the view that Socrates was a Pythagorean, or held a theory of Ideas. Referring to the fact that the Ideal theory does not make its appearance till quite late in the Platonic writings, he asks with much point, 'Supposing that the doctrine really was a distinguishing mark of Socrates' teaching, and that Plato learnt it from him, is it not perfectly extraordinary that he makes no mention of it in any of the writings which were intended to expound that teaching until about twenty years after the master's death?'

Dr Otto Apelt's Platonische Aufsätze is a volume of twelve essays on various aspects of Plato's philosophy and literary art. It includes such subjects as "The Place beyond the Heavens,' i.e., the fundamentals of the Ideal theory, 'Plato's humour,' 'The tactics of the Platonic Socrates,

1 See, e.g., W. Nestle in Berl. Phil. Woch. 30th August 1913.

2 Class. Quart. 1913, pp. 157-75.

3 Parker & Co., Oxford, 1913; 2s. net. 4 Teubner, 1912; 8 m.

'Plato's theory of Punishment," "The two Hippias Dialogues.' At the outset Apelt reveals his own philosophical position by treating Plato as the forerunner of Kant, a point of view which frequently recurs in the volume. He holds strongly the transcendence of the Ideas; they are not merely of logical import, but spiritual substances, separate alike from things and from God. His readiness to find humour in Plato probably leads him too far when he regards the dialectics of the latter part of the Parmenides as mere sport, as well as the postulation of the evil world-soul in the Laws. Dr Apelt has also translated the Philebus,1 adding an appendix on difficult points in the dialogue.

3

C. Richter 2 has examined the part played by Philip of Opus in editing Plato's Laws. He thinks that Philip published the unfinished work—that is, transferred it to rolls from the 433 wax tablets on which Plato had written it-without any change except possibly the removal of certain inconsistencies. From a consideration of the arguments of the Platonic dialogues on love, virtue, knowledge, and the nature of the soul, C. Barwick argues that the Phaedrus was composed before the Euthydemus, Cratylus, and Phaedo and after the Gorgias, Euthyphro, and Meno. He devotes a long section to combating Raeder's view that the Phaedrus is later than the Republic. In another section he considers the language of the Phaedrus and attacks Ritter, who on stylometrical grounds divides the dialogues into three groups, and places the Phaedrus in his second group along with the Theaetetus and the Republic.

In Plato's Moral and Political Ideas 4 Mrs Adam shows how the shadow of the trial and death of Socrates, who had been a laudator temporis acti in politics, caused Plato 'not only to despair of his country as then constituted, but to call forth the vision of an upward road leading, if men would 1 Platons Dialog Philebus, Leipzig (Meiner), 1912.

2 De legum Platonicarum libris, i., ii., iii., Greifswald, 1912.

3 De Platonis Phaedri temporibus, Teubner, 1913; 3 m. 20.

4 Cambridge University Press (Manuals of Science and Literature), 1913; 1s.

only cleave to it, to a city set in heaven.' She points out very clearly the significance of Plato's difficulties in the earlier dialogues as to the identification of knowledge with virtue, and as to the teachability of virtue. Possibly the author is inclined to overemphasise the place of divination in Socrates' thought through her desire to contrast the moral rationalism of Plato with the agnosticism of Socrates. The book forms a valuable introduction to the study of the Republic. In opposition to the general view that Plato arrived first at the triple division of the soul, and then built up his state in three corresponding stages, Mr F. M. Cornford1 argues that Plato began with his social structure, and then adapted his tripartite psychology to it. He shows that the virtues of owppoσúvn, courage, and wisdom, were popularly regarded as correlated with the three ages of human life-childhood, manhood, and old age, and that the structure of early Greek societies, especially Sparta, which Plato clearly had in mind, was based on the distinction of three main age grades. An article by R. Hirzel2 shows the stages by which ovcía, originally a word of the popular, or rather legal, speech, meaning 'property,' reached in Plato its metaphysical sense of 'substance,' ' essence.'

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The Platonic letters are at present receiving a good deal of attention. In his Authorship of the Platonic Epistles, Mr R. Hackforth3 first reviews the history of the attempts to solve the problem, and then discusses the value of stylometry as applied to the epistles. He holds that its use is best avoided here, and that proof of authenticity, if proof be possible, must be sought by a detailed examination of each epistle. Consequently he subjects the letters to searching historical, linguistic, and, where possible, philosophical tests, and concludes that iii., iv., vii., viii., and xiii. are genuine, and i., ii., v., vi., xii. spurious, while ix., x., and xi. must be left doubtful. He thinks that the spurious letters may date from the early days of the Alexandrian or Pergamene 2 Philologus, lxxii., pp. 42-64.

1 Class. Quart. 1912, pp. 246-64.

3 Manchester University Press, 1913; 6s. net. See also p. 164.

libraries. Otto Immisch1 argues that the compiler of the Platonic epistles had a dogmatic purpose, namely, the completion of Plato's political philosophy and the setting forth of the Tρíτη πoλɩтeía referred to in Laws, 739 E. Immisch believes that Epistle i. was the composition of a rhetorician, or historian, perhaps Timaeus, professing to be from the Spartan Dexippus to Dionysius. Prof. Taylor2 supports the genuineness of the whole of Epistle vii., including the digression, suspected by some, which maintains that philosophy cannot be properly communicated by books, but only by the prolonged personal contact of mind with mind. Prof. Taylor's exposition of the philosophical content of the digression is most illuminating.

The English translation of the last volume of Theodor Gomperz' Griechische Denker,3 dealing mainly with Aristotle, appeared a few days after the death of its illustrious author, on August 29th, 1912. The loss of so brilliant a scholar and man of letters is indeed hard to bear, and we shall never see his contemplated volume on the philosophy of the Hellenistic Age. In his treatment of Aristotle he emphasises the continual backsliding of the professed empiric into the bad a priori habits,' which are condemned so severely in others, and that fundamental vice of the metaphysical method, the inference from the order of human ideas to the order of natural facts,' which he finds in Aristotle 'disdaining every veil and flaunting in unabashed nakedness.' Gomperz' admiration for the scientific methods of the Atomists is constantly manifested. The little volume on Aristotle in "The People's Books' is intended to help the English reader to understand the various Aristotelian expressions in our language as well as much that he will find in Dante, Shakespeare, and Bacon. The book has two very sufficient recommendations: that it is by Prof. A. E. Taylor, and that

1 Philologus, lxxii., pp. 1-41.

2 The Analysis of morýμn in Plato's Seventh Epistle,' Mind, xxi., pp. 346-70.

3 John Murray; 14s. net.

Aristotle, T. C. & E. C. Jack.