like St. Augustine, even though they
were acquainted with his writings only through the medium of a Latin
translation, were profoundly affected by them, seeming to find 'God and
his word everywhere insinuated' in them (August. Confess.)

There is no danger of the modern commentators on the Timaeus falling
into the absurdities of the Neo-Platonists. In the present day we are
well aware that an ancient philosopher is to be interpreted from himself
and by the contemporary history of thought. We know that mysticism is
not criticism. The fancies of the Neo-Platonists are only interesting to
us because they exhibit a phase of the human mind which prevailed widely
in the first centuries of the Christian era, and is not wholly extinct
in our own day. But they have nothing to do with the interpretation
of Plato, and in spirit they are opposed to him. They are the feeble
expression of an age which has lost the power not only of creating
great works, but of understanding them. They are the spurious birth of
a marriage between philosophy and tradition, between Hellas and the
East--(Greek) (Rep.). Whereas the so-called mysticism of Plato is purely
Greek, arising out of his imperfect knowledge and high aspirations, and
is the growth of an age in which philosophy is not wholly separated from
poetry and mythology.

A greater danger with modern interpreters of Plato is the tendency to
regard the Timaeus as the centre of his system. We do not know how
Plato would have arranged his own dialogues, or whether the thought
of arranging any of them, besides the two 'Trilogies' which he has
expressly connected; was ever present to his mind. But, if he had
arranged them, there are many indications that this is not the place
which he would have assigned to the Timaeus. We observe, first of all,
that the dialogue is put into the mouth of a Pythagorean philosopher,
and not of Socrates. And this is required by dramatic propriety; for
the investigation of nature was expressly renounced by Socrates in the
Phaedo. Nor does Plato himself attribute any importance to his guesses
at science. He is not at all absorbed by them, as he is by the IDEA of
good. He is modest and hesitating, and confesses that his words partake
of the uncertainty of the subject (Tim.). The dialogue is primarily
concerned with the animal creation, including under this term the
heavenly bodies, and with man only as one among the animals. But we can
hardly suppose that Plato would