wind blows, the argument follows'. The dialogues of Plato are like poems,
isolated and separate works, except where they are indicated by the author
himself to have an intentional sequence.

It is this method of taking passages out of their context and placing them
in a new connexion when they seem to confirm a preconceived theory, which
is the defect of Dr. Jackson's procedure. It may be compared, though not
wholly the same with it, to that method which the Fathers practised,
sometimes called 'the mystical interpretation of Scripture,' in which
isolated words are separated from their context, and receive any sense
which the fancy of the interpreter may suggest. It is akin to the method
employed by Schleiermacher of arranging the dialogues of Plato in
chronological order according to what he deems the true arrangement of the
ideas contained in them. (Dr. Jackson is also inclined, having constructed
a theory, to make the chronology of Plato's writings dependent upon it
(See J. of Philol.and elsewhere.).) It may likewise be illustrated by the
ingenuity of those who employ symbols to find in Shakespeare a hidden
meaning. In the three cases the error is nearly the same:--words are taken
out of their natural context, and thus become destitute of any real
meaning.

(4) According to Dr. Jackson's 'Later Theory,' Plato's Ideas, which were
once regarded as the summa genera of all things, are now to be explained as
Forms or Types of some things only,--that is to say, of natural objects:
these we conceive imperfectly, but are always seeking in vain to have a
more perfect notion of them. He says (J. of Philol.) that 'Plato hoped by
the study of a series of hypothetical or provisional classifications to
arrive at one in which nature's distribution of kinds is approximately
represented, and so to attain approximately to the knowledge of the ideas.
But whereas in the Republic, and even in the Phaedo, though less hopefully,