PLATONIC DIALOGUES. 483 



(S). Then, in the case supposed, the production would not take 

 place from a principle (ou/c dv €$ dpxif's yiyvovro), inaS' 

 much as, if it did, there would be two principles, the one 

 produced from the other — a view, the absurdity of which 

 is to Plato too apparent to require to be expressly set 

 forth. 



(e). But the conclusion (8) is contradictory of the Premiss 

 (/3) ; and therefore the hypothesis (y) is untenable. In 

 other words, the Proposition sought to be proved is es- 

 tablished. 



"While the unamended text thus yields an intelligible and (from 

 the Platonic point of view) conclusive argument, the readings sug- 

 gested by Muretus (a), Buttmann (6), and Ast (c), reduce the im- 

 port of the reasoning contained in the clause, h yap « tov apxt 

 •ytyvoiTo K. T. X, to this : a principle is unprodiiced, for if it were not, 

 it would not he a principle ; where it is plain that no real advance- 

 ment in the demonstration is made. Why (the reader asks) is it 

 impossible for that which is produced to be a principle ? The only 

 conceivable answer is, that, if what is produced were a principle, 

 there would be two principles, the one produced from the other. 

 Now this is exactly what the unamended text expresses ; so that the 

 emendations suggested by the eminent scholars named, reject from 

 the text an idea which Plato must be understood to have had in his 

 mind. But more, in the passage as amended, the clause e^ apx'/' 

 yap dvayKT] irav to yiyvofievov yiyvitrOai, which we cannot suppose Plato 

 to have introduced without a purpose, serves absolutely no purpose 

 whatsoever. 



According to Schleiermacher's amendment (c?), tovto refers to the 

 preceding « tov. The argument then \&: if a principle (which we 

 may call P), is produced from anything (as from x), it loill follovo 

 that this X (tovto) is not produced from a principle. This view ap- 

 pears the most unsatisfactory of all. Besides being open to other 

 objections, it attributes to Plato irrelevant reasoning — which we are 

 not gratuitously to do. For, though x were not produced from a 

 principle, what then ? Let it be conceived that x is not produced 

 at all. This does not (at least, directly) warrant the inference that 

 P is unproduced. 



