New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1892-08-11
JOWETT'S PLATO.
SOME INTERESTING PECULIARITIES OF THE
THIRD EDITION.

al" msh wdiS Anayscs and INTERPRETATIONS Third ed-
ton revised and corrected throughout With mar
SIna d HSc y"nm %@ G Pp xxxv 5o4; 57e ccxIx,
543; 645 ccxxxvli., 541 Macmillan & Co.
One OF the striking features Of the new ana
greatly enlarged edition Of Professor Jowetts
Plato is the series of page headings. They are not
of the conventional sort-the title Of tho book
more or less abbreviated on one side and
description Of the general purpose Of the work on
the other side of the leaf repeated over and over
again from page to page and volume to volume
On the contrary, they bear close relation TO the
discussion going on below; they have much OF
the vividness the diversity, the Imagination and
the humor Of the text Sometimes they are IN
Latin; once, at least, in French; but whatever
language they happen TO be in, they ore a part
of the whole that cannot be overlooked without
loss. Sometimes they repeat in changed phrase
the substance Of what is said somewhere on the
page below. In the Memo, when Socrates Is add
ing sentence by sentence the arguments that con-
firm bis notion Of the immortality OF the soul,
Memo remarks wistfully, II feel somehow that /
like what you are saying" Socrates answers very
canddly, And / like what / am saying. Some
things have said Of which I am not altogether
confident But that we shall he better and Drawer
and less helpless il we think We ought to inquire,
than we should have been if we INDUCED the
know what we do not know-that is a theme upon
which am ready to fight in word and deed to
the utmost of my power" To this the translator
adjusts the contentious line Socrates Is more
confident of SEINE things than of Others" In the
Laws where the Ashenian stranger is dilatins
on the dangers of excessive wealth and insisting
that goodness is Indispensable TO the happiness
even of the rich. the pageheadlng is, i very
rich man can hardly be very good man. point
ing directly to Plato's emphatic uttcrance, so
strongly suggestive of the Evangrlist's rich man
for whom heavens gate is narrower than the
needles eye to a camel And good in high
degree and rich in high degree at the same time
he cannot be.
Over another passage Of the Laws it requires three
pages to complete the heading on the moral nat
ure of the Deity: The gods, being vrtuous,
cannot be indolent If they neglect us it is not
from Incidence We are their property, and they
must care for us" Thus runs the superscription
and below we read the very practical human argu-
ment that what is bad in man-for example.
careessness. idleness or luXury-cannot be good in
n God. who would then have a nature which he
himself must hate therefore, il the gods neglect
mankind it is because they know they ought not
TO care for such insignificant creatures, or because
they are ignorant: and since they cannot be lg-
norant of what belongs to them, nor careless OF
their own property it follows that there must De
some mistake about their paying no attention to
human affairs.
Sometimes the head is merely n briefer state
ment changed but little from the words OF the
text, as in the Lesser IIippias. where Hippas, all
tangled I'D in the web woven by the cunning
Socrates, ventures at last to disagree with con-
clusion which he has almost involuntarly helped
TO attain and Socrates calmly agrees that the
conclusion is wrong, and adds ironically that LOT
ordinary men like himself 10 90 wrong is no great
matter. but for wise man like Hlpplas 70 wan
der is a serinus business One can almost see
the smile that wrcathed the face Of the learned
beadliner as he wrote. Tippias cannot agree with
Socrates nor Socrates with himself,' but " Soc
rates thinks the matter serious" AT other times
the superscription is a summary Of whole page,
nav. Of whole pages as when. with tinge OF
Scriptural phraseologv it is remarked over pas
saue in the Gorgias THE dialectical process TO
the man OF the world is foolishness" There Is
pofbipe of this kind in Plato. who is in fact too
deeply interested in the graphic portrayal OF tne
anxiety and reluctance with which Callicles SUD-
mits 10 the minute puncturinC process OF the
Athenian gadfy, and in depicting the constant
play Of irony and earnestness in the questions OF
Socrates. to think of comment that puts the
whole performance in a nutshell.
The mage headings 10 the Gorgas in fact, carry
forward the story like the Old-fsshloned ArSu-
ment that used TO be put in front OF the cantos
of a poem which nobody on earth was ever hkciy
to read We see Gorgias initiating himself, ready.
70 answer all corners, suspending Pous in the
attention Of Socrates, getting on famousy as
long as he can make his own definitions, dodg-
ing the obligation 10 clear up his statements, but
brought 10 the point at last, and forced 10 keep
measure with Socrates, who will only take one
.ten at a time" Convicted of inconsistency, he
Yields gladly to the self-cOnfident Polus, who ls
irritated at the stupidity of Socrates. amused by
his paradoxes, and then convinced by Them though
they are plainly sophistical. Completely Devil
dered, he Is obliged TO give way 10 Callcies, VINO
begins by wondering if Socrates Is In earnest In
wolves himself In q contradiction, founders I'm
patiently, grows more and moro cXasperated'
while Socrates becomes more and more ironical
sulks and refuses TO say what he thinks but Ii
caught lawyer-fashion by a roundabout series
of questions Of which he fails TO sec the driit
and then unfairly pretends that he answered ques-
lions only in fun. But his embarrassment and mpa-
thence increase, with intervals Of casy-going, when
no feels as il Socrates had looscned HE grip ttle
and finally, when everything has been wound up
20 tile breaking point Socrates let's his adverssries
down gently by telling them that beautiful myth
of the other world which to Professor Jowctt
inferior to the tale Of Err of Armenia at the end
of the Republic, but to some Of the rest OF us, in
many ways better than all the other imagnings
of Plato or of any else in antiquity respecting
the moral relation between the world which is and
tie world that is to come. For one thing, there
is more Of the Socratc irony in it than in others
that irony which, TO quote another Of the page
superscriptous was =" too much Off Thraeymachus.
Nothing could be more delightful than Zeuss
fixed determination to have no nonsense in
future trials Of wrong doors, to have the judges
and the persons arraigned for trial stripped not
merely of the clothes and the honors Of earth.
I'm. OF the senses and Of the very bodies which