It is this method of taking passages out of their context and placing them in a new connexion when they seem to confirm a preconceived theory, which is the defect of Dr. Jackson's procedure. It may be compared, though not wholly the same with it, to that method which the Fathers practised, sometimes called 'the mystical interpretation of Scripture,' in which isolated words are separated from their context, and receive any sense which the fancy of the interpreter may suggest. It is akin to the method employed by Schleiermacher of arranging the dialogues of Plato in chronological order according to what he deems the true arrangement of the ideas contained in them. (Dr. Jackson is also inclined, having constructed a theory, to make the chronology of Plato's writings dependent upon it (See J. of Philol.and elsewhere.).) It may likewise be illustrated by the ingenuity of those who employ symbols to find in Shakespeare a hidden meaning. In the three cases the error is nearly the same:--words are taken out of their natural context, and thus become destitute of any real meaning.
(4) According to Dr. Jackson's 'Later Theory,' Plato's Ideas, which were once regarded as the summa genera of all things, are now to be explained as Forms or Types of some things only,--that is to say, of natural objects:
these we conceive imperfectly, but are always seeking in vain to have a more perfect notion of them. He says (J. of Philol.) that 'Plato hoped by the study of a series of hypothetical or provisional classifications to arrive at one in which nature's distribution of kinds is approximately represented, and so to attain approximately to the knowledge of the ideas.
But whereas in the Republic, and even in the Phaedo, though less hopefully, he had sought to convert his provisional definitions into final ones by tracing their connexion with the summum genus, the (Greek), in the Parmenides his aspirations are less ambitious,' and so on. But where does Dr. Jackson find any such notion as this in Plato or anywhere in ancient philosophy? Is it not an anachronism, gracious to the modern physical philosopher, and the more acceptable because it seems to form a link between ancient and modern philosophy, and between physical and metaphysical science; but really unmeaning?
(5) To this 'Later Theory' of Plato's Ideas I oppose the authority of Professor Zeller, who affirms that none of the passages to which Dr.
Jackson appeals (Theaet.; Phil.; Tim.; Parm.) 'in the smallest degree prove his point'; and that in the second class of dialogues, in which the 'Later Theory of Ideas' is supposed to be found, quite as clearly as in the first, are admitted Ideas, not only of natural objects, but of properties, relations, works of art, negative notions (Theaet.; Parm.; Soph.); and that what Dr. Jackson distinguishes as the first class of dialogues from the second equally assert or imply that the relation of things to the Ideas, is one of participation in them as well as of imitation of them (Prof.
Zeller's summary of his own review of Dr. Jackson, Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie.)In conclusion I may remark that in Plato's writings there is both unity, and also growth and development; but that we must not intrude upon him either a system or a technical language.
Balliol College, October, 1891.
NOTE
The chief additions to the Introductions in the Third Edition consist of Essays on the following subjects:--1. Language.
2. The decline of Greek Literature.
3. The 'Ideas' of Plato and Modern Philosophy.
4. The myths of Plato.
5. The relation of the Republic, Statesman and Laws.
6. The legend of Atlantis.
7. Psychology.
8. Comparison of the Laws of Plato with Spartan and Athenian Laws and Institutions.
