NEW BOOKS
A. E. TAYLOR
1922
Mind
THB fint duty of a reviewer most be to thank Mr. More for having given na so fascinating a first volume, and to express the hope that he may be able to complete the task he has set before him in a reasonable time. For the present reviewer, the second duty must be to express his hearty sympathy with Mr. More's general purpose as laid down in his Preface. The points on which the Preface lays stress are these : There is a continuous tradition of the spiritual life, presumably derived from
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... of which Plato's writings are the truest expression ; this tradition dominates Greek thought, though, as Mr. More holds, it has been dangerously perverted in its later forms; from Greek philosophy it passes into the Greek fathers. In fact, the Christian Church, rather than the Neo-Platonists, is the legitimate heir of Plato, and there is thus a single uniform development from Socrates, or at any rate from the earliest work of Plato, to the completion of the formulation of the Christian faith at Chaloedon. The great truth which finds iU expression in this development is that the human spirit itself is " dual," an inhabitant of the eternal and the temporal realms at onoe, and that all worthy living is based on the principle of subordinating the merely temporal in a man's self (the "flesh," as St Paul calls it), to the eternal (the " spirit "). It is just this great oonviction which our world to-day seems in danger of losing, and therefore, for the sake of the world's salvation, it is imperative to bid thoughtful men return to the literature in which the Greek and Christian truth is most plainly and emphatically preached, from the Phaedo down to Gregory of Nyssa and Chrysostom. In all these fundamental points the writer of the present notes feels himself wholly at one with Mr. More. There are matters in which he cannot see altogether eye to eye with his author, but in his own opinion these, important as some of them are to a complete estimate of Plato's philosophy, are secondary in a study of Plato's religion and rule of life, and, in some cases, may be reduced after all to mere questions of the emphasis to be laid on a particular strain in the Platonic dialogues. The rest of this notice will necessarily be largely taken up with the raising of doubts about these points of difference, but I should like to make it clear beyond all question that I fully sympathise with Mr. More's central position and that I am keenly alive to the real beauty and literary charm of the style in which he presents it. I am the more anxious to do this that, rightly or wrongly, I found much to disagree with in Mr. More's preliminary work PUUonum and its presentment of Socrates. Now to say something on the matters where, rightly or wrongly, I find it difficult to agree with Mr. More, and would respectfully suggest to him that he might perhaps reconsider his utterances. The most important of these is his insistence upon regarding the Platonic philosophy, as well as
doi:10.1093/mind/xxxi.124.518
fatcat:fc7e2xm3gnanllzzdfrm4s464y