10 JANUARY 1931, Page 26

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Of the three latest of the Loeb Classics (Heinemann, 10s. each) the fourth volume of Professor Gulick's Deiproscrphistor of Athenceus, and the seventh of Dr. H. L. Jones' Geography of Strabo need only here be recorded, since they received con- sideration when the initial volumes appeared. But Plato's Republic, Volume I, containing the general introduction by Dr. Shorey, Professor of Greek in the University of Chicago, and his text and translation of the first five books, calls for at least a few words of appreciation. The- summary of the Republic, that masterpiece of constructive philosophy, in which Plato set out to prove that the just is the happy life, is excellent. How it was that to the Greek mind the just life could not be conceived apart from the State and that, therefore, in order to find the just life we must construct the ideal state, is clearly and succinctly explained. Then, emerg- ing from the Platonic conception of the ideal state, we come to the ideal morality, the just life, the likeness of God: Dr. Shorey deals, too, with the divine philosopher's " critics, ancient and modern, and institutes an interesting parallel between a passage in Mr. G. K. Chesterton's Heretics and the

moral theories. of Plato. The translation is avowedly free in order that the thought may be completely intelligible to modern English readers ; but it is accurate and trustworthy. * * *