, I,
S): "Matter, from which all things arc produced and
formed, is a substance without form or quality, but
capable of receiving all forms and undergoing every
kind of change; in which, however, it never suffers
uinihilatior*.
S): "Matter, from which all things arc produced and
formed, is a substance without form or quality, but
capable of receiving all forms and undergoing every
kind of change; in which, however, it never suffers
uinihilatior*.
Charles - 1867 - Classical Dictionary
Gr.
, vol.
1, p.
172,
ed. 4to. )--Plato first learned grairmar, that is, reading
and writing, from Dionysius. In gymnastics, Ariston
was his teacher; and he excelled to much in these
physical exercises, that he went, as is said, into a pub-
lic contest at the Isthmian and Pythian games. (Di-
og. Laert. , 3,4. -- Apul. , p. 184. -- Olympiad. , Vit.
Plat. ) He studied painting and music under the tui-
tion of Draco, a scholar of Damon, and Metcilus of
Agrigentum. But his favourite employment in his
youthful years was poetry. The lively fancy and pow-
erful style which his philosophical writings so amply
display, must naturally have impelled him, at an early
period of life, to make some attempts at composition,
which were assuredly not without influence on the
beautiful form of his later works. After he had made
jse of the instruction of the most eminent teachers of
poetry in all its forms, he proceeded to make an essay
timself in heroic verse; but when he compared his
production with the masterpieces of Homer, he con-
signed it to the flames. He next tried lyric poetry,
but with no better success; and finally turned his at-
tention to dramatic composition. He elaborated four
pieces, or a tetralogy, consisting of three separate tra-
gedies and one satyric drama; but an accident in-
duced him to quit forever this career, to which he was
rot probably destined. A short time before the fes-
tival of Bacchus, when his pieces were to be brought
upon the stage, he happened to hear Socrates conver-
sing, and was so captivated by the charms of his man-
ners as from that moment to abandon poetry, and ap-
ply himself earnestly to the study of philosophy.
(Elian, Var. Hist. , 10, 21, scqa -- Val. Max. , I, 6.
--Plin, 11, 29 ) But. though Plato abandoned his po-
etic attempts, yet he still attended to the reading of the
poets, particularly Homer, Aristophanes, and Sophron,
as his favourite occupation (Olympiad. , Vit. Plat. );
and he appears to have derived from them, in part, the
dramatic arrangement of his dialogues. It was then
customary for young men who were preparing for the
polite world, or to distinguish themselves in any man-
ner, to attend a course in philosophy. Plato had al-
ready heard the instructions of Cratylus, a disciple of
the school of HcraclitUR. (Aristot. , Metaphys. , 1, 6.
? ? --Apul, p. 185. ) When Diogenes, Olympiodorus, and
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? PLATO.
PLATO.
auainted with the Pythagorean r/etetn long previous
. ;o his Italian voyage. How lc iig Plato remained in
Italy cannot be determined, sine* all the accounts rel-
ative to this point are deficient. But so much is cer-
tain, that he did not leave this country before he had
gained the entire friendship of the principal Pythago-
reans, of which they subsequently gave most unequiv-
ocal proofs. From Italy Plato went to Cyrene, a cel-
ebrated Grisk cobny in Africa. It is not certain
*helher be visited Sicily in passing. According to
Apulcius, the object of h,s journey was to learn math-
ematics of Theodorus. This mathematician, whose
fame, perhaps, surpassed his knowledge, had given in-
struction to the young in Athens in this branch of sci-
ence; and Plato, in all probability, merely wished now
to complete his knowledge on this subject. (Tenne-
ma. mi's Life of Plato, lidu. tr. , p. 336. ) From Cy-
rene he proceeded to Egypt, and, in order to travel
with more safety upon, his journey to the last-named
country, he assumed the character of a merchant, and,
as a seller of oil, passed through the kingdom of Ar-
taxcrxes Mnemon. Wherever he came, he obtained
information from the Egyptian priests concerning their
istronomical observations and calculations. It has
been asserted that it was in Egypt that Plato acquired
nis opinions concerning the origin of the world, and
'earned the doctrines of transmigration and the immor-
tality of the soul; but it is more than probable that
he learned the latter doctrine from Socrates, and the
former from the school of Pythagoras. It is not like-
ly that Plato, in the habit of a merchant, could have
obtained access to the sacred mysteries of Egypt; for,
in the case of Pythagoras, the Egyptian priests were
so unwilling to communicate their secrets to stran-
gers, that even a royal mandate was scarcely sufficient
in a single instance to procure this indulgence. Little
regard is therefore due to the opinions of ihose who
assert that Plato derived his system of philosophy from
the Egyptians. (Iamblich , Myst. JEg. , 1, 2, p. 3. )
That Plato's stay in Egypt extended to a period of
thirteen years, as some maintain, or even three years, as
others state, is highly incredible ; especially as there is
no trace in his works of Egyptian research. All that
be tells us of Egypt indicates at most a very scanty
acquaintance with the subject; and, although he prais-
es the industry of the priests, his estimate of their
scientific attainments is far from favourable. (Repub. ,
4, p. 435. J Nor is there a better foundation for sup-
posing that, during his residence in Egypt, Plato bo-
came acquainted with the doctrine of the Hebrews,
and enriched his system with spoils from their sacred
books. (Huet, Dcm. Pr. , 4, 2, y 15. -- Gale's Court
of the Gentiles. ) This opinion has, it is true, been
maintained by several Jewish and Christian writers,
but it has little foundation beyond mere conjecture;
and it is not difficult to perceive that it originated in
(hat injudicious zeal for the honour of revelation, which
led these writers to make the Hebrew scriptures or
traditions the source of all Gentile wisdom. After
his Egyptian travels Plato came to Sicily, and visited
Syracuse when he was about forty years of age, in the
eighty-ninth Olympiad, and in the reign of Dionysius
the Elder. According to the statement of all the wri-
ters who make mention of this tour, his only object
w^s to see the volcano of Etna; but, from the seventh
letter ascribed to him, it would seem that higher ob-
)cc*. s engaged his attention, and that his wish was to
? ? study the character of the inhabitants, their institu-
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? PLATO.
PLATO.
lay* temperately, lie arrived at the eighty-first, or, re-
cording lo some writers, the seventy-ninth, year of . lis
age, and died, through the mere decay of nature, in
iho first year of the 108th Olympiad. He passed his
whole life in a state :>! celibacy, and therefore left no
natural heirs, but transferred his effects by will to his
? friend Adiamantus. The grove and garden, which
had beer, the scene of his philosophical labours, at last
afforded him a sepulchre. Statues and altars were
erected to his memory; the day of his birth long con-
tinued to be celebrated as a festival by his followers;
and hi? portrait is to this day preserved in gems; but
the most lasting monuments of his genius are his
writings, which have been transmitted, without mate-
rial injury, to the present times. --The personal char-
acter of Plato has been very differently represented.
On the one hand, his encomiasts have not failed to
adorn him with every excellence, and to express the
most superstitious veneration- for his memory. His
enemies, on the other, have not scrupled to load him
with reproach, and charge him with practices shame-
fully inconsistent with the purity and dignity of the
philosophical character. (Alhenaus, 11, p. 507. --
Diog. Laerl. , 3, 26. ) We cannot so implicitly adopt
the panegyrics of the former, as to suppose him to
have been free from human frailties; and we have a
right to require much better proofs than his calumni-
ators have adduced, before we can suppose him to
have been capable of sinking, from the sublime specu-
lations of philosophy, into the most infamous vices.
