of Aristotle. The style is less disjointed and more human; the thought also not unfrequently descends to a popular level, as we might expect in a book destined not for the few but for the many. The writer seems now and then to forget his scholasticism: practical and speculative knowledge are again merged into one another; Philosophy is said to 'reveal nature' and on this account to be indispensable to the legislator whose function is to organize society after the pattern of nature. And it is interesting to observe how the ascetic tendencies of the age are here reflected with a distinctness not usual with Aristotle in his more ( esoteric' productions: Philosophy, for instance, is commended to us as a sort of refuge from the evils and ́unutterable vanity' of our material life. Concessions of this kind to popular or Platonic notions would probably have found a legitimate place in any dialogue, a fortiori in one purporting to be a 'Serious call to a philosophic Life,' if we may adopt a sufficiently obvious rendering of the Greek title. The general argument, therefore, stands thus: if the Peripatetic section in Iamblichus is worthy of Aristotle, there are some positive grounds for believing it to have been part of his lost Protrepticus. The concurrence of evidence may be exhibited in the following synopsis :— (1) The thought and style of the Fragment remind one at every turn of the writer of the Ethics. (2) At least one place in it must be Aristotle's, because it is quoted as his by Cicero. (3) A certain coincidence of language is apparent, when we compare it with the Fragments of the Hortensius in which, according to tradition, Cicero took the Protrepticus as his model. (4) The identity of name has some weight: an author of the stamp of Iamblichus would naturally borrow the materials for his own Protrepticus from an older work of the same name and character, especially if the latter was as rare as the Aristotelian Dialogue must have become by the end of the third century. Such, then, are the data: it is for others to judge as to the validity of my inferences from them. I am aware that the Fragment may turn out to be more composite in origin than my own impressions lead me to think; it may too be an exaggeration to attribute the authorship of it directly to Aristotle, seeing that the learned world has not quite settled the question whether he ever wrote Dialogues at all. If not Aristotle's however, it is at least Aristotelian, and what we should expect in one of the Dialogues rightly or wrongly bearing his name, and accepted as his not only by Cicero, but also, in the case of some, by Zeno and Chrysippus. The most that we can allege against the genuineness of these writings is that they may perhaps have been early productions of the Peripatetic school instead of what they professed to be: to classify them with manifestly spurious books like the treatise περὶ τῶν Πυθαγοpeíwv, for instance, is to betray a barbarous indifference to nuances, and to forget that negative criticism has limits by transgressing which it degenerates into a senseless and unprofitable exercise of logic. The Dialogues were Aristotelian, and passed in antiquity as the work of Aristotle himself: are we warranted in affirming much more than this of even the De Anima or the Ethics? An outline of the original Protrepticus may be given in few words. By way of preface it opened with a dedication to Themison, one of the petty kings of Cyprus, who was gently admonished that neglect of philosophy would be without excuse with him, possessing as he did all the external advantages necessary to the philosophic life (Rose, Arist. Pseudep., p. 71). The Dialogue itself was doubtless devoid of the dramatic interest which we are in the habit of associating with the name. There was perhaps some short prelude, after which the chief interlocutor proceeded in oratorical fashion to divide his discourse into two sharply contrasted sections, the first controversial, the second constructive. The vulgar objections to Philosophy were shewn to prove that even the objectors were philosophers in spite of themselves: 'We must philosophize whether we say that we must philosophize or that we must not' (Rose, p. 71). The ground being thus cleared, the speaker discarded contro versy in the second part, and sought henceforth to