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xxxiv writer. But we are not therefore justified in connecting passages from different parts of his writings, or even from the same work, which he has not himself joined. We cannot argue from the Parmenides to the Philebus, or from either to the Sophist, or assume that the Parmenides, the Philebus, and the Timaeus were ' written simul- taneously,' or 'were intended to be studied in the order in which they are here named ' (J. of Philol. xiii. 38). We have no right to connect statements which are only acci- dentally similar. Nor is it safe for the author of a theory about ancient philosophy to argue from what will happen if his statements are rejected. For those consequences may never have entered into the mind of the ancient writer himself; and they are very likely to be modern con- sequences which would not have been understood by him. 'I cannot think,' says Dr. Jackson, 'that Plato would have changed his opinions, but have nowhere ex- plained the nature of the change.' But is it not much more improbable that he should have changed his opinions, and not stated in an unmistakable manner that the most essential principle of his philosophy had been reversed ? It is true that a few of the dialogues, such as the RepubHc and the Timaeus, or the-Theaetetus and the Sophist, or the Meno and the Apology, contain allusions to one another. But these allusions are superficial and, except in the case of the Republic and the Laws, have no philosophical importance. They do not affect the sub- stance of the work. It may be remarked further that several of the dialogues, such as the Phaedrus, the So- phist, and the Parmenides, have more than one subject. But it does not therefore follow that Plato mtended one dialogue to succeed another, or that he begins anew in one dialogue a subject which he has left unfinished in