Page:Philosophical Review Volume 27.djvu/548

536 He distinguishes between philosophy and metaphysics, the former being rooted in morality and the practical reason, the latter in the theoretical reason. "Metaphysics differs from philosophy in this, that it essays to give a consistent explanation of the rerum natura, including our consciousness, in the terms of pure reason, thereby playing false to the law of scepticism and affecting a rational reconciliation of the Socratic dualism" (p. 232). There are probably few historians or students of philosophy who would accept this definition as satisfactory or agree with More in the distinction he draws between philosophy and metaphysics. The distinction is, however, useful for the author's purpose, who is concerned primarily with a study of "the origins and early environment of Christianity" (p. v), and to this inquiry the present volume is propadeutic. The author plans a series of volumes dealing with such further subjects as the "English revival of philosophic religion in the seventeenth century and the rise of romanticism in the eighteenth."

More brings to his task a wide range of reading (the use he makes of illustrative material recalls the manner of Gomperz), his gifts as an expositor are of a high order and his points of view are frequently novel, sometimes courageous, and always interesting. The translations of passages from the Dialogues deserve especial mention, so striking is the felicity of word and phrase combined with exactitude of meaning. One notes, however, here and there a journalistic touch, as, e.g., the somewhat exaggerated characterization of Aristotle's ridicule of Xenocrates (p. 227) or the note on Natorp (p. 261) or the controversial remarks on Gomperz (p. 10) or the reference to Campbell (p. 217).

In respect of most of More's intepretations of Plato, I find myself in essential agreement. There are some minor details that challenge question. In the first chapter he discusses what he entitles the three "Socratic theses," these being "intellectual scepticism," "spiritual affirmation," and the "identity of virtue and knowledge." What is here called "intellectual scepticism" might better be denominated the spirit of doubt or criticism, the examining, testing attitude of mind with which Socrates approached philosophy and which marked the method of St. Augustine and Descartes. The seeds of the scepticism of the later Academy or of Pyrrhonic thought are found in the Sophistic doctrine of relativity. While the Socratic dialogues are nearly all peirastic, they end not so much negatively as inconclusively. They are criticisms and exemplify the Socratic maxim that "the unexamined life is not worth living." His quest ended in the positive and universal