Page:Plato or Protagoras.djvu/6

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6

contains a sweeping repudiation of the senses and the feelings as contributories to the growth of knowledge. It contains a renunciation by Platonic logic of the duty of explaining the individual. It is a glorious monument of the Weltflucht to which Pure Thought finds itself impelled whenever it is taken seriously. And its very patient and subtle researches into the problem of knowledge culminate in the frankest and sublimest confession of failure which adorns the annals of intellectualistic literature. Whether or not, therefore, it is possible to exhume from it the lost teachings of Protagoras, it is clear that in the study of Plato’s great dialogues, and particularly of the Theætetus, lies the master-key to the understanding of the whole intellectualistic position in philosophy.

Oxford, December, 1907.