Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/411

 JAMES ADAM, The Republic of Plato. :J'.)7 Excellent, too, in his way is that on the number, which has gained in cogency, alike by Dr. Adam's willingness to learn of, and by his eagerness to meet, Dr. Monro's criticism of it in its earlier form. With existing materials it is unlikely that the riddle has much chance of a closer solution. The appendix on the relation of Plato's commune to the Ecclesiazusie of Aristophanes is also a sound piece of work. That on the astronomy in the story of Er in book x., which allows a debt to the acuteness of Prof. Cook Wilson, is, with the notes corresponding, less successful, perhaps as a friend suggests to me because of its unproved assumption as to the topographical position of the ACI//WV, and its taking of the similitude of the trireme too seriously. Dr. Adam's quality, however, is at least as open to be discovered in some element of freshness and suggestiveness in the notes proper. A favourable example to our mind is the note on 437 E, with its justification of the contrast between thirst + heat desiring cold, thirst + muchness desiring much drink. ' The solution of the difficult^ is to be found in the different character of the notions ^e/j/xor7/s and 7rA.Ty#os. 0CP/AOT/7S is something distinct from 8u^os, though superadded to it, for which reason Plato does not use the expression $ep//.ov Su/^os ; whereas 7r.f)6o<; is in reality TrA^os Btyrjs, and TroAAr/ Su^a, as experience shows, desires much drink.' Or, to take one more instance among many, the note on 454 D, with its explanation of the origin of the MS. reading emended. If we add that Dr. Adam is learned alike in the ephemeral literature of his subject and in more solid contributions to the history of Greek ideas, such as Kohde's to name pietatis caus:i but one of the profounder scholars ; that while using the very latest lights, he knows and values the ' auld lichts ' too, it will be understood that Dr. Adam's work must be taken very seriously. That his running analysis, too, is good, and his index- ing not inadequate is a matter of course. He is even singularly happy in his too rare illustrations from English poetry. It is because Dr. Adam's work is so good, and so certain to exercise a legitimate influence upon the interpretation of Plato and Platonism, that, at the risk of some appearance of an inver- sion of the part of Balaam that an ass might fitly rebuke we venture to note points in reference to which our author's explana- tions of and inferences from certain passages display some per- versity of Judgment, quandoque dormitat. It is to be hoped that no one will follow him, for instance, in his view of the simile of the cave. Dr. Adam equates the shadows thrown by the fire upon the back of the cave not with the concrete things of the world outside, but with the shadows of these cast by the sun (vol. ii., p. 95). Dr. Adam seems to need for his correction a pool within the cave to reflect the shadows. Again Dr. Adam places the tire well within the mouth of the cave and the cave's wall far down, thus adding to the artificiality of the parable, since it inevitably makes the carriers of the dummies not unknown passers-by, but