The reproaches with which Plato has been assailed, as
having boasted that he could supply their master's place
to the bereaved disciples of Socrates, but ill agrees with
the pious affection with which he bewailed his death,
and ascribed to him, as the fruits of his lessons, his
whole philosophy. Korean we help thinking that there
is much injustice in the charge brought against him,
of malice and ill feeling towards his fellow-scholars;
though, at the same time, we must admit, that, to all
appearances, he did not cultivate a very intimate friend-
ship with any one among them, who afterward became
illustrious in philosophy: nay, more, it appears that
be reviewed with some bitterness the doctrines of
Aristij ius, Antisthenes, and Euclid To the more
soaring flight of bis own lofty views, their incomplete
and exclusive notions must unquestionably have ap-
peared unworthy of the school of Socrates, and, as
they began by attacking his own system, it was but
natural that Plato should retaliate with some degree
of bitterness and warmth. The by no means exalted
opinion entertained by Plato of his philosophical con-
temporaries necessarily became a farther ground for
the charge against him of overweening haughtiness;
and it would even appear that other causes existed for
the imputation. A certain contempt for the mass of
the people stands out prominently enough in his wri-
tings, while his commendation of philosophy, as op-
posed to common sense, might easily have been taken
as personal. Besides all this, the splendour of his
school, especially when compared with the simplicity
and even poverty of the Socratic, seems to have be-
tokened a degTee of pretension and display, which nat-
urally brought upon it the ridicule of the comic wri-
ters. It cannot be dissembled, that Plato gave to
philosophy and to human culture in general a tenden-
cy towards ornament and refinement, a splendour of
language and form, far removed from the pristine se-
? ? venty and rigour, and greatly favouring the fast-grow-
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? PLATO.
PLATO.
tembling he teaching of the rudiments of the art);
and the piirastie (as represented by a skirmish, or
trial of proficiency). The agonistic dialogues, sup-
posed to resemble the comb. it, were either cniicictic (as
exhibiting specimens of skill), or anatrcptic (as pre-
senting the spectacle of a perfect defeat). Instead of
this whimsical classification, they may more properly
be divided into physical, logical, ethical, and political.
--The writings of Plato were originally collected by
Hcrmodorus, one of his pupils. One circumstance it
s particularly necessary to remark: that, among other
things which Plato received from foreign philosophy,
he was careful to borrow the art of concealing his real
opinions. His inclination towards this kind of con-
cealment appears from the obscure language which
abounds in his writings, and may indeed be learned
from his own express assertions. "It is a difficult
thing," hn observes, '? to discover the nature of the
Creator of the universe; and, being discovered, it ia
impossible, and would even De impious, to expose the
discovery to vulgar understandings. " This concealed
method of philosophizing he was induced to adopt from
a regard to personal safety, and from motives of vani-
ty. {Enfield's History cf Philosophy, vol. 1, p. 206,
seqq. )--Plato, by bis philosophical education, and the
superiority of his natural talents, was placed on an
eminence which gave him a commanding view of the
systems of his contemporaries, without allowing him
to be involved in their prejudices. (Sophista, vol. 2,
p. 252, 265, ed. Bip--Cratyl. , p. 345, 286. ) He
always considered theoretical and practical philoso-
phy as forming essential parts of the same whole;
and thought it was only by means of true philosophy
that human nature could attain its proper perfection.
{De Repub. , vol. 7, p. 76, ed. flip. )--His critical ac-
quaintance with preceding systems, and his own ad-
vantages, enabled Flato to form more adequate no-
tions of the proper end, extent, and character of phi-
losophy. Philosophy he defined to be science, prop-
erly so called. The source of knowledge he pronoun-
ced to be, not the evidence of our senses, which are
occupied with contingent matter, nor yet the under-
standing, but Reason (Phado, vol. 1, p. 225, ed.
Bip), whose object is that which is invariable m& ab-
solute (to bvruc ov. --Phadr. , vol. 10, p. 247, ed.
Bip). He held the doctrine of the existence in the
soul of certain innate ideas (vo^uara), which form the
basis of our conceptions, and the elements of our prac-
tical resolutions. To these Idcai, as he termed them
(the eternal TrapaSeiyuara, types and models of all
things, and the apxai, or principles of our knowledge),
we refer the infinite variety of individual objects pre-
sented to us (rd axetpov and tu mjAAu). Hence it
follows, that all these details of knowledge are not the
results of experience, but only developed by it. The
soul recollects the ideas, in proportion as it becomes
acquainted with their copies (iuoiuftara), with which
the world is filled ; the process being that of recalling
to mind the circumstances of a state of pre-cxistence.
{Phado, vol. 1, p. 74, 75. --Phadr. , vol. 10, p. 249. )
Inasmuch as the objects thus presented to the mind
correspond in part with its ideas, they must have some
principle in common; that principle is the Divinity,
who has formed these external objects after the model
? f the ideas. (De Repub. , 6, vol. 7, p. 116, seqq. --
Tin , vol. 9, p. 348. ) Such are the fundamental doc-
trines of the philosophy of Plato ; in accordance with
? ? which he placed the principles of identity and contra-
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? fVATO.
vL. vro.
mntJng two primary and incorruptible principles, God
and Matter. The passages quoted by those who main-
tain the contrary opinion are by no means sufficient
for theii purpose. --Matter, according to Plato, is an
eternal and infinite principle. His doctrine on this
nead is thus explained by Cicero (Acad. Quasi.
, I,
S): "Matter, from which all things arc produced and
formed, is a substance without form or quality, but
capable of receiving all forms and undergoing every
kind of change; in which, however, it never suffers
uinihilatior*. , but merely a solution of its parts, which
are in their nature infinitely divisible, and move in
portions of space which are also infinitely indivisible.
When that principle which we call quality is moved,
and acts upon matter, it undergoes an entire change,
and those forms are produced from which arises the
diversified and coherent system of the universe. "
This doctrine Plato unfolds at large in his Timaeus,
and particularly insists on the notion, that matter has
originally no form, but is capable of receiving any.
He calls it the mother and receptacle of forms, by the
u. iion of which with matter the universe becomes per-
ceptible to the senses; and maintains that the visible
world owes its form to the energy of the divine intel-
lectual nature. --It was also a doctrine of Plato, that
there is in matter a necessary, but blind and refracto-
ry, force; and that hence arises a propensity in mat-
ter to disorder and deformity, which is the cause of
all the imperfection that appears in the works of God,
and the origin of evil. On this subject Plato writes
willi wonderful obscurity; but, as far as we are able
to trace his conceptions, he appears to have thought,
that matter, from its nature, resists the will of the Su-
preme Artificer, so that he cannot perfectly execute
his designs; and that this is the cause of the mixture
of good and evil which is found in the material world.
The principle opposite to matter, in the system of
Plato, is God. He taught that there is an intelligent
cause, ? ? . ')>>' :h is the origin of all spiritual being, and
the f>. i;*/ of the material world. The nature of this
great Being he pronounced it difficult to discover, and,
. Then discovered, impossible to divulge. The exist-
ence of God he inferred from the marks of intelligence
which appear in the form and arrangement of bodies
. '? i! the visible world; and, from the unity of the mate-
rial system, he concluded that the mind by which it
was formed must be one. God, according to Plato, is
the Supreme Intelligence, incorporeal, without begin-
ning, end, or change, and capable of being perceived
only by the mind. The Divine Reason, the eternal
region of Ideas or forms, Plato speaks of as having al-
ways existed, and as the Divine principle which estab-
lished the order of the world. He appears to have
conceived of this principle, as distinct not merely from
matter, but from the efficient cause, and as eternally
containing within itself Ideas, or intelligible forms,
which, flowing from the fountain of the divine essence,
have in themselves a real existence, and which, in the
formation of the visible world, were, by the energy of
the efficient cause, united to matter, to produce sensi-
ble bodies. --It was another doctrine in the Platonic
system, that the Deity formed the material world after
a perfect archetype, which had eternally subsisted in
his Reason, and endued it with a soul. "God," says
he, "produced mind prior in time as well as in excel-
ence to the body, that the latter might be subject to
. he former. --From that substance, which is indivisible
? ? ind always the same, and from that which is corporeal
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? PLATO
PLATO
Id ive to <<l. e character and the political difficulties of
Uit Greeks, connecting at the same time the discus-
? ioi. of this subject with his metaphysical opinions re-
specting the soul. --Beauty he considered to be the sen-
sible representation of moral and physical perfection;
? . ons*quently it is one with Truth and Goodness, and
inspires love which leads to virtue, forming what is
railed rMatonic love. (Tcnnemann, Manual, p. 117. )
I General View of the Pkilotopht/ of Plato.
