neral accepts the authorised canon of the
Platonic writings, to condemn the Parmenides as spurious. The accidental
want of external evidence, at first sight, seems to favour this opinion.

In answer, it might be sufficient to say, that no ancient writing of
equal length and excellence is known to be spurious. Nor is the silence
of Aristotle to be hastily assumed; there is at least a doubt whether
his use of the same arguments does not involve the inference that he
knew the work. And, if the Parmenides is spurious, like Ueberweg, we
are led on further than we originally intended, to pass a similar
condemnation on the Theaetetus and Sophist, and therefore on the
Politicus (compare Theaet., Soph.). But the objection is in reality
fanciful, and rests on the assumption that the doctrine of the Ideas was
held by Plato throughout his life in the same form. For the truth
is, that the Platonic Ideas were in constant process of growth and
transmutation; sometimes veiled in poetry and mythology, then again
emerging as fixed Ideas, in some passages regarded as absolute and
eternal, and in others as relative to the human mind, existing in
and derived from external objects as well as transcending them. The
anamnesis of the Ideas is chiefly insisted upon in the mythical portions
of the dialogues, and really occupies a very small space in the entire
works of Plato. Their transcendental existence is not asserted, and
is therefore implicitly denied in the Philebus; different forms
are ascribed to them in the Republic, and they are mentioned in the
Theaetetus, the Sophist, the Politicus, and the Laws, much as Universals
would be spoken of in modern books. Indeed, there are very faint traces
of the transcendental doctrine of Ideas, that is, of their existence
apart from the mind, in any of Plato's writings, with the exception of
the Meno, the Phaedrus, the Phaedo, and in portions of the Republic. The
stereotyped form which Aristotle has given to them is not found in Plato
(compare Essay on the Platonic Ideas in the Introduction to the Meno.)

The full discussion of this subject involves a comprehensive survey of
the philosophy of Plato, which would be out of place here. But, without
digressing further from the immediate subject of the Parmenides, we
may remark that Plato is quite serious in his objections to his own
doctrines: nor does Socrates attempt to offer any answer to them. The
perplexities which surround the one and many in the sph