572 Socrates^ Schleiermacher^ and Delhrueck. is designed, as the author expressly informs us (p. 379.)5 to mark the inferior degree in which the latter work approximates to the genius of Plato. It must be added that Mr Asfs at- tempt has not been favorably received by the most eminent German scholars. One of the most celebrated of them, Frederic Thiersch, in a review of the book which appeared in the Wiener Jahrhuecher for I8I85 the year before Mr Delbrueck published his reflexions, describes the general character of Mr Ast'^s criti- cism in a passage which is worth quoting, " Schleiermacher, whose works first introduced a right understanding of Plato's peculiar turn and method, had divided Plato'^s dialogues into two classes : greater works of the first rank, the genuineness of which is ascertained by internal evidence and by Aristotle*'s quotations and remarks, and secondary works, some of which prepare the way for those of the first rank, or supply their omissions, while others arose from accidental occasions. But Mr Ast has not only condemned as spurious all works of the lattei: class without exception, but also several of those which in Schleiermacher'^s arrangement had been described as necessary parts of Plato'^s doctrine. Now while his great pre- decessor found much that was praiseworthy in the contents and form of the subordinate dialogues, our author has undertaken the unenviable task of saying all imaginable ill of them ; so that any one who should read his harsh and unsparing criticism, without being acquainted with the work he assails, would in many cases be extremely surprised, how it should have been possible for any man of common intelligence to attribute pro- ductions so very wretched to any, writer of celebrity, and above all to Plato. On the other hand candour requires us to add, that Mr Ast is very generally acknowledged to be a man of learn- ing, abilities, and independent thought ; and certainly however he may be chargeable with rashness and intemperance in his criticism, he scarcely deserved such humihation as the praise of Weisse, who has applauded him for his worst deeds, in a passage which, if the context did not prove it to be a seriously absurd paradox, would have been taken for a ludi- crously satirical caricature^. ^ It occurs in a book which, with many indications of a vigorous mind, contains an inordinate quantity of extravagant conceits, delivered with the dogmatism natural to a
