er half. But there is no reason to suppose that
Plato's theory, or, rather, his various theories, of the Ideas
underwent any definite change during his period of authorship. They are
substantially the same in the twelfth Book of the Laws as in the Meno
and Phaedo; and since the Laws were written in the last decade of his
life, there is no time to which this change of opinions can be ascribed.
It is true that the theory of Ideas takes several different forms, not
merely an earlier and a later one, in the various Dialogues. They are
personal and impersonal, ideals and ideas, existing by participation or
by imitation, one and many, in different parts of his writings or even
in the same passage. They are the universal definitions of Socrates, and
at the same time 'of more than mortal knowledge' (Rep.). But they
are always the negations of sense, of matter, of generation, of the
particular: they are always the subjects of knowledge and not of
opinion; and they tend, not to diversity, but to unity. Other entities
or intelligences are akin to them, but not the same with them, such as
mind, measure, limit, eternity, essence (Philebus; Timaeus): these and
similar terms appear to express the same truths from a different point
of view, and to belong to the same sphere with them. But we are not
justified, therefore, in attempting to identify them, any more than
in wholly opposing them. The great oppositions of the sensible and
intellectual, the unchangeable and the transient, in whatever form of
words expressed, are always maintained in Plato. But the lesser
logical distinctions, as we should call them, whether of ontology or
predication, which troubled the pre-Socratic philosophy and came to the
front in Aristotle, are variously discussed and explained. Thus far we
admit inconsistency in Plato, but no further. He lived in an age before
logic and system had wholly permeated language, and therefore we must
not always expect to find in him systematic arrangement or logical
precision:--'poema magis putandum.' But he is always true to his own
context, the careful study of which is of more value to the interpreter
than all the commentators and scholiasts put together.

(3) The conclusions at which Dr. Jackson has arrived are such as might
be expected to follow from his method of procedure. For he takes words
without regard to their connection, and pieces together different
parts of dialogues in a purely arbitrary manner, although there i