Like the Protagoras, Phaedo, and others, the whole is a narrated dialogue, combining with the mere recital of the words spoken, the observations of the reciter on the effect produced by them. The latter half is an exquisite mosaic, of which the small pieces are with the utmost fineness and regularity adapted to one another. The Parmenides in point of style is one of the best of the Platonic writings the first portion of the dialogue is in no way defective in ease and grace and dramatic interest nor in the second part, where there was no room for such qualities, is there any want of clearness or precision. To the latter part of the dialogue we may certainly apply the words in which he himself describes the earlier philosophers in the Sophist: ‘They went on their way rather regardless of whether we understood them or not.’ The criticism on his own doctrine of Ideas has also been considered, not as a real criticism, but as an exuberance of the metaphysical imagination which enabled Plato to go beyond himself. They seem to have been inspired by a sort of dialectical frenzy, such as may be supposed to have prevailed in the Megarian School (compare Cratylus, etc.). The contradictions which follow from the hypotheses of the one and many have been regarded by some as transcendental mysteries by others as a mere illustration, taken at random, of a new method. The date is uncertain the relation to the other writings of Plato is also uncertain the connexion between the two parts is at first sight extremely obscure and in the latter of the two we are left in doubt as to whether Plato is speaking his own sentiments by the lips of Parmenides, and overthrowing him out of his own mouth, or whether he is propounding consequences which would have been admitted by Zeno and Parmenides themselves. For the Parmenides is more fragmentary and isolated than any other dialogue, and the design of the writer is not expressly stated. None of the writings of Plato have been more copiously illustrated, both in ancient and modern times, and in none of them have the interpreters been more at variance with one another. The awe with which Plato regarded the character of ‘the great’ Parmenides has extended to the dialogue which he calls by his name. Translated by Benjamin Jowett INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.

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Parmenides by plato