hand. This conclusion would commend itself to almost all scholars because the philosophical digression seems to be based on Plato's earlier Theory o[ Ideas, whereas the Seventh Letter must be late. If Plato did not write the Seventh Letter, then who? There is extant a letter attributed to Plato's nephew and successor as head of the academy, Speusippus, written to Philip of Macedon. When the de tests were applied, the consonance between this work and the Seventh Letter turned out to be extraordinary, and the exalting possibility arose that Speusippus rather than Plato wrote the 'platonic' Seventh Letter. But one or two other works, namely the Critias and portions of the Laws, seem to be influenced by these same stylistic patterns. Work is still going forward to determine: (a) whether the difference between the style of the dialogues and the style of the Seventh Letter, Speusippus' Letter and the Critias could be influenced by the fact that most of the Platonic writing is in dialogue form, whereas the three above-mentioned works are straightforward narrative; and (b) whether Speusippus played an editorial part not only in these three works but also in some parts of the Laws, and possibly also the Tirnaeus, which does not seem to be a homogeneous work. This is, let us repeat, a preliminary report and work is still proceeding. This development, without making exaggerated claims, does seem to hold out the possibility of introducing objectivity and mathematical staffstics into a field which has in the past been far too subjective.