1 3 2 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



he will gain thereby an idea of some general 

 law. To remedy the frequent inexactness of 

 beginners, it is advised that continual use 

 should be made of balances, weights, rulers, 

 and protractors, and definite quantities al- 

 ways required. The mathematics involved 

 are the four fundamental rules of arithmetic, 

 fractions, ratio, and percentage, and the 

 problems for study are sufficiently varied, 

 being taken from seven departments of sci- 

 ence. 



The method is good, but several of the 

 subjects appear beyond the grasp of a pupil 

 in percentage. While interest may be 

 aroused in the colors of insects, the constitu- 

 ents of fruits, or the process of evaporation, 

 it is hardly possible that the ratio of the 

 area lying south of the mean annual isotherm 

 of 50 Fahr. to that lying south of the mean 

 annual isotherm of 40 Fahr., or calculations 

 of rainfall and drainage, should be more com- 

 prehensible or attractive to the average boy 

 than questions in taxation and insurance. 



PLATO AND PLATONISM. By WALTER PATER. 

 London and New York : Macmillan & Co. 

 Pp. 256. Price, $1.75. 



HOWEVER materialistic the mood of the 

 reader may be, these lectures are apt to take 

 him unawares and hold him for a time com- 

 pletely under their spell. He wanders amid 

 the groves of the Academy and listens to 

 Socratic dialogue until he becomes somewhat 

 hypnotized and is prepared to meet the Just 

 and the Beautiful face to face. Not that Mr. 

 Pater inculcates the possibility of any such 

 actual vision. He pronounces the theory of 

 the many and the one difficult doctrine and 

 acknowledges that, with all allowance for 

 poetical expression, the universals to which 

 Plato would introduce us are very much like 

 living beings. 



In order to form a just or historic esti- 

 mate of Platonism, the conditions of its gene- 

 sis and growth must be examined. Mr. Pater 

 projects for us in vivid outline the Greek in- 

 tellectual life preceding Socrates. The phi- 

 losophy of Plato was a protest against the 

 doctrine of Heraclitus. His dogma of uni- 

 versal change, irdvra pel, is not unlike the 

 modern idea of development and evolution, 

 but to Plato it was in the highest degree re- 

 pugnant. Recognizing the tendency to vary, 

 he considered it an evil to be corrected, and 



sought in the nature of man, in culture, in 

 society, for an unalterable K6cr^os. In the 

 Republic he shows how this order may be 

 established in a community. 



Personally, Plato is depicted not as a 

 rigid philosopher wrapped in speculations, 

 but as a keenly impressionable nature with 

 every sense sharpened to the external world. 

 This gives " an impassioned glow to his con- 

 ceptions," and endows his writing with the 

 fineness of Thackeray. 



According to modern views, two radically 

 divergent tendencies are discoverable in 

 Platonism. First, the theory of ideas, that 

 the highest knowledge is intuitive and abso- 

 lute. Secondly, the dialectic method, the 

 endless question and answer, the weighing of 

 every minute grain of evidence. Mr. Pater 

 considers that we owe not only this method, 

 " a habit of tentative thinking and suspended 

 judgment," to Plato, but that it is straight 

 from his lips that the language came in 

 which the mind has ever since been dis- 

 coursing with itself. 



In conclusion, if we doubt Plato's im- 

 mutable ideas, we may still seek for the 

 ideals he pictures. If we reject his com- 

 munistic theories, we can accept his classifi- 

 cation of the orders of men, the intellectual, 

 the executive and the productive. We may 

 even strive to realize his dictum that those 

 who come to office should not be lovers of 

 it ! As for his contention with the Sophists, 

 that is a question of to-day. Which is essen- 

 tial, matter or form ? Should the artist and 

 writer know and feel the truth himself, or 

 only know what others think about it ? If 

 we believe the former, we may go to the 

 Phaedrus for inspiration. 



GOVERNMENTS AND POLITICIANS, ANCIENT AND 

 MODERN. By CHARLES MARCOTTE. Chi- 

 cago: Charles Marcotte, 175 Monroe 

 Street. Pp. 478. Price, $2. 



THE merits of this work are anything but 

 inconsiderable when viewed from the stand- 

 point of a measurable reforming medium. 

 More. The author's sincerity and thorough- 

 ness of purpose manifestly inheres between 

 the lines on every page. We leave it, how- 

 ever, to the judgment of others to say 

 whether the " Constitution " of this country 

 as alleged is responsible for the exist- 

 ence of " professional " and " unscrupulous " 



