another, or that even in the same dialogue he always in- tended the two parts to be connected with each other. We cannot argue from a casual statement found in the Par- menides to other statements which occur in the Philebus. Much more truly is his own manner described by himself when he says that 'words are more plastic than wax' (Rep. ix. 588 C), and 'whither the wind blows, the argu- ment follows ' (ib. iii. 394 D). The dialogues of Plato are like poems, isolated and separate works, except where they are indicated by the author himself to have an intentional sequence.
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 '.) 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
' See J. of Philol. xiii. 38, and elsewhere.
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