PLATO.

The birth of Plato is nearly coincident with that great epoch of Grecian history, the commencement of the Peloponnesian war. In the first year of that war, the Athenians, having ejected the unhappy people of Aegina, apportioned the island amongst colonists from themselves.^[1. Thucyd. ii. 27. ] Amongst these Athenian occupants were Aristo, and Pe-rictione. or Potona, as she is also called, the father and motner of Plato. Their residence, however, in the island was not permanent nor even long, as the intrusive colony was in its turn ejected by the Lacedaemonians, on which occasion his parents returned to Athens.^[2. Diog. Laert. in Vit. Plat ] It was during this interval, and in the year 429 B. c∙, that the philosopher was born.^[3. Diog. Laert in Vit. Plat. ]

From these circumstances, it has been commonly supposed that Plato was born in Aegina. They are not, however, sufficient to establish such a conclusion. For a colonization of the kind here described did not necessarily imply residence on the part of those persons to whom the lands were allotted.^[4. Thucyd. iii. 50. ] Nor is the fact of the recovery of the island by the Lacedaemonians from the hands of the Athenians, mentioned by the contemporary historian. Aegina was still in the occupation of the Athenians in the fifth year of the Peloponnesian war;^[5. Thucyd. iii. 72. ] and in the eighth year of the war we find that the poor exiles, who had meanwhile obtained a refuge at Thyrea, were there cruelly exterminated by the Athenians.^[6. Ibid. iv. 56, 57. ] On the whole, it seems more probable, from the constant designation of Plato as “the Athenian,” without any other addition, though this alone, it must be allowed, is not decisive of the fact, that Athens itself may claim the honour of having been his birthplace.

It is remarkable that his proper name was not that which his fame has immortalized, but Aristocles, after his paternal grandfather.^[7. Aristocles was also a Spartan name, being the name of the brother of the king Pleistoanax. Thucyd. v. 17. ] The name of Plato is said to have been given to him by the person who was his master in the exercises of the gymnasium, as characteristic of his athletic frame in his youth.^[8. As derived from πλatus, broad. Laertius gives this explanation, which Seneca also adopts {Epist. lviii. 27), but says others interpreted the name as denoting a broad forehead; others, as characteristic of his style of eloquence. ] In this way, being familiarly applied to him, it gradually prevailed, to the entire disuse of his family name.

The philosopher was connected by descent with the ancient worthies of Athens; on his mother’s side with Solon, and on his father’s with the patriot king Codrus.^[9. His family also is shewn to have been of rank, from its connection with some of “the Thirty,” called “the Thirty Tyrants,” established at Athens by the Lacedaemonians. See Plat. Ep. vii. ] And thus, according to the notions of nobility prevalent amongst the Greeks,^[10. »° See Herodot. Euterp. 143. ] he could trace up the honours of his parentage to a divine founder, in the person of the god Neptune.

A circumstance is related of his infancy, which, though obviously fabulous, cannot properly be omitted in his biography, as a pleasing and appropriate tribute of the imaginative genius of the Greeks to their poet-philosopher. Whilst he was sleeping when a babe, on Mount Hymettus, in a bower of myrtles, during the performance of a sacrifice by his parents to the muses and nymphs, bees, it is said, lighted on him and dropped honey on his lips, thus giving an evident augury of that peculiar sweetness of style by which his eloquence would be distinguished.^[11. ∏ Cicer», De Divin, i. 36. ]

For the same reason, a similar fancy, which has thrown a poetical ornament over the account of his first devotion to philosophy, must not be passed over in silence. Socrates, it is related, was apprized beforehand, in a dream, of the first visit of the gifted pupil, who was destined to carry philosophy forth on the wings of his genius to its boldest flights. Socrates was telling his dream to some persons around him, how he seemed to see a young swan coming from an altar in the grove of Academus, and first nestling in his bosom, then soaring up on high, and singing sweetly as it rose in the air, when Aristo presented himself, leading his son Plato, whom he committed to the instruction of the [7:18:11] sage. Socrates, it is added, struck by the coincidence, immediately recognized the fulfilment of his dream, and welcomed Plato as the young swan from the altar, represented to him in the vision.

