REVIEWS OP FOREIGN WORKS. 1 71 



are, however, general points which we would not take honajlde, and 

 most particularly the assertion of the author that before the death of 

 Socrates Plato had been unacquainted with the other philosophical 

 systems of the day — a circumstance that is replete with very import- 

 ant consequences for the conclusions and inferences developed in the 

 sequel. 



The second book exhibits the various systems of the philosophy of 

 the day, their influence upon, and connection with, that of Plato. 

 The general opinion that Plato had reconciled and adopted in his 

 system the different contradictory views of the other philosophers, does 

 not seem satisfactory to our author, who argues, with a great display 

 of erudition, that Plato had merely worked out the materials of va- 

 rious fallacious views into a system of his own, in which he trans- 

 forms the unity of the Electic school into the principle of form, the 

 perpetual creation of Heraclite into the principle of matter, the 

 creating spirit of Anaxagoras into a primitive cause, and the notion 

 of harmony of Pythagoras into the final end and aim of all the ope- 

 rations of nature in general. In developing the systems of the phi- 

 losophers just mentioned, the author dwells particularly on the sys- 

 tem of the sophists, not only because it preceded more immediately 

 that of Plato, and throws besides great light upon the philosophy of 

 Socrates, but also because the author does not concur in the opinion 

 of those who consider the system of the sophists as a corrupted 

 branch of the vigorous tree of knowledge, but views it rather as the 

 natural fruit of the loose and partial speculations of the preceding 

 philosophers. "Whatever the defects and fallacies, the author thinks, 

 of their views may have been, the sophists have the credit of having 

 been the first to single out the reflecting subject, man, as the basis of 

 all philosophical contemplations ; but while they spoke of man only 

 in his individual and personal quality, Socrates pointed to the whole 

 sphere of humanity, in his sublime relation to the Deity, as the stan- 

 dard of all objects in nature. The application of the Socratic doc- 

 trines, however, to the views of nature by the preceding philosophers, 

 soon led to those partial and incorrect notions, as promulgated by the 

 various so-called — though improperly — Socratic schools, until Plato 

 united them all in the harmonic structure of his system. 



The third book contains the chronological arrangment of P.'s writ- 

 ings, illustrative of his system ; and is of great importance to those 

 readers who have perused Schleiermacher's divisions on that head. 

 The latter tries to lend to all the writings of P., his detached dis- 

 courses not even excepted, a certain dialectic method, while Dr. 

 Hermann is opposed to that view for sundry reasons, and thinks it, 

 among others, highly improbable that P. should, in the long career 

 of his authorship, have continually thouo;ht and written on a certain 

 fixed plan ; he is, therefore, of opinion, that the plan and method of 

 P. ifnderwent the same and simultaneous development as his views, 

 and ripened with them. This the author explains and supports by 



