36 A. E. TAYLOR : (b) I have already more than once hinted that I believe the polemic of the Parmenides to be in the main directed against the Megarian philosophy. I will now produce my reasons for this view. And first I should like to point out that the Idealist theory, as formulated by Socrates at p. 129, was already at least semi-Megarian in character. This is, I think, placed beyond a doubt by a comparison of Farm., 129 ff., with the criticism, at Soph., 246 ff., of the elS<oi> <f>ioi, who can hardly be other than the historical Megarians. The peculiar features of the view examined at Soph., 246, the sharp severance between the unseen and bodiless Idea and the visible world, with the consequent opposition of " per- ception " and " thinking," and the ruthless banishment of change and motion from the real to the phenomenal sphere which calls forth the severe rebuke of 249 c, all agree so exactly and even verbally with the position of the Par- menidean Socrates (cf. ra opwpeva contrasted with ra Farm., 129 E, 135 E, with Soph., 246 B, vorjra KOI acr(i)/j.ara ei&rj . . . e dopdrov TOTTOV, ib., . . . crcafjiari /j.ev rj/j-ds yevea-et, 8t' cucr#/;o-e&)9 Koivwvelv, 248 A ; Farm., 132 D, ra fjiev 6iT) . . . ecrrdvai ev rfj (jjvaei, Soph., 249 A, vovv OVK e%ov aKivrjTov e<TTO9 elvai, C, avdjKf} . . . p,rfre rwv ev rj KOI ra 7rod etStj Xeyovrcov TO irav ecrrrjKOf aTroBe^ecrdai, and com- pare the list of eiSrj given by Socrates at 129 E with the fjiejia-ra yevr) of the Sophistes*), and are so entirely unlike any coherent doctrine which can be got from the hypotheses, that this conclusion appears to me all but certain ; while the opposite view, that Socrates represents the Platonic and Parmenides the Megarian interest in the dialogue, seems to entail the spuriousness not only of the Parmenides but also of the Sophistes. Further, if we suppose that Socrates, in our dialogue, is arguing from a semi- Megarian standpoint, we seem to find a special ap- propriateness in the dramatic setting of the discourse. Not only does Plato's repeated insistence on the youth and inexperience of Socrates become intelligible, but the selection of Parmenides as his opponent acquires a new significance. For the Megarian school derives as much from Eleaticism as from Socraticism, and hence the choice of the great Eleatic as the mouth-piece of Plato's refutation of Megarian misapplications of his fundamental thought has a singular fitness. Similarly in the Sophistes it is into the mouth of an Eleatic that he puts his criticism on both Parmenides and the Megarians. There seems however to be one important difference between the Socrates of the first part of the Parmenides and the early Megarians, and