establish the more positive conclusion that the conditions of human life make Philosophy the one thing needful for us. We must philosophize φιλοσοφητέον ἐκ παντὸς τρόπου (Iamblich. passim) -must have been the perpetually recurring moral of this stage of the discourse, as we know that it was the general result of the earlier one. The first of these two sections Iamblichus seems to have ignored for a sufficiently simple reason: it could not have edified his readers, and his own sympathies were with thaumaturgy and asceticism rather than the subtleties of Aristotelian dialectic. The second section, however, was probably of a different character; and if I am right in my view that Iamblichus has made free use of it in his own Protrepticus, his plagiarism has certainly been a clear gain to the world. INGRAM BYWATER. NOTES ON THE PHILOCTETES. 348-353] Neoptolemus is explaining the motives with which he left his home at Scyros for the camp at Troy. Odysseus and Phoenix had come to summon him thither. They had told him that his father Achilles was dead, and that the destiny of taking Troy was now his. Two feelings were moved in him by this statement; the desire to see his father before burial; and ambition: he sailed μάλιστα μὲν δὴ τοῦ θανόντος ἱμέρῳ, The meaning of oỷ yàp eidóμnv, on which the mss. agree, is obscure. Hermann and W. Dindorf supply (vra: 'that I might see him (at least) before burial; for I had never seen him (alive).' But, that this statement may be intelligible, Covra is not the only qualification which it needs. We must understand Neoptolemus to mean: 'I had never seen my father alive; that is, since I was about six or seven years old.' For, if Achilles had gone to Troy before Neoptolemus was born, the young hero would be now of the age of ten. Hermann was sensitive, but resigned, to this difficulty: 'De temporum computatione quaeri poterat. Nam si statim e Lycomedis domo ad Troiam profectus est Achilles, nondum nato filio, Neoptolemus puer esset vix decennis. Verum in huiusmodi rebus non argutandum.' Seyffert conjectures, oud' ap' eidóμnv: 'but, as it proved, I did not see him (unburied);' (I arrived at Troy too late.) A still simpler emendation is, I think, possible; but Seyffert probably gives the right sense. The parenthesis, whatever was exactly its original form, probably signified that the wish expressed in oπws idoμ was not fulfilled. In connection with this point it is necessary to examine a part of the context, which might seem at first sight to bear an adverse interpretation. Neoptolemus goes on to say that, after two days' voyage from Scyros, he came into harbour at Sigeum : κεῖνος μὲν οὖν ἔκειτ ̓ ἐγὼ δ ̓ ὁ δύσμορος, τά θ ̓ ὅπλ ̓ ἀπῄτουν τοῦ πατρὸς τά τ ̓ ἄλλ ̓ ὅσ ̓ ἦν. Now, what is the meaning of ěkeɩTO? If it is used for the technical πρоéкeiтo, 'lay on his bier,' then Seyffert's view is untenable. If it means simply 'lay low in death,' it is consistent with his view. For my own part, I have no hesitation in preferring the latter and simpler meaning. How commonly Keio Oaι (like iacere) means 'to lie dead,' the lexicons will show. Simon., frag. 60, (Bergk, Poet. Lyr. p. 891) v0ρwπe, keîσai Çŵv ἔτι μᾶλλον τῶν ὑπὸ γᾶς ἐκείνων : i. e. though still alive, you are more dead than the dead themselves:' where keîolaι is directly opposed to ζῆν. Nor do the words ἐπεὶ δάκρυσα κεῖνον make against the inference that Achilles was already buried. If the son's tears could not now be shed at his dead father's side, it was not strange that they should be shed at his grave. To that grave Neoptolemus would first hasten on landing; and thence presently (οὐ μακρῷ χρόνῳ) go to make his claim before the Atreida. If the funeral rites had been still unperformed, we should have expected at least some passing allusion to the due discharge of them, a sacred duty in which Neoptolemus himself would have borne the leading part. The very words οὐ μακρῷ χρόνῳ well express the turning away from a sorrow which had now no definite task to practical and urgent cares. I believe, then, that Seyffert has seen the true sense: Neoptolemus wished to see his father before burial, but was disappointed. The correction of où yáp into ovd ap' is not violent. But a still easier one seems possible, and, as far as I know, has not been suggested. Read ὅπως ἴδοιμ ̓ ἄθαπτον· εἰ γὰρ εἰδόμην |