The accounts of his early education, to which we should naturally have looked with great interest, are extremely meagre. We only know by general notices that he passed through the usual course of education adopted amongst the higher classes of the Greeks. That education was directed to the cultivation at once of the powers of the mind and of the body, under the two great divisions of literature and gymnastics. The youth was delivered to the charge of the grammarian, the teacher of music, and the trainer. From the grammarian he learned the art of reading and writing his own language, and a knowledge of its authors, especially its poets; from the teacher of music, skill in performing on the lyre and the flute, together with the principles of the science of music; from the trainer he acquired strength and expertness in the several exercises of wrestling, and boxing, and running, by which it was intended not only to mature the powers of the body, but to qualify the youth for attaining eminence at the public games. These were the schoolmasters of the accomplished Athenian, and with these he was occupied until he had reached about his twentieth year. Accordingly, the names have been transmitted to us of those who discharged these offices for Plato; of Dionysius, as the grammarian under whom he learned the elements of that command over his own language, and its literary resources, which his matured eloquence so richly displayed; of Draco of Athens, and Metellus of Agrigentum, as his masters in music; and of Aristo the Argive, as his master in gymnastics. It is added that he also studied painting; but the name has not been given of any individual who acted as his preceptor in the art.

In evidence of his great proficiency in these early studies, it has been stated, that he gave specimens of his genius in every department of poetical composition; that in epic poetry he laboured after the highest excellence, and only abandoned the attempt on comparing his efforts with the poems of Homer, and despairing of reaching so high a standard; that in dramatic poetry, he had prepared a tetralogy, the four plays usually required of an author in order to competing for the prize at the festival of Bacchus, but changed his purpose only the day before the exhibition, in consequence of impressions received from Socrates. And even in gymnastics excellence has been claimed for him; since it has been asserted that he actually entered the lists at the Isthmian games.

Whatever credit we may give to these particulars, there can be no doubt, that so inquisitive a mind as that of Plato, and so resolute a spirit in the prosecution of its undertakings, received the full benefit of this preliminary culture; and that he was thus amply prepared for entering on the severer discipline of those pursuits which engaged him when he became a hearer of Socrates.

This preliminary education, in fact, was very imperfect as a discipline of the mind. It gave the youth a forwardness and fluency of knowledge, so that he was fain to fancy himself, when he had scarcely attained manhood, equal to undertake affairs of state, and to serve the highest offices of the government. But it did not form his mind or character. He had yet to learn the nature of man; to study the principles of ethics and politics. This task of instruction devolved on the sophist or the philosopher (as the same person was at first indifferently called), into whose hands the Greek youth was now delivered.

Plato, accordingly, at the age of twenty years, began to be a regular attendant on the lessons of Socrates. The reputation of Socrates as a teacher in this higher walk of education, now eclipsed that of all other professors of philosophy. He had at once exposed the incompetence of the sophists who preceded him, and superseded them in their office. Plato would be conducted to him by his father, as the account states he was, very much in the way which is depicted under caricature by the comic poet,^[12. Aristoph. Nubes. ] as to the most distinguished master of the day, to be qualified for taking on him those public duties to which every citizen of Athens might be called; to enable him to distinguish himself in counsel and argument, and obtain influence and importance in society. From the numbers that resorted to Socrates, as well as to the sophists before him, it is plain that, to obtain instruction in philosophy for its own sake, or to become philosophers themselves, was not the object with which he was sought by the generality. Here and there the spark fell on a kindred genius, and lighted up a flame of philosophy in the breast of a disciple. Thus from the school of Socrates came the founders of several other schools; and, .on the whole, a greater impulse was given by his teaching to the study of philosophy than had ever been felt before in Greece. Still, as Socrates himself did not profess to teach his hearers wisdom, so neither did they in general come to him as learners of wisdom, or as actuated by the pure love of wisdom, but to acquire practical information which their previous studies had not given them. We may imagine such a disciple as Plato first presenting himself amongst the multitude of hearers; how he would be struck by the first observation of the extraordinary manner of Socrates, especially at finding the very person to whom he came to be taught professing that “he knew nothing ;” and that he was only wiser than other men on this account, that, whilst others knew not and presumed they knew, he neither knew nor presumed that he knew. The interest of such a mind as Plato’s could not but be powerfully called forth by so strange an avowal on the part of a man whom he had been led to look up to as the wisest of men. To him it must naturally have prompted the questions, what philosophy might be; what the nature and condition of man; what the criteria of truth and falsehood; and thus have firmly laid hold of those tendencies to speculation which we see fully developed in the mature fruits of his genius. Again and again he is present at the searching investigations carried on in the discussions of which Socrates is the leader; soon he is himself interrogated by Socrates; and we cannot doubt that he is thenceforward irrevocably become, not the disciple of Socrates only, but the disciple and votary of philosophy.

