PREFACE.

genuity, the luminous clearness, and (not least) the unfailing candour of the editor, deserve all admiration. The debt owed to Martin Thomas-Henri Martin (1813–1884), a French scholar famous for his 1841 commentary on the Timaeus. by any subsequent editor must needs be very great. The most recent edition known to me was published in 1853 in the useful series issued by Engelmann at Leipzig, including text, German translation, and rather copious notes. Böckh's 'Specimen of an edition' original: 'Specimen editionis' unfortunately is but a small fragment.

The only English translations with which I am acquainted are Thomas Taylor's and Prof. Jowett's: in German there are several. Martin's edition includes a clear and close French rendering, considerably more accurate than Cousin's.

Among the most valuable and important contributions to the explanation of the Timaeus are some writings of August Böckh, especially his admirable treatise 'On the Cosmic System of Plato.' original: 'Ueber das kosmische System des Platon' It is much to be regretted that so excellent a scholar did not give us a complete edition of the dialogue.

The chief ancient exponent is Proclus, of whose commentary, by some divine fate original: θείᾳ τινὶ μοίρᾳ (theia tini moira), only perhaps one third, a fragment of some 850 octavo pages, is extant, breaking off at 44 D. This disquisition is intolerably verbose, often trivial, and not rarely obscure: nevertheless one who has patience to toil through it may gain from it information and sometimes instruction; and through all the mists of Neoplatonic Neoplatonic: a mystical school of philosophy following Plato's teachings in late antiquity fantasy the native acuteness of the writer will often shine.

The principal object of this edition is to examine the philosophical significance of the dialogue and its bearing on the Platonic system. At the same time, seeing that so few sources of aid are open to the student of the Timaeus, I have done my best to throw light upon the subsidiary topics of Plato's discourse, even when they are of little or no philosophical importance; nor have I willingly neglected any detail which seemed to require explanation. But as in the original these details are subordinate to the ontological ontological: relating to the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of being teaching, so I have regarded their discussion as subordinate to the philosophical interpretation of this magnificent and now too much neglected dialogue.

A translation opposite the text has been given with a view to relieving the notes. The Timaeus is one of the most difficult of Plato's writings in respect of mere language; and had all matters of linguistic exegesis exegesis: critical explanation or interpretation of a text been treated in the commentary,