I', requires, indeed, considerable knowledge of the
i. isicrv )f philosophy to appreciate the whole influence
which Plato has exercised upon the human mind;
and, still more" a thorough acquaintance with his works
to comprehend their real scope and depth. It is,
therefore, not surprising that such an erroneous esti-
mate of his character should generally prevail; so that,
as Schleiermacher well observes (Pref. to Inlrod. to
Dtaloguet), his brilliant passages should have dazzled
the eyes of students until they forgot that in the mind
of Plato these were but resting-stones and reliefs (ne-
cessary concessions to human weakness) to enable
the mind to ascend to a far higher range of thought.
And yet there are certain eras in the history of hu-
man reason, in which the operation of Platonism comes
out in a form too striking to permit any doubt of its
power or disrespect to its memory. It was something
more than eloquence and fancy which Cicero, perplexed
as he sometimes seems to be with the dialectical ma-
noeuvres of Plato, discovered in those theories through
which he proposed to conduct the spirit of philosophy
into Rome. It was not mere ingenuity and abstraction
which induced the reformers of heathenism to adopt
his name, so that, in the words of Augustine (De Civil.
Dei, 8, 10), "reccntiorcs quique philosophi nobilissi-
mi, quibus Plato scc. tandus placuil, nolueritU se did
Pcrtpateticisaul Academicos, ted Platonicos. " Some-
thing mere than ordinary reason (and so the wisest
Christians always thought) must have informed that
spirit which, after lying dormant for three centuries,
was resuscitated in the first age of Christianity, and
entered into that body of rationalism which, whether
under the name of Gnosticism or the Alexandrian
School, rose up by the side of the true faith, to wres-
tle with its untried strength, and to bring out its full
form, in precision, by struggles with an antagonist like
itself. Once more, at the revival of literature, Plato
was selected as the leader of the new philosophical
spirit, which was to throw off the yoke of Romanism,
and with it the law of Christianity. Wherever Plato
has led, he has elevated and improved the human mind.
He has been followed too far--farther than the Chris-
tian may follow him; and many fatal errors have
been sheltered under his name. But those which
have really sprung from him have been errors of the
heart; errors which have not degraded human nature,
nor stifled the principle of virtue. Even the scepti-
cism of the later academics offers no exception, for it
had no authority whatever in the general principles of
Plato. Enthusiasm, mysticism, and fanaticism have
been the extravagances of Platonism; coldness, ma-
terialism, and scepticism the perversions of Aristotle.
Each, when retained in his proper subordination, has
been a useful servant to the cause of Christianity.
But the work which Plato has performed is far higher
than that of Aristotle; one has drilled the intellect,
the other disciplined the affections; one aided in sink-
ing deep the truths of Christianity, and expanding its
? ? form, the other complicated and entangled its parts hy
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? PLATO.
PLATO.
wit. his plan. If in the Sophist h< indulges in the
most subtle analysis of "ur notion of being, it it to
overthrow the fundamental fallacy of that-metaphysical
? chool which was denying all virtue by confounding
ill truth, and thus poisoning human nature at ha
source, and justifying the grossest crimes both of the
itato and of its leaders. If he returns again and
again to his noble theory of Ideas, it is to fix certain
immutable distinctions of right and wrong, good and
evil; and to raise up the mind to the contemplation
of a being of perfect goodness, prior in existence, su-
perior in power, unamenable in its independence to
those fancies and passions of mankind which had be-
come, before the eyes of Plato, in individuals unbri-
dled lusts, and in the state an insanity of tyranny. If
in the Parmenides he takes us into the obstrusest
mysteries of metaphysics--the nature of unity and
Dumber--this also was rendered necessary, not only to
obviate objection to his own theory of ideas, but to fix
the great doctrine of unity in a Divine Being--unity in
goodness--one truth in action and thought--as opposec
to that polytheism of reason which makes every man's
conscience his god. It grappled also with a mystery
which meets us at the foundation of every deep theory,
and in the forms of every popular belief, in Christianity
is well as in heathenism; a mystery which, true in
itself, as wholly distinct from man, has yet a corre
? ponding mystery in the constitution of the human
mind; and which compelled even the heathen philoso-
pher to state the same seeming paradox for the very
foundation of his system, which Christianity lays down
it once as its grand and all-comprehensive doctrine.
All unity implies plurality--all plurality must end in
unity. So also the inquiry in the The&tetus into the
nature of science bore no resemblance whatever in its
object to any mere speculative theories of Kant or his
followers. It was a necessary part of that system
which was to become the antagonist of the Sophists,
ami to contend for the preservation of truth against
I ruinous sensualism and empiricism, which was sap-
ping all the foundations of society. Even the seem-
ingly frivolous and often wearisome subtleties which
occur in the Sophist, the Euthydemus, and the Politi-
cus, are intended as dialectical exercises for the pupil
whom Plato is forming to become the saviour and
guardian of a state. Even the philological absurdities
of the Cratylus are to be explained in the same way.
He perpetually suggests the fact in the dialogues them-
selves. And in the Republic (lib. 7) he gives at ler. gth
the principles on which they are introduced. Very
much of the plan of his dialogues, for reasons which he
himself supplies, is purposely left in obscurity. And
the test of the statement here made must lie in a
careful reference to the works themselves. But it is
impossible to believe that Plato, the " first of philoso-
phers," who made practical goodness and duty the one
great end of life, whose whole History, as well as his
theories, are full of views, not of speculative fancies, but
of practical improvement to society (Conviv , p. 260);
the friend of Diou, the adviser of Dionysius, the pupil
of Socrates, the writer of the Republic and the Laws;
who recognised, indeed, intellect and truth as neces-
sary conditions of man's perfection, but made "the
good and the beautiful," his heart and his affections,
the ruling principle of bis actions; who never looked
down upon minds beneath him without thinking of the
task of education and never raised his eyes to that
? ? image of the De. ty which he had formed from all im-
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? PLATO.
PLATO
it be not on earth, must have a pattern of it [aid up ii
Heaven, for him who wishes to behold it, and, beholding
resolves to dwell there. " (Repub. , lib. 9, p. 349. )
So also we shall enter into the educational charactci
of his works; their high practical morality, the mode
h. which every question is carried up into the nature
of truth, and, through truth, is connected with virtue;
the position which theology occupies, and the practical
? node in which it is applied; the absence of those ab-
stract metaphysical speculations on the nature of the
Deity, into which human reaaon always falls when it
analyzes mental conceptions beyond what practical
duty requires; and into which the Neo-Platonicians
did fall, and, still more, the Gnostics, while they boasted
of their own ingenuity, and ridiculed Plato as one who
had not, like them, penetrated "into the depths of the
Intelligible Essence. " (Porphyr. , Vit. Plato, c. 14. )
Even the form of Plato's works will derive new light
and beauty from considering them as instruments of
instruction, not vehicles for speculation. The mode
in which curiosity is roused by the fractured lines of
the dialogue; the arresting the attention by demand-
ing an answer to every position; the gradual opening
of difficulties; the carrying of the eye and imagination
to the truth by portions of broken winding-stairs Of
argument, leading to dark recesses, and ruinously hung
together in masses, rather than the throwing open be-
fore the reader an easy ascending plane, which requires
no labour and stimulates no thought. So also the
successive overthrow of opinions; the sudden starting
up of doubts in apparently the most open ground; the
skill with which the drama of the argument is broken
up into scenes and acts, heightened hy a stage dec-
oration, and relieved with the solemn or the grotesque;
the rich melo-dramatic myths which so often close
them; the character of Socrates himself imbodying
ihe attributes and duties of the Greek chorus; the se-
lection of the parties among the young; the tests
which are applied to ascertain if they possess the qual-
ities of mind which, in the Republic (lib. 7), are de-
ilucii to be necessary for those- who make any prog-
ress in goodness; the gradual development of the sys-
tem in exact proportion to the industry and ingenuity
of the hearer; and the order of the sceptical dialogue,
all more or less destructive of errors without any dec-
laration of the truth, and forming series of enigmas,
to lead, like an avenue of sphinxes, to the grand, open
portal of the Republic: all these and many other
points will assume a wholly different character, whether
we consider Plato's work as intended to declare his
opinions, or as constructed for the purpose of extrica-
ting, by a tried and thoughtful process, the minds which
it was still possible to save from the follies, and sins,
and miseries in which the madness of the age and a
vicious system of education were plunging them. All
this, to persons who never read Plato, or read him
carelessly and contemptuously, as men in this day do
read whatever they do not understand, at the first
glimpse will appear exaggerated and enthusiastic.
And no answer can be given but a demand that the
trial should be made, and the hypothesis taken as a
clew. If it is false, it will fail. But none whom wise
men would wish to follow have ever approached the
name of Plato without reverence and gratitude. All
have been impressed especially with his exquisite skill
as an artist or constructor of his works (Schlcitr-
tnacher, Inlrod. Pre/. ); and none have drawn a plan
? ? which gives harmony and symmetry to them all.
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? PLATO
PLATO
the Lysis or nf Friendship; the Euthyphron. or of
Piety, dec. --It will appear from this classification, that
the same dialogue may thus belong to different cate-
gorieaat the same time, according to the point of view
in which we regard it; which destroys, of course, all
the utilitj of the arrangement. --We come now to an-
other quostion of much greater importance. Inde-
pendently of the thirty-five dialogues commonly at-
trib ,<ed to Plato, there are eight which the unanimous
? pinions of the grammarians, at the commencement of
'. it c. i, bas rejected as spurious. In the number,
uowevcr, of the thirty-five, there are several, of the au-
thenticity of which doubts have been entertained from
time to time, until, in our own days, the rigid criticism
cl Germany has undertaken to eliminate a large num-
ber of these dialogues from the list of the works of
Plato. Four writers, in particular, have turned their
attention to this suhject: Tennemann, Schleiermacher,
Ast, and Sochcr. (Tennemann, System der Platonis-
chen Philosophic, 4 vols. 8vo, 1792. --Schleiermacher,
Platans Werke, 8 vols. 8vo, Berlin, 1817-26. --Ast,
Platans Lcben und Schriflen, Leipzig, 1816, 8vo. --
Socher, iibcr Platans Schriften, Mitnchcn, 1820, 8vo. )
To these may be added Thiersch, the author of an able
criticism on the work of Ast {Jahrbuch der Literatur. ,
Wien. , 1818, vol. 3, p. 59, scqij). What renders'the
decision of this question peculiarly difficult is, that, of
the writers contemporary with Plato, Xcnophon alone
remains to us, and he makes no mention of him. Ar-
istotle, his disciple, refers but seldom to his master's
dialogues: sometimes he mentions his opinions, but
always under the name of Socrates, and that, too, when
he even refers to dialogues in which the last-mention-
ed philosopher is not one of the interlocutors, as in the
Laws. All the works of the philosophers of the three
following centuries are lost, down to Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, who is one of the principal authorities
in this inquiry. The number of witnesses increases
>>cry considerably after this; but they lived at a period
when :hat species of criticism which is able to separ-
ate the false from the true was as yet completely un-
known. The classification of Thrasyllus makes us
acquainted with the opinion of the grammarians of his
time, relative to the authenticity of the dialogues of
Plato: those which he excludes from his categories
were regarded as supposititious, but we aro unacquaint-
ed with the grounds on which the claim of legitimacy
was allowed to the rest, unless it be that the claim in
their case was never contested. Amid this array of
negative authorities, Ast, who of all the moderns
hat pushed his scepticism on this head the farthest,
thinks that the only one deserving of being combated
is that nf Aristotle, and he endeavours to destroy the
weight of his testimony by denying Aristotle any au-
thority in matters of criticism. But can any one for a
moment imagine that a man of high intellectual en-
dowments, after having passed twenty years of his life
with Plato, could be so grossly deceived respecting
the works of his master 1 Admitting, too, the possi-
bility that one so eminently gifted with discernment
and taste could mistake to such a degree the style of
his master, is it at all probable that he could liRve been
deceived also as to the fact whether Plato did com-
pose such or such a work! After having rid himself
in this unsatisfactory manner of the testimony of Aris-
totls, Ast, acknowledging the authority of fourteen dia-
logues, attacks at the same time the remaining twenty-
? ? one by arguments deduced from the style in which they
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? PLATO.
tec or. d class of titles are frequently apt to mislead the cas-
ual observer. (Wolf, ad Sympos. , p. 35, seqq. --Ast,
adRepub. , p. 313. --Morgenstern,ad Repub. , p. 29. )--
The works of Plato, then, are as follows: 1. Jlpurayo-
*ar? i? So^tora/, " Protagoras, or He Sophists. " This
dialogue, a cheJ-cTauvrc of Plato, is directed against
'he sophists, who are described it it as exceedingly
unfit either to impart knowledge of virtue to others, or
to inspire them'with the desire of practising it. Pro-
tagoras, one of the most celebrated of this class of
hilosophers, and who, in the course of the dialogue,
is made to appear a model of cliarlalanerie, had arri-
ved at Athens. A certain Hippocrates, unwilling to
lose so favourable an opportunity of receiving instruc-
tijn, requests Socrates to present him to the sophist.
Socrates consents, but first impresses Hippocrates with
the propriety of his ascertaining the true nature of the
science which this stranger has brought with him, be-
fore he ventures to become one of his pupils. They,
in consequence, pay a visit to Protagoras, and find him
surrounded by a numerous and brilliant auditory. A
colloquy thereupon begins between the sophist and
Socrates, in which Prodicus and Hippias, friends of
the former, also bear a part. The object of Protago-
ras is to show the possibility of learning virtue as one
learns an art or exercise; but the questions put by
Socrates embarrass him to such a degree, and the an-
swers he makes from lime to time involve him in so many
contradictions, that the futility of the pretended science
of the sophists becomes fully apparent. No little mis-
take has been caused by giving to the term "sophist"
a wrong etymological signification. It docs not mean
what is denoted by the word in English, artful and il-
logical reasoners: the Sophists were the persons who
professed to make others wise. They were the great
isatructers. Undoubtedly the office they assumed im-
plied their own personal wisdom; and the necessity
of maintaining appearances without any real stock of
knowledge, coupled with the principle of pleasing with-
out any regard to truth, seduced them into the habits
of ingenious trickery which have since been known by
their name. But, as Protagoras himself states, it was
as the original introducers of a wholly new scheme of
education that they took their stand, made their money,
and incurred, in no few instances, the odium of politi-
cal innovators. In this light they were regarded by
Plato. Nothing could be more tempting than the con-
dition of the youth of Athens, for clever, conceited,
ambitious men, by their own theory discumbered of a
conscience, and obliged, by a sense of duty, to provide
for their own indulgences, to undertake the task of fit-
ting them for those public duties of life which in a
Grecian democracy occupied the whole field of action.
And rhetoric, as the main engine of political eminence,
they were thoroughly capable of teaching. The habit
of disputation, which sent Hippias every year to the
Olympic games, to challenge a run upon his paralogi-
cal budget, and to improvise on all possible questions;
just as scholasticism, in the middlo ages, sent scholars
up and Mown Europe, to post their themes and syllogisms
at the gates of universities, had given them a thorough
command, not over language alone, but over all the
arts of concealing ignorance and misleading weakness
which were necessary to a popular demagogue.
ed. 4to. )--Plato first learned grairmar, that is, reading
and writing, from Dionysius. In gymnastics, Ariston
was his teacher; and he excelled to much in these
physical exercises, that he went, as is said, into a pub-
lic contest at the Isthmian and Pythian games. (Di-
og. Laert. , 3,4. -- Apul. , p. 184. -- Olympiad. , Vit.
Plat. ) He studied painting and music under the tui-
tion of Draco, a scholar of Damon, and Metcilus of
Agrigentum. But his favourite employment in his
youthful years was poetry. The lively fancy and pow-
erful style which his philosophical writings so amply
display, must naturally have impelled him, at an early
period of life, to make some attempts at composition,
which were assuredly not without influence on the
beautiful form of his later works. After he had made
jse of the instruction of the most eminent teachers of
poetry in all its forms, he proceeded to make an essay
timself in heroic verse; but when he compared his
production with the masterpieces of Homer, he con-
signed it to the flames. He next tried lyric poetry,
but with no better success; and finally turned his at-
tention to dramatic composition. He elaborated four
pieces, or a tetralogy, consisting of three separate tra-
gedies and one satyric drama; but an accident in-
duced him to quit forever this career, to which he was
rot probably destined. A short time before the fes-
tival of Bacchus, when his pieces were to be brought
upon the stage, he happened to hear Socrates conver-
sing, and was so captivated by the charms of his man-
ners as from that moment to abandon poetry, and ap-
ply himself earnestly to the study of philosophy.
(Elian, Var. Hist. , 10, 21, scqa -- Val. Max. , I, 6.
--Plin, 11, 29 ) But. though Plato abandoned his po-
etic attempts, yet he still attended to the reading of the
poets, particularly Homer, Aristophanes, and Sophron,
as his favourite occupation (Olympiad. , Vit. Plat. );
and he appears to have derived from them, in part, the
dramatic arrangement of his dialogues. It was then
customary for young men who were preparing for the
polite world, or to distinguish themselves in any man-
ner, to attend a course in philosophy. Plato had al-
ready heard the instructions of Cratylus, a disciple of
the school of HcraclitUR. (Aristot. , Metaphys. , 1, 6.
? ? --Apul, p. 185. ) When Diogenes, Olympiodorus, and
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? PLATO.
PLATO.
auainted with the Pythagorean r/etetn long previous
. ;o his Italian voyage. How lc iig Plato remained in
Italy cannot be determined, sine* all the accounts rel-
ative to this point are deficient. But so much is cer-
tain, that he did not leave this country before he had
gained the entire friendship of the principal Pythago-
reans, of which they subsequently gave most unequiv-
ocal proofs. From Italy Plato went to Cyrene, a cel-
ebrated Grisk cobny in Africa. It is not certain
*helher be visited Sicily in passing. According to
Apulcius, the object of h,s journey was to learn math-
ematics of Theodorus. This mathematician, whose
fame, perhaps, surpassed his knowledge, had given in-
struction to the young in Athens in this branch of sci-
ence; and Plato, in all probability, merely wished now
to complete his knowledge on this subject. (Tenne-
ma. mi's Life of Plato, lidu. tr. , p. 336. ) From Cy-
rene he proceeded to Egypt, and, in order to travel
with more safety upon, his journey to the last-named
country, he assumed the character of a merchant, and,
as a seller of oil, passed through the kingdom of Ar-
taxcrxes Mnemon. Wherever he came, he obtained
information from the Egyptian priests concerning their
istronomical observations and calculations. It has
been asserted that it was in Egypt that Plato acquired
nis opinions concerning the origin of the world, and
'earned the doctrines of transmigration and the immor-
tality of the soul; but it is more than probable that
he learned the latter doctrine from Socrates, and the
former from the school of Pythagoras. It is not like-
ly that Plato, in the habit of a merchant, could have
obtained access to the sacred mysteries of Egypt; for,
in the case of Pythagoras, the Egyptian priests were
so unwilling to communicate their secrets to stran-
gers, that even a royal mandate was scarcely sufficient
in a single instance to procure this indulgence. Little
regard is therefore due to the opinions of ihose who
assert that Plato derived his system of philosophy from
the Egyptians. (Iamblich , Myst. JEg. , 1, 2, p. 3. )
That Plato's stay in Egypt extended to a period of
thirteen years, as some maintain, or even three years, as
others state, is highly incredible ; especially as there is
no trace in his works of Egyptian research. All that
be tells us of Egypt indicates at most a very scanty
acquaintance with the subject; and, although he prais-
es the industry of the priests, his estimate of their
scientific attainments is far from favourable. (Repub. ,
4, p. 435. J Nor is there a better foundation for sup-
posing that, during his residence in Egypt, Plato bo-
came acquainted with the doctrine of the Hebrews,
and enriched his system with spoils from their sacred
books. (Huet, Dcm. Pr. , 4, 2, y 15. -- Gale's Court
of the Gentiles. ) This opinion has, it is true, been
maintained by several Jewish and Christian writers,
but it has little foundation beyond mere conjecture;
and it is not difficult to perceive that it originated in
(hat injudicious zeal for the honour of revelation, which
led these writers to make the Hebrew scriptures or
traditions the source of all Gentile wisdom. After
his Egyptian travels Plato came to Sicily, and visited
Syracuse when he was about forty years of age, in the
eighty-ninth Olympiad, and in the reign of Dionysius
the Elder. According to the statement of all the wri-
ters who make mention of this tour, his only object
w^s to see the volcano of Etna; but, from the seventh
letter ascribed to him, it would seem that higher ob-
)cc*. s engaged his attention, and that his wish was to
? ? study the character of the inhabitants, their institu-
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? PLATO.
PLATO.
lay* temperately, lie arrived at the eighty-first, or, re-
cording lo some writers, the seventy-ninth, year of . lis
age, and died, through the mere decay of nature, in
iho first year of the 108th Olympiad. He passed his
whole life in a state :>! celibacy, and therefore left no
natural heirs, but transferred his effects by will to his
? friend Adiamantus. The grove and garden, which
had beer, the scene of his philosophical labours, at last
afforded him a sepulchre. Statues and altars were
erected to his memory; the day of his birth long con-
tinued to be celebrated as a festival by his followers;
and hi? portrait is to this day preserved in gems; but
the most lasting monuments of his genius are his
writings, which have been transmitted, without mate-
rial injury, to the present times. --The personal char-
acter of Plato has been very differently represented.
On the one hand, his encomiasts have not failed to
adorn him with every excellence, and to express the
most superstitious veneration- for his memory. His
enemies, on the other, have not scrupled to load him
with reproach, and charge him with practices shame-
fully inconsistent with the purity and dignity of the
philosophical character. (Alhenaus, 11, p. 507. --
Diog. Laerl. , 3, 26. ) We cannot so implicitly adopt
the panegyrics of the former, as to suppose him to
have been free from human frailties; and we have a
right to require much better proofs than his calumni-
ators have adduced, before we can suppose him to
have been capable of sinking, from the sublime specu-
lations of philosophy, into the most infamous vices.
The reproaches with which Plato has been assailed, as
having boasted that he could supply their master's place
to the bereaved disciples of Socrates, but ill agrees with
the pious affection with which he bewailed his death,
and ascribed to him, as the fruits of his lessons, his
whole philosophy. Korean we help thinking that there
is much injustice in the charge brought against him,
of malice and ill feeling towards his fellow-scholars;
though, at the same time, we must admit, that, to all
appearances, he did not cultivate a very intimate friend-
ship with any one among them, who afterward became
illustrious in philosophy: nay, more, it appears that
be reviewed with some bitterness the doctrines of
Aristij ius, Antisthenes, and Euclid To the more
soaring flight of bis own lofty views, their incomplete
and exclusive notions must unquestionably have ap-
peared unworthy of the school of Socrates, and, as
they began by attacking his own system, it was but
natural that Plato should retaliate with some degree
of bitterness and warmth. The by no means exalted
opinion entertained by Plato of his philosophical con-
temporaries necessarily became a farther ground for
the charge against him of overweening haughtiness;
and it would even appear that other causes existed for
the imputation. A certain contempt for the mass of
the people stands out prominently enough in his wri-
tings, while his commendation of philosophy, as op-
posed to common sense, might easily have been taken
as personal. Besides all this, the splendour of his
school, especially when compared with the simplicity
and even poverty of the Socratic, seems to have be-
tokened a degTee of pretension and display, which nat-
urally brought upon it the ridicule of the comic wri-
ters. It cannot be dissembled, that Plato gave to
philosophy and to human culture in general a tenden-
cy towards ornament and refinement, a splendour of
language and form, far removed from the pristine se-
? ? venty and rigour, and greatly favouring the fast-grow-
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? PLATO.
PLATO.
tembling he teaching of the rudiments of the art);
and the piirastie (as represented by a skirmish, or
trial of proficiency). The agonistic dialogues, sup-
posed to resemble the comb. it, were either cniicictic (as
exhibiting specimens of skill), or anatrcptic (as pre-
senting the spectacle of a perfect defeat). Instead of
this whimsical classification, they may more properly
be divided into physical, logical, ethical, and political.
--The writings of Plato were originally collected by
Hcrmodorus, one of his pupils. One circumstance it
s particularly necessary to remark: that, among other
things which Plato received from foreign philosophy,
he was careful to borrow the art of concealing his real
opinions. His inclination towards this kind of con-
cealment appears from the obscure language which
abounds in his writings, and may indeed be learned
from his own express assertions. "It is a difficult
thing," hn observes, '? to discover the nature of the
Creator of the universe; and, being discovered, it ia
impossible, and would even De impious, to expose the
discovery to vulgar understandings. " This concealed
method of philosophizing he was induced to adopt from
a regard to personal safety, and from motives of vani-
ty. {Enfield's History cf Philosophy, vol. 1, p. 206,
seqq. )--Plato, by bis philosophical education, and the
superiority of his natural talents, was placed on an
eminence which gave him a commanding view of the
systems of his contemporaries, without allowing him
to be involved in their prejudices. (Sophista, vol. 2,
p. 252, 265, ed. Bip--Cratyl. , p. 345, 286. ) He
always considered theoretical and practical philoso-
phy as forming essential parts of the same whole;
and thought it was only by means of true philosophy
that human nature could attain its proper perfection.
{De Repub. , vol. 7, p. 76, ed. flip. )--His critical ac-
quaintance with preceding systems, and his own ad-
vantages, enabled Flato to form more adequate no-
tions of the proper end, extent, and character of phi-
losophy. Philosophy he defined to be science, prop-
erly so called. The source of knowledge he pronoun-
ced to be, not the evidence of our senses, which are
occupied with contingent matter, nor yet the under-
standing, but Reason (Phado, vol. 1, p. 225, ed.
Bip), whose object is that which is invariable m& ab-
solute (to bvruc ov. --Phadr. , vol. 10, p. 247, ed.
Bip). He held the doctrine of the existence in the
soul of certain innate ideas (vo^uara), which form the
basis of our conceptions, and the elements of our prac-
tical resolutions. To these Idcai, as he termed them
(the eternal TrapaSeiyuara, types and models of all
things, and the apxai, or principles of our knowledge),
we refer the infinite variety of individual objects pre-
sented to us (rd axetpov and tu mjAAu). Hence it
follows, that all these details of knowledge are not the
results of experience, but only developed by it. The
soul recollects the ideas, in proportion as it becomes
acquainted with their copies (iuoiuftara), with which
the world is filled ; the process being that of recalling
to mind the circumstances of a state of pre-cxistence.
{Phado, vol. 1, p. 74, 75. --Phadr. , vol. 10, p. 249. )
Inasmuch as the objects thus presented to the mind
correspond in part with its ideas, they must have some
principle in common; that principle is the Divinity,
who has formed these external objects after the model
? f the ideas. (De Repub. , 6, vol. 7, p. 116, seqq. --
Tin , vol. 9, p. 348. ) Such are the fundamental doc-
trines of the philosophy of Plato ; in accordance with
? ? which he placed the principles of identity and contra-
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? fVATO.
vL. vro.
mntJng two primary and incorruptible principles, God
and Matter. The passages quoted by those who main-
tain the contrary opinion are by no means sufficient
for theii purpose. --Matter, according to Plato, is an
eternal and infinite principle. His doctrine on this
nead is thus explained by Cicero (Acad. Quasi.
, I,
S): "Matter, from which all things arc produced and
formed, is a substance without form or quality, but
capable of receiving all forms and undergoing every
kind of change; in which, however, it never suffers
uinihilatior*. , but merely a solution of its parts, which
are in their nature infinitely divisible, and move in
portions of space which are also infinitely indivisible.
When that principle which we call quality is moved,
and acts upon matter, it undergoes an entire change,
and those forms are produced from which arises the
diversified and coherent system of the universe. "
This doctrine Plato unfolds at large in his Timaeus,
and particularly insists on the notion, that matter has
originally no form, but is capable of receiving any.
He calls it the mother and receptacle of forms, by the
u. iion of which with matter the universe becomes per-
ceptible to the senses; and maintains that the visible
world owes its form to the energy of the divine intel-
lectual nature. --It was also a doctrine of Plato, that
there is in matter a necessary, but blind and refracto-
ry, force; and that hence arises a propensity in mat-
ter to disorder and deformity, which is the cause of
all the imperfection that appears in the works of God,
and the origin of evil. On this subject Plato writes
willi wonderful obscurity; but, as far as we are able
to trace his conceptions, he appears to have thought,
that matter, from its nature, resists the will of the Su-
preme Artificer, so that he cannot perfectly execute
his designs; and that this is the cause of the mixture
of good and evil which is found in the material world.
The principle opposite to matter, in the system of
Plato, is God. He taught that there is an intelligent
cause, ? ? . ')>>' :h is the origin of all spiritual being, and
the f>. i;*/ of the material world. The nature of this
great Being he pronounced it difficult to discover, and,
. Then discovered, impossible to divulge. The exist-
ence of God he inferred from the marks of intelligence
which appear in the form and arrangement of bodies
. '? i! the visible world; and, from the unity of the mate-
rial system, he concluded that the mind by which it
was formed must be one. God, according to Plato, is
the Supreme Intelligence, incorporeal, without begin-
ning, end, or change, and capable of being perceived
only by the mind. The Divine Reason, the eternal
region of Ideas or forms, Plato speaks of as having al-
ways existed, and as the Divine principle which estab-
lished the order of the world. He appears to have
conceived of this principle, as distinct not merely from
matter, but from the efficient cause, and as eternally
containing within itself Ideas, or intelligible forms,
which, flowing from the fountain of the divine essence,
have in themselves a real existence, and which, in the
formation of the visible world, were, by the energy of
the efficient cause, united to matter, to produce sensi-
ble bodies. --It was another doctrine in the Platonic
system, that the Deity formed the material world after
a perfect archetype, which had eternally subsisted in
his Reason, and endued it with a soul. "God," says
he, "produced mind prior in time as well as in excel-
ence to the body, that the latter might be subject to
. he former. --From that substance, which is indivisible
? ? ind always the same, and from that which is corporeal
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? PLATO
PLATO
Id ive to <<l. e character and the political difficulties of
Uit Greeks, connecting at the same time the discus-
? ioi. of this subject with his metaphysical opinions re-
specting the soul. --Beauty he considered to be the sen-
sible representation of moral and physical perfection;
? . ons*quently it is one with Truth and Goodness, and
inspires love which leads to virtue, forming what is
railed rMatonic love. (Tcnnemann, Manual, p. 117. )
I General View of the Pkilotopht/ of Plato.
I', requires, indeed, considerable knowledge of the
i. isicrv )f philosophy to appreciate the whole influence
which Plato has exercised upon the human mind;
and, still more" a thorough acquaintance with his works
to comprehend their real scope and depth. It is,
therefore, not surprising that such an erroneous esti-
mate of his character should generally prevail; so that,
as Schleiermacher well observes (Pref. to Inlrod. to
Dtaloguet), his brilliant passages should have dazzled
the eyes of students until they forgot that in the mind
of Plato these were but resting-stones and reliefs (ne-
cessary concessions to human weakness) to enable
the mind to ascend to a far higher range of thought.
And yet there are certain eras in the history of hu-
man reason, in which the operation of Platonism comes
out in a form too striking to permit any doubt of its
power or disrespect to its memory. It was something
more than eloquence and fancy which Cicero, perplexed
as he sometimes seems to be with the dialectical ma-
noeuvres of Plato, discovered in those theories through
which he proposed to conduct the spirit of philosophy
into Rome. It was not mere ingenuity and abstraction
which induced the reformers of heathenism to adopt
his name, so that, in the words of Augustine (De Civil.
Dei, 8, 10), "reccntiorcs quique philosophi nobilissi-
mi, quibus Plato scc. tandus placuil, nolueritU se did
Pcrtpateticisaul Academicos, ted Platonicos. " Some-
thing mere than ordinary reason (and so the wisest
Christians always thought) must have informed that
spirit which, after lying dormant for three centuries,
was resuscitated in the first age of Christianity, and
entered into that body of rationalism which, whether
under the name of Gnosticism or the Alexandrian
School, rose up by the side of the true faith, to wres-
tle with its untried strength, and to bring out its full
form, in precision, by struggles with an antagonist like
itself. Once more, at the revival of literature, Plato
was selected as the leader of the new philosophical
spirit, which was to throw off the yoke of Romanism,
and with it the law of Christianity. Wherever Plato
has led, he has elevated and improved the human mind.
He has been followed too far--farther than the Chris-
tian may follow him; and many fatal errors have
been sheltered under his name. But those which
have really sprung from him have been errors of the
heart; errors which have not degraded human nature,
nor stifled the principle of virtue. Even the scepti-
cism of the later academics offers no exception, for it
had no authority whatever in the general principles of
Plato. Enthusiasm, mysticism, and fanaticism have
been the extravagances of Platonism; coldness, ma-
terialism, and scepticism the perversions of Aristotle.
Each, when retained in his proper subordination, has
been a useful servant to the cause of Christianity.
But the work which Plato has performed is far higher
than that of Aristotle; one has drilled the intellect,
the other disciplined the affections; one aided in sink-
ing deep the truths of Christianity, and expanding its
? ? form, the other complicated and entangled its parts hy
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? PLATO.
PLATO.
wit. his plan. If in the Sophist h< indulges in the
most subtle analysis of "ur notion of being, it it to
overthrow the fundamental fallacy of that-metaphysical
? chool which was denying all virtue by confounding
ill truth, and thus poisoning human nature at ha
source, and justifying the grossest crimes both of the
itato and of its leaders. If he returns again and
again to his noble theory of Ideas, it is to fix certain
immutable distinctions of right and wrong, good and
evil; and to raise up the mind to the contemplation
of a being of perfect goodness, prior in existence, su-
perior in power, unamenable in its independence to
those fancies and passions of mankind which had be-
come, before the eyes of Plato, in individuals unbri-
dled lusts, and in the state an insanity of tyranny. If
in the Parmenides he takes us into the obstrusest
mysteries of metaphysics--the nature of unity and
Dumber--this also was rendered necessary, not only to
obviate objection to his own theory of ideas, but to fix
the great doctrine of unity in a Divine Being--unity in
goodness--one truth in action and thought--as opposec
to that polytheism of reason which makes every man's
conscience his god. It grappled also with a mystery
which meets us at the foundation of every deep theory,
and in the forms of every popular belief, in Christianity
is well as in heathenism; a mystery which, true in
itself, as wholly distinct from man, has yet a corre
? ponding mystery in the constitution of the human
mind; and which compelled even the heathen philoso-
pher to state the same seeming paradox for the very
foundation of his system, which Christianity lays down
it once as its grand and all-comprehensive doctrine.
All unity implies plurality--all plurality must end in
unity. So also the inquiry in the The&tetus into the
nature of science bore no resemblance whatever in its
object to any mere speculative theories of Kant or his
followers. It was a necessary part of that system
which was to become the antagonist of the Sophists,
ami to contend for the preservation of truth against
I ruinous sensualism and empiricism, which was sap-
ping all the foundations of society. Even the seem-
ingly frivolous and often wearisome subtleties which
occur in the Sophist, the Euthydemus, and the Politi-
cus, are intended as dialectical exercises for the pupil
whom Plato is forming to become the saviour and
guardian of a state. Even the philological absurdities
of the Cratylus are to be explained in the same way.
He perpetually suggests the fact in the dialogues them-
selves. And in the Republic (lib. 7) he gives at ler. gth
the principles on which they are introduced. Very
much of the plan of his dialogues, for reasons which he
himself supplies, is purposely left in obscurity. And
the test of the statement here made must lie in a
careful reference to the works themselves. But it is
impossible to believe that Plato, the " first of philoso-
phers," who made practical goodness and duty the one
great end of life, whose whole History, as well as his
theories, are full of views, not of speculative fancies, but
of practical improvement to society (Conviv , p. 260);
the friend of Diou, the adviser of Dionysius, the pupil
of Socrates, the writer of the Republic and the Laws;
who recognised, indeed, intellect and truth as neces-
sary conditions of man's perfection, but made "the
good and the beautiful," his heart and his affections,
the ruling principle of bis actions; who never looked
down upon minds beneath him without thinking of the
task of education and never raised his eyes to that
? ? image of the De. ty which he had formed from all im-
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? PLATO.
PLATO
it be not on earth, must have a pattern of it [aid up ii
Heaven, for him who wishes to behold it, and, beholding
resolves to dwell there. " (Repub. , lib. 9, p. 349. )
So also we shall enter into the educational charactci
of his works; their high practical morality, the mode
h. which every question is carried up into the nature
of truth, and, through truth, is connected with virtue;
the position which theology occupies, and the practical
? node in which it is applied; the absence of those ab-
stract metaphysical speculations on the nature of the
Deity, into which human reaaon always falls when it
analyzes mental conceptions beyond what practical
duty requires; and into which the Neo-Platonicians
did fall, and, still more, the Gnostics, while they boasted
of their own ingenuity, and ridiculed Plato as one who
had not, like them, penetrated "into the depths of the
Intelligible Essence. " (Porphyr. , Vit. Plato, c. 14. )
Even the form of Plato's works will derive new light
and beauty from considering them as instruments of
instruction, not vehicles for speculation. The mode
in which curiosity is roused by the fractured lines of
the dialogue; the arresting the attention by demand-
ing an answer to every position; the gradual opening
of difficulties; the carrying of the eye and imagination
to the truth by portions of broken winding-stairs Of
argument, leading to dark recesses, and ruinously hung
together in masses, rather than the throwing open be-
fore the reader an easy ascending plane, which requires
no labour and stimulates no thought. So also the
successive overthrow of opinions; the sudden starting
up of doubts in apparently the most open ground; the
skill with which the drama of the argument is broken
up into scenes and acts, heightened hy a stage dec-
oration, and relieved with the solemn or the grotesque;
the rich melo-dramatic myths which so often close
them; the character of Socrates himself imbodying
ihe attributes and duties of the Greek chorus; the se-
lection of the parties among the young; the tests
which are applied to ascertain if they possess the qual-
ities of mind which, in the Republic (lib. 7), are de-
ilucii to be necessary for those- who make any prog-
ress in goodness; the gradual development of the sys-
tem in exact proportion to the industry and ingenuity
of the hearer; and the order of the sceptical dialogue,
all more or less destructive of errors without any dec-
laration of the truth, and forming series of enigmas,
to lead, like an avenue of sphinxes, to the grand, open
portal of the Republic: all these and many other
points will assume a wholly different character, whether
we consider Plato's work as intended to declare his
opinions, or as constructed for the purpose of extrica-
ting, by a tried and thoughtful process, the minds which
it was still possible to save from the follies, and sins,
and miseries in which the madness of the age and a
vicious system of education were plunging them. All
this, to persons who never read Plato, or read him
carelessly and contemptuously, as men in this day do
read whatever they do not understand, at the first
glimpse will appear exaggerated and enthusiastic.
And no answer can be given but a demand that the
trial should be made, and the hypothesis taken as a
clew. If it is false, it will fail. But none whom wise
men would wish to follow have ever approached the
name of Plato without reverence and gratitude. All
have been impressed especially with his exquisite skill
as an artist or constructor of his works (Schlcitr-
tnacher, Inlrod. Pre/. ); and none have drawn a plan
? ? which gives harmony and symmetry to them all.
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? PLATO
PLATO
the Lysis or nf Friendship; the Euthyphron. or of
Piety, dec. --It will appear from this classification, that
the same dialogue may thus belong to different cate-
gorieaat the same time, according to the point of view
in which we regard it; which destroys, of course, all
the utilitj of the arrangement. --We come now to an-
other quostion of much greater importance. Inde-
pendently of the thirty-five dialogues commonly at-
trib ,<ed to Plato, there are eight which the unanimous
? pinions of the grammarians, at the commencement of
'. it c. i, bas rejected as spurious. In the number,
uowevcr, of the thirty-five, there are several, of the au-
thenticity of which doubts have been entertained from
time to time, until, in our own days, the rigid criticism
cl Germany has undertaken to eliminate a large num-
ber of these dialogues from the list of the works of
Plato. Four writers, in particular, have turned their
attention to this suhject: Tennemann, Schleiermacher,
Ast, and Sochcr. (Tennemann, System der Platonis-
chen Philosophic, 4 vols. 8vo, 1792. --Schleiermacher,
Platans Werke, 8 vols. 8vo, Berlin, 1817-26. --Ast,
Platans Lcben und Schriflen, Leipzig, 1816, 8vo. --
Socher, iibcr Platans Schriften, Mitnchcn, 1820, 8vo. )
To these may be added Thiersch, the author of an able
criticism on the work of Ast {Jahrbuch der Literatur. ,
Wien. , 1818, vol. 3, p. 59, scqij). What renders'the
decision of this question peculiarly difficult is, that, of
the writers contemporary with Plato, Xcnophon alone
remains to us, and he makes no mention of him. Ar-
istotle, his disciple, refers but seldom to his master's
dialogues: sometimes he mentions his opinions, but
always under the name of Socrates, and that, too, when
he even refers to dialogues in which the last-mention-
ed philosopher is not one of the interlocutors, as in the
Laws. All the works of the philosophers of the three
following centuries are lost, down to Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, who is one of the principal authorities
in this inquiry. The number of witnesses increases
>>cry considerably after this; but they lived at a period
when :hat species of criticism which is able to separ-
ate the false from the true was as yet completely un-
known. The classification of Thrasyllus makes us
acquainted with the opinion of the grammarians of his
time, relative to the authenticity of the dialogues of
Plato: those which he excludes from his categories
were regarded as supposititious, but we aro unacquaint-
ed with the grounds on which the claim of legitimacy
was allowed to the rest, unless it be that the claim in
their case was never contested. Amid this array of
negative authorities, Ast, who of all the moderns
hat pushed his scepticism on this head the farthest,
thinks that the only one deserving of being combated
is that nf Aristotle, and he endeavours to destroy the
weight of his testimony by denying Aristotle any au-
thority in matters of criticism. But can any one for a
moment imagine that a man of high intellectual en-
dowments, after having passed twenty years of his life
with Plato, could be so grossly deceived respecting
the works of his master 1 Admitting, too, the possi-
bility that one so eminently gifted with discernment
and taste could mistake to such a degree the style of
his master, is it at all probable that he could liRve been
deceived also as to the fact whether Plato did com-
pose such or such a work! After having rid himself
in this unsatisfactory manner of the testimony of Aris-
totls, Ast, acknowledging the authority of fourteen dia-
logues, attacks at the same time the remaining twenty-
? ? one by arguments deduced from the style in which they
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? PLATO.
tec or. d class of titles are frequently apt to mislead the cas-
ual observer. (Wolf, ad Sympos. , p. 35, seqq. --Ast,
adRepub. , p. 313. --Morgenstern,ad Repub. , p. 29. )--
The works of Plato, then, are as follows: 1. Jlpurayo-
*ar? i? So^tora/, " Protagoras, or He Sophists. " This
dialogue, a cheJ-cTauvrc of Plato, is directed against
'he sophists, who are described it it as exceedingly
unfit either to impart knowledge of virtue to others, or
to inspire them'with the desire of practising it. Pro-
tagoras, one of the most celebrated of this class of
hilosophers, and who, in the course of the dialogue,
is made to appear a model of cliarlalanerie, had arri-
ved at Athens. A certain Hippocrates, unwilling to
lose so favourable an opportunity of receiving instruc-
tijn, requests Socrates to present him to the sophist.
Socrates consents, but first impresses Hippocrates with
the propriety of his ascertaining the true nature of the
science which this stranger has brought with him, be-
fore he ventures to become one of his pupils. They,
in consequence, pay a visit to Protagoras, and find him
surrounded by a numerous and brilliant auditory. A
colloquy thereupon begins between the sophist and
Socrates, in which Prodicus and Hippias, friends of
the former, also bear a part. The object of Protago-
ras is to show the possibility of learning virtue as one
learns an art or exercise; but the questions put by
Socrates embarrass him to such a degree, and the an-
swers he makes from lime to time involve him in so many
contradictions, that the futility of the pretended science
of the sophists becomes fully apparent. No little mis-
take has been caused by giving to the term "sophist"
a wrong etymological signification. It docs not mean
what is denoted by the word in English, artful and il-
logical reasoners: the Sophists were the persons who
professed to make others wise. They were the great
isatructers. Undoubtedly the office they assumed im-
plied their own personal wisdom; and the necessity
of maintaining appearances without any real stock of
knowledge, coupled with the principle of pleasing with-
out any regard to truth, seduced them into the habits
of ingenious trickery which have since been known by
their name. But, as Protagoras himself states, it was
as the original introducers of a wholly new scheme of
education that they took their stand, made their money,
and incurred, in no few instances, the odium of politi-
cal innovators. In this light they were regarded by
Plato. Nothing could be more tempting than the con-
dition of the youth of Athens, for clever, conceited,
ambitious men, by their own theory discumbered of a
conscience, and obliged, by a sense of duty, to provide
for their own indulgences, to undertake the task of fit-
ting them for those public duties of life which in a
Grecian democracy occupied the whole field of action.
And rhetoric, as the main engine of political eminence,
they were thoroughly capable of teaching. The habit
of disputation, which sent Hippias every year to the
Olympic games, to challenge a run upon his paralogi-
cal budget, and to improvise on all possible questions;
just as scholasticism, in the middlo ages, sent scholars
up and Mown Europe, to post their themes and syllogisms
at the gates of universities, had given them a thorough
command, not over language alone, but over all the
arts of concealing ignorance and misleading weakness
which were necessary to a popular demagogue.