That Plato was thus won over to philosophy from an early period of his life, is evident from the statement of Aristotle respecting him, that “from his youth he had been conversant with Cratylus, and the opinions of Heraclitus,”^[13. Aristot. Metaph. i. 3. ] and from the indications in two at least of his dialogues (and these supposed to be the earliest in the date of their composition, as written indeed during the lifetime of Socrates), the Phaedrus and the Lysis, of his early acquaintance with Pythagorean notions.

There seems, too, but little room to doubt that he had begun at the same time to study the doctrines of the Ionic school under Hermogenes, as well as those of Parmenides and Zeno. For what he puts into the mouth of Socrates in the Phaedo ^[14. Phoed. pp. 220-225, ed. Bip. ] z respecting Anaxagoras, is probably (as Socrates himself was known to have had a strong aversion to physical science) the expression of his own disappointment and dissatisfaction at the outset of his studies, in the conclusions of the school, of which Anaxagoras was then the chief authority. Of Parmenides, again, he more than once [7:18:12]speaks in terms of enthusiasm, as of a name with which he had very early associations of reverence;^[15. *^liκισ ’ βον μsv »ai reus aλλοus οι tv tvτωf Xtyeuri re vrav i αιαχυνομινο; μrι φοοτιχςί; σnωτ∙τωμιv i ^ttōv ai<rχυveμecι, iι iva ιwa TIaζμsviiitv. Uccζ-μιv an s is μοι φawsra l το~ του 'θμr, ζl >υ, cdiũtt τt μοι twaι άμα i i ιv βf 7»· τυμπζοσίμάμ γa ζ in τ≠ avi ζ ι, ¶ravu w f , navυ πζ'.rSυτγ xaι μοι lφavq β κ 3οf τι iχsw <rawanaσι γtwa7οv. CΓheatet. ρρ. 137, 138. Ρarmenid. ρ. 72.) ] here, as in the instance of Anaxagoras, we are disposed to think, depicting, in the person of Socrates, a portion of the history of his own mind.

Judging indeed from the tenor of his writings, we should conclude that his curiosity was excited, from a very early period, to explore the whole field of philosophy; and that, so far from resting on what he learned from Socrates himself, he applied the lessons of Socrates to the extending and perfecting those researches which he was carrying on at the same time, by means of books, or oral instruction from others.^[16. This evident early devotion of Plato to the pursuit of his whole life, argues the mere calumny of that statement which represents him to have at first sought his fortune by the profession of arms. The calumny is a current one, which has been applied to other philosophers. He has also been absurdly represented as present at the battles of Tanagra and Delium, when he was, in truth, a mere child. ] Socrates was to him the interpreter, and commentator, and critic, of the various philosophical studies in which he was engaged. For this is the view which he has given us of Socrates in his Dialogues. Socrates there seldom or never appears as a didactic expounder of truth. He is presented as the critic of opinions and doctrines and systems, and the judge to whom everything is to be submitted for approval, or rejection, or modification, as the case may be.

Indeed, so exuberant and energetic a mind could not have been satisfied with being simply a learner in any school. It would eagerly seek the means of comparing system with system, and of examining into points of agreement or disagreement in the theories proposed. The doubts raised by Socrates, the hints thrown out by him, the conclusions to which he pointed, but which he yet left unconcluded, would to such a mind seem as so many points of departure for its own excursions. They naturally suggest that much more must be done than merely to take up what has been said by Socrates, in order to work out, or even rightly to conceive, what had fallen from his lips. For the conversations of Socrates were not framed to convey positive instruction, so much as to set the mind of the hearer a-thinking, and to provoke further inquiry. In the living pictures of them which Plato has drawn, they leave off just at the point where we expect the teacher would proceed to speak out more distinctly, and tell us precisely what his view of the subject is. If these pictures represent (as we may reasonably believe they do) the impressions received by Plato from the conversations of Socrates, what stimulants to inquiry must he have felt in the several particulars which he has so forcibly touched,—in the mingled lights and shadows of the scenes in which the great master occupies the foreground. Well therefore may we conceive that, at the time when he enjoyed the guidance, and control, and encouragement of Socrates, he was laying a broad foundation of erudition for that vast and richly-ornamented fabric of philosophy which the existing monuments of his genius exhibit.

From Soerates himself this demand of the inquisitive hearer could evidently not be supplied. Socrates was deficient in erudition properly so called. He had studied men rather than books. His wisdom consisted of deep and extensive observation accurately generalized, drawn from passing things, and capable accordingly of ready application to the same course of things; forcibly convincing his hearers by the point and propriety with which it met each occasion, and giving experimental proof of its soundness and truth. Erudition, accordingly, was to be sought elsewhere; and Plato therefore supplied this need from other sources, infusing it into, and blending it with his own speculations, whilst the Socratic spirit mellows the whole mass, and gives unity to the composition.

The death of Socrates, his tears over which Plato has recorded in that affectionate and interesting memorial of his master’s truth and dignity, the Dialogue of the Phaedo, naturally excited alarms for their own safety amongst those who were conspicuous disciples of the martyred sage. They saw, by the violent extremity to which the spirit of intolerance had proceeded, unchecked by any feeling of humanity or regard for truth, that the wisdom, and gentleness, and benevolence of an enlightened philosophy were no securities against the deadly hatred of bigotry. They found that the malignant tongue of priestcraft could stoop to employ any instrument, however mean, for the accomplishment of its purpose; that it could instigate the actor on the scene of civil affairs to do its work of sycophancy, whilst the prompter of the mischief, lurking in ambuscade, wore the mask of concern for the public good, and even arrogated the merit of sanctity, and truth, and tenderness. Persecution has ever been the same. Its essential features are vices of the human heart, not of any particular system of religion. We find it, accordingly, in several recorded instances in the heathen world, displaying itself very nearly as in the dark times of anti-Christian corruption. Athens itself had already furnished examples of its untiring and sure vengeance. In particular, the case of Anaxagoras had been a striking illustration. When not even the power and the eloquence of Pericles could save Anaxagoras from a prison, and expulsion from Athens, on account of his physical speculations; the very philosopher whose system of physics raised an insuperable barrier against atheism, by demonstrating the supremacy of mind; it was but too evident that there was a mysterious agency working in the heart of society, like secret fires in the depths of the earth, capable of awing and paralyzing every other power.

A more recent experience of the same truth, within the memory of the youngest disciple of Socrates, was in the dark proceedings consequent on the mutilation of the Hermae, the rude images of Mercury erected in the vestibules of private houses as well as in the sacred places of Athens, and on the discovery of the profanation of the Eleusinian mysteries by the mock representation of them in private houses.^[17. The performance of religious rites in private houses is forbidden in Plato’s Dialogue on Laws, x. p. 117. ] The secret information on which those proceedings were carried on; the indifference shewn at the period of alarm to everything else, even on an occasion of great public interest, but the vindication of the popular superstition; the effect which the charge of being implicated in these outrages had in checking the career of Alcibiades at the moment of his triumph over his political opponents; all shewed, that it was a vain hope to resist the secret arbiters of public opinion on questions of religion. Then came the fearful consummation of this vengeance in the death of Socrates by the poisoned cup; leaving no doubt in the minds of any, that they who would follow his example in boldly and honestly inquiring into current opinions, and declaring their convictions of the truth on matters affecting the conduct of men, must either prepare themselves for exile (which alone was a great punishment in the ancient world),^[18. Cicero says of exile, endeavouring to reconcile the feelings to it, “jam vero exilium, si rerum naturam, non ignominiam nominis quacrimus, quantum demum a perpetua peregrinatione differt.” CΓιιtcul. Quast. v. 37.) ] or drink the hemlock.
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Socrates himself had the courage to take the latter part of the alternative. To him it was the natural termination of that energetic course which he had from the first adopted. He would have unsaid all his teaching; he would have practically recanted the strong language in which he had, through all his life, been discoursing of the worthlessness of the body and of the present life, and of the immortality and perfection of the soul. His philosophy kept him immured in his prison, and riveted the fetters on his limbs, far more than the condemnation of his judges or the hammer of the jailor. For, as he says of himself in the words in which Plato has naturally expressed his sentiments in the prison, his “sinews and bones would long ago have been at Megara or in Boeotia,” had he not thought it “best,” and firmly fixed his resolution, to abide the issue there.^[19. See Phaedo, p. 224; also Crito. ]

But this was not the case with the hearers of Socrates. They were not, like him, placed in a commanding post, from which they could not retreat without being stigmatized as deserters of their profession, and betrayers of the truth. They might with honour and propriety consult for their safety. Whilst, therefore, as is probable, the bulk of those who had attended on the teaching of Socrates simply withdrew from public notice, and retired to their homes at Athens or elsewhere, the principal disciples of the school, —those who were most known as followers and admirers of Socrates,—left Athens, and sought an asylum for themselves and for philosophy at Megara.

Amongst those whom Socrates drew around him were several individuals of mature age, already trained in some sect of philosophy, and eminent in their own walk of science, yet desirous of availing themselves of the far-famed wisdom of the sage of Athens. Of this class was the philosopher Euclid, from whom the Megaric school derives its existence and celebrity.^[20. 'Euclid the mathematician flourished about a century after him. ] As a disciple he belonged to the Eleatic school, and, trained by Zeno, the great master of dialectic before him, had made that science his especial study. He had shewn a singular zeal in attending on the lessons of Socrates; for he continued to go to Athens for that purpose, even when the obnoxious decree of exclusion against Megareans, on pain of death, had been passed by the Athenians; setting out at night-fall on a journey of more than twenty miles from Megara to Athens, and assuming the disguise of female attire that he might pass unnoticed.^[21. Thucyd. i. 139; Aul Gell. Noct. Att. vi. 10. ] His conduct on the occasion of the dispersion of the school of Socrates corresponded with this zeal. He received the members of the school with open arms, and gave them a home with him at Megara. There, for a time at least, they gathered themselves, in shelter from the storm which had driven them from Athens. But the school, in fact, was broken up. It had subsisted and been held together by the personal influence of Socrates himself, and with him its principle of vitality, as a body, was gone. He had not laboured to establish a sect or a theory; and he left therefore no particular rallying point, or symbol of union, around which a party might be formed. He was himself the symbol of union to his disciples; bringing together around him the professors and disciples of every different sect. There was yet to arise out of his society one who, richly imbued with his doctrine and method, should rekindle the extinct school with his own spirit, and bid it live again in its genuine offspring; and that individual was Plato. But the times were not yet ripe for this.

In the mean time Plato was destined to spend severa! years in journeying from place to place, at a distance from the past and the future scene of his philosophical labours. These were doubtless years of great importance to him, for the perfect formation of the peculiar character of his philosophy. In the course of them, we find him visiting Megara, Cyrene, the Greek settlements on the coast of Italy, Sicily, Egypt, “exploring (as Cicero says of him in oratorical language) the remotest lands,”^[22. Ultimas terras lustrasse Pythagoram, Democritum, Platonem, accepimus: ubi enim quid esset quod disci posset, eo veniendum judicaverunt. {Tusc. Qu.,iγ. 19.) ] after the manner of Solon and Pythagoras, and other wise men before him, who had enlarged their minds by contemplations pursued in foreign travel. Thus did he singularly combine in his studies the more ancient with the Socratic mode of philosophizing. The method of Socrates was exclusively domestic. He studied mankind within a small compass (the circle of Athens itself), only with a more accurate and searching eye than any one had ever done before him; and therefore drew sound general conclusions from his observations within that range of view. He evidently judged it better thus to restrict the attention, and require men to investigate closely what lay before them, than to encourage them to indulge the prevailing habit of more diffusive and vague observation. This is told us in other words by Plato himself, where he introduces Socrates as a stranger even to the beautiful scenery in the immediate neighbourhood of Athens, and as one who appeared never to have been out of the walls of the city; and as owning that, in his fondness for study, he was content to learn of the men in the city, who could teach him what the fields and the trees could not.^[23. Pĭioedr. p. 287; Crito. ] But this method, good as a foundation, and necessary as a corrective of desultory and superficial habits of thought and study, was not sufficient for the requirements of Plato’s mind. He observes in one of his works that there is much to be gained from contemplation rightly directed in foreign travel both by land and sea; that we are not only to look to our own country for examples, but seek in the world at large for specimens of the highest order of men, which, though rare, might, from time to time, be found under every form of government; and that no perfect civilization can be attained without this means of observation and improvement.^[24. « De Legib. xii. p. 196, 197∙ ] He describes, in fact, the course which he had himself pursued, and the benefit which he had found resulting from it.

Having sojourned for a time at Megara, together with the other disciples of Socrates, and probably there, with the assistance of Euclid, increased his acquaintance with the writings of Parmenides and Zeno, as well as studied more intimately the dialectic of their school, he appears to have proceeded to Cyrene. Cyrene was the home, not only of Aristippus, to whose school it afterwards gave its name; but of the venerable Theodorus, the most eminent geometrician of his day. Theodorus had been occasionally a resident at Athens, and an attendant on the teaching of Socrates, whilst he was himself resorted to by the Athenian youth for instruction in the science of geometry.^[25. Plat. Theoetel. p. 51, 52. ] Plato no doubt had been amongst those who had thus availed himself of the presence of Theodorus at Athens. His predilection for mathematical studies is conspicuous throughout his writings. His skill in geometry, in particular, requires no other evidence than the interesting fact of his ready solution, in that infant state of the science, of the oracular problem which required the doubling of the cubic altar at Delos.^[26. Plutarch. De Socrat. Genio, p. 288, tom. 8, Reiske. The inscription said to have been over the portal of the Academia, “Let no one enter who is not a geometrician,” seems to belong rather to Pythagoras, or perhaps was imitated from the Pythagoreans. ] He has described Theodorus as present at Athens at the time when the prosecution was instituted [7:18:14]against Socrates.^[27. Theoetet. ad fin. ] He now went to Cyrene, probably with the view of following up that course of geometrical study which had been so abruptly terminated; whilst he regained also the society of a friend for whom hé evidently felt respect and admiration.^[28. See Theoetet. throughout. ]

The course of his travels conducted him to the Greek settlements on the coast of Italy and Sicily, where the colleges of the Pythagoreans were established. It may readily be imagined with what eager curiosity Plato undertook this voyage, what delight he promised himself in seeing the place itself where Pythagoras had taught, and in personal conference with the living successors of the mystic sage, and in obtaining a greater insight into the doctrines of a school which had such charms for him. He had much to observe also in the peculiar discipline by which the Pythagoreans were formed into a distinct fraternity amongst themselves. Greece Proper had nothing to exhibit like this. For though the different sects of philosophy were distinguished there by the names of founders and places, they were not held together by any rules of discipline. But the Pythagoreans at Tarentum, Crotona, and elsewhere in Magna Graecia, had incorporated themselves into synedria, or colleges; each individual giving his property in common, and regarding the bond of connection with his brethren of the sect as closer than the ties of kindred.^[29. See Plato, Rep. χ. p. 293; Polyb. ü. 39; Aul. Gell. i. 9; Origen. C. Cels. ii. p. 67, iii. p. 142, ed Spene.; Jamblich. Pyth. Pit. c. 17, p. 154. ] Associations of this kind must have appeared, at the first, as anomalies even to the philosophical Athenian, accustomed as he was to regard the free intercourse of social life as indispensable to his very existence.

It has been said that Plato was admitted to the secret discipline of the Pythagoreans. Probably he was only received by them with great cordiality, and had access to writings and information respecting their doctrines, which would have been denied to one, who came less recommended to them by the sincere enthusiasm of philosophy, and approximation to their views. There are no traces certainly in his writings, or elsewhere, of his having been a professed Pythagorean; although he undoubtedly was greatly captivated by the Pythagorean doctrines, and has introduced them largely into his own speculations.

Archytas, the greatest name of the Pythagorean school after that of Pythagoras himself, was then flourishing at Tarentum. It must have been an interesting occasion, when there were assembled together at Tarentum, as Cicero relates,^[30. De Senect. c. 12. Cicero says Plato was at Tarentum in the consulship of L. Camillus and Appius Claudius. There appears some inaccuracy in the tradition, but we may believe its substantial truth. ] Pontius the Samnite, the father of that Pontius who defeated the Roman consul at the Fauces Cau-dinae; Archytas the Pythagorean, discoursing against pleasure; and Plato the Athenian. The very place where they met,— a point of contact between the old empires of the world, and the rising power destined to break them in pieces,—in itself adds to the interest. Then the characters of the two philosophers who thus met, further arrest our attention :—Archytas, the representative of the old traditionary theological systems now moulded into a scheme of philosophy and a discipline of life; and Plato, the accomplished artist, who was soon to take up the scheme of philosophy where the Pythagoreans left it, and consecrate it by the inspirations of his own genius to an eternal empire on the throne of literature :—Archytas, nurtured in the reserve and mysticism of the Pythagorean discipline; Plato, formed to busy and importunate discussion by the ever-eol-loquial Socrates,—two philosophers so contrasted with each other in many respects, and yet so concordant in their love of ancient wisdom and indefatigable research after truth.

From the Pythagoreans Plato proceeded to Egypt to converse with the priests of that ancient land, from which Greece had derived her original civilization and science. Since the settlement of the Greek colony in Egypt by Psammetichus,^[31. About B. c. 650. Herodot. Euterp. 154. ] there had existed a regular channel of intercourse between Greece and Egypt, and accurate means of information to the Greeks respecting Egypt. The history of Herodotus must in itself have awakened the curiosity of those who had any taste for such inquiries, to know still more of a people from whom Greece had already learned so much, and from whom evidently so much was to be learned; and must have stimulated them to avail themselves of the existing facilities of gratifying that taste. To Plato, indeed, if we take the testimony of Herodotus, that the Greeks, though they had endeavoured to appropriate the discovery, derived the doctrine of the immortality of the soul from the Egyptians (who were the first, he thinks, to teach the doctrine, accompanied with that of transmigration),^[32. Herodot. Eutcrp. 123. ] a visit to Egypt must have been most attractive. Herodotus has given us an engaging view of the impression which such a visit produced on his mind. What an animated picture might the still more philosophical mind of Plato have presented, of the result of his conversation with the priests of Egypt. Though we may not credit the account of his having had the mysterious wisdom of the Hermetic Columns unfolded to him by the priests, and of his being instructed in magic,^[33. Pliny says that Plato went to Egypt for the purpose of learning magic. Hist. Nat. xxxi. c. I. ] on this occasion; we have intimations of the treasures which he collected in Egypt scattered through his writings, and, so far, some evidence that this visit was not without its influence on the character of his philosophy.

Indeed it has been further asserted, that, whilst in Egypt, he had access to an existing Greek version of the Old Testament, and that to this circumstance we must attribute that purer and more elevated theology which his works exhibit, in comparison with those of other heathen philosophers. A strange oversight in chronology has also attributed to him a personal intercourse with the prophet Jeremiah.^[34. Quapropter in illa peregrinatione sua, Plato, nec Hieremiam videre potuit tanto ante defunctum, nec easdem scripturas legere, quae nondum fuerant in Graecam linguam translate. (Augustin. De Civ. Dei, viii. 11.) Clement of Alexandria, however, asserts that there existed a version of the Law prior to that of the Septuagint. Strom, i.; Euseb. Proep. Evan. iχ. 6. ] These statements are obviously mere suppositions, by which Christians, over-zealous for Plato’s philosophy, vindicated their admiration of it, whilst they asserted also the originality and supremacy of Scripture truth. At the same time, it is indisputable that Judaism diffused much religious and moral truth beyond its own pale; and that not only Plato, but the Egyptian priests, his instructors, unconsciously derived much from the inspired sources, in collecting, under the form of fable, or allegory, or maxim, portions of truth which the sacred oracles had scattered around them in their transmission.^[35. Hence it was said by Numenius the Pythagorean, < r ι γao i<r-n nλaτ∙>ν, ∏ Ma<r⅛,- Aτ∏x ζωv, “What is Plato, but Moses in Attic Greek.” ]

Having traversed Egypt, where he is said to have assumed the disguise of an olive-merchant, in order to journey more securely in a country not naturally tolerant of strangers, he purposed penetrating into Persia and India. But the disturbed state of those parts of Asia prevented his fulfilling his intentions. He returned accordingly to Magna Graecia, once more to enjoy the society of the*Py [7:18:15]thagoreans. At length, having spent several years in these travels, he turned his steps homeward. We have no means of ascertaining the exact time which these travels occupied, or at what period of his life precisely he undertook the office of teacher of philosophy at Athens. From the epistle addressed to the friends of Dion, it appears that he was scarcely forty years of age when he first went to Syracuse;^[36. B. c. 389. Ep. vii. p. 93, Bipont ed. ] so that probably not more than about ten years were taken up in his wanderings.

The visit to Sicily here referred to, had for its object to explore the crater of Mount Aetna, and therefore properly belongs to that part of his history which we have just been tracing. But it had also very important bearings upon the future fortunes, both of himself and many others; so important, indeed, that Plutarch, following out a remark which occurs in the supposed epistles of Plato, attributes it to a providential arrangement, in order to the restoration of liberty to the Syracusans.^[37. Plutarch in Dion, tom. v. p. 262, Reiske. ] For it was at this time that he became acquainted with the elder Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, and Dion, whose sister Dionysius had married. He reclaimed Dion, who was then quite a youth, from a life of vicious indulgence, to habits of sobriety, and inspired him with an ardent love of philosophy. Thus began an intimate friendship between the philosopher and Dion, which subsisted unimpaired until the tragical death of the latter.

Through the influence of Dion, the tyrant Dionysius, who was himself a literary man and a patron of literature, was induced to receive Plato into the circle of his court. The result, however, whether it was owing to the jealousy of other philosophers who were then at the court of Syracuse, or to an excess of freedom of speech in Plato, and an ebullition of temper and disappointed literary vanity upon the part of Dionysius, was unfortunate. Dionysius was affronted at some words that passed at an interview with him, and was only prevented by the interposition of Dion from slaying the philosopher at the moment of exasperation. But still he did not remit his displeasure; for on suffering him to depart, he instructed the Lacedaemonian ambassador, Pollis, in whose vessel he was to be conveyed from Sicily, either to slay him on the voyage or to sell him as a slave; observing sarcastically, “that being a just man, he would be equally happy though reduced to slavery.” Pollis is said to have so far lent himself to this cruel treachery, that he actually caused the philosopher to be sold as a slave, by landing him at Aegina at a time when a decree was in force there, sentencing to death every Athenian who should set foot in the island. From this shameful indignity, however, Plato was immediately relieved by the generous kindness of Anniceris, a philosopher of Cyrene, who happened to be at Aegina at the time, and paid the twenty minae, the price of his redemption. And such, it is added, was the noble concern which Anniceris felt for him, that he could not be prevailed on to receive back the money from the friends of Plato at Athens, but refused it, saying “that they were not the only persons interested in the welfare of Plato.”^[38. Laert-in Vit. Plat. ]

The story is related with circumstantial particularity, and so far bears the aspect of truth. Still it has been questioned, as inconsistent with the character of Dionysius, who, though despotic in the power which he possessed, and often cruel in his use of it, was a man of education and courtesy, and the patron of literary men. And the treachery of Pollis, as thus exhibited, has been regarded as altogether unlikely in the high-minded Spartan. Nor again do we find any allusion in the writings of the philosopher himself to so affecting an incident in his life. The story may be thought still more improbable, if the account be true that Dionysius presented him with a considerable sum of money, with which he was enabled, during his residence in Sicily, to purchase a treasure inestimable to him, the books of Philolaus the Pythagorean. These arguments, however, may be pressed too far. Individuals possessed of absolute power have often been found capable of deeds from which their own feelings, apart from that great temptation, would have shrunk: and sudden and most unreasonable and absurd outbreaks of violence, inconsistent with their general behaviour, are characteristics of such power. And as for the Lacedaemonians, we know that at the height of their civilization they were guilty of the acts of barbarians. Their extreme cruelty to the poor debased Helots is well known;^[39. Thucyd. iv. 80. ] and in the Peloponnesian war they slaughtered indiscriminately all whom they met with at sea, even neutrals, and persons inoffensively engaged in the business of commerce.^[40. Hid. ] Further, there are repeated instances of Greeks selling as slaves the free inhabitants of captured cities in their wars with each other.^[41. Ibid. ] There is no reason, at any rate, to question the general truth of the story, whatever may be thought of the particulars. There can be little doubt that the visit of Plato at Syracuse ended unsatisfactorily; that offence arose between the tyrant and himself; that he was treated with great indignity, and that he returned to Athens in disgust.^[42. The conduct of Dionysius towards Philoxenus, the dithyrambic poet, for freely giving his opinion on the bad poetry of Dionysius, was very similar. See Diodorus Siculus, xv. 6, who also, in xv. 7, confirms the account of this treatment of Plato. ]

From this time we may contemplate him as pursuing, with little interruption, the course of philosophical labour for which his whole previous life had prepared him. The term “Academy” is now familiar to every one as synonymous with a place of learning. How strongly does this mark the celebrity of a school, which has thus immortalized in vernacular language the grove of the hero Academus or Hecademus, the ground on which Plato walked, and, as he walked, imparted to the throng around him the riches of his genius, and taste, and learning! Here, in the most beautiful suburb of Athens, the Ceramicus, Plato possessed a small patrimony, a garden, where he fixed his abode, in the immediate vicinity of the grove, his daily resort. Here, amongst the tall plane-trees which shaded the walks, were assembled, year after year, the master-spirits of the age, whether in pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, or for counsel in the direction of public or private life,—the philosopher, the statesman, and the man of the world,—to converse with the Athenian sage, and imbibe the wisdom which fell from his lips. What an interesting assemblage must that have been which comprized in it, amongst other influential persons, and young men who afterwards rose to importance in their respective states, Demosthenes, Hyperides, Aristotle, Speusippus, Xenocrates, Polemo, Dion! At once you might see in the throng the young and the gay by the side of the old and the sedate; the stranger from some distant town of Asia Minor, or Thrace, or Magna Graecia, and the citizen of Athens; the tyrant of some little state learning theories of government and laws from the philosopher of the republic; and the haughty Lacedaemonian paying deference to the superior wisdom of an individual of a country which his own had humbled in arms.^[43. In the Dialogue “on Laws,” it is the Athenian stranger who instructs the Lacedaemonian and Cretan in the theory of legislation. Here we have probably a representation of what actually was seen in the Academia itself. Socrates is away; Plato speaks; Cretans and Lacedaemonians, among others, are the auditors. ] Nor was the audience exclusively of the male sex. The wives and daughters of Athenian citizens, indeed, were not [7:18:16]in that assembly; for custom excluded these. But the accomplished courtezan, whom the unnatural exclusion of the chaste matron from social intercourse had raised to importance in Grecian society, was there, seeking the improvement of her mind by joining in the discussions and listening to the instructions of the philosopher, and thus qