s
ascribed to an Eleatic stranger in the Sophist opinions which went
beyond the doctrines of the Eleatics. But the Eleatic stranger expressly
criticises the doctrines in which he had been brought up; he admits that
he is going to 'lay hands on his father Parmenides.' Nothing of this
kind is said of Zeno and Parmenides. How then, without a word of
explanation, could Plato assign to them the refutation of their own
tenets?

The conclusion at which we must arrive is that the Parmenides is not
a refutation of the Eleatic philosophy. Nor would such an explanation
afford any satisfactory connexion of the first and second parts of the
dialogue. And it is quite inconsistent with Plato's own relation to the
Eleatics. For of all the pre-Socratic philosophers, he speaks of them
with the greatest respect. But he could hardly have passed upon them a
more unmeaning slight than to ascribe to their great master tenets the
reverse of those which he actually held.

Two preliminary remarks may be made. First, that whatever latitude we
may allow to Plato in bringing together by a 'tour de force,' as in the
Phaedrus, dissimilar themes, yet he always in some way seeks to find
a connexion for them. Many threads join together in one the love and
dialectic of the Phaedrus. We cannot conceive that the great artist
would place in juxtaposition two absolutely divided and incoherent
subjects. And hence we are led to make a second remark: viz. that
no explanation of the Parmenides can be satisfactory which does not
indicate the connexion of the first and second parts. To suppose that
Plato would first go out of his way to make Parmenides attack the
Platonic Ideas, and then proceed to a similar but more fatal assault on
his own doctrine of Being, appears to be the height of absurdity.

Perhaps there is no passage in Plato showing greater metaphysical power
than that in which he assails his own theory of Ideas. The arguments are
nearly, if not quite, those of Aristotle; they are the objections which
naturally occur to a modern student of philosophy. Many persons will be
surprised to find Plato criticizing the very conceptions which have been
supposed in after ages to be peculiarly characteristic of him. How can
he have placed himself so completely without them? How can he have ever
persisted in them after seeing the fatal objections which might be urged
against them? The consideration of this difficulty has led a recent
critic (Ueberweg), who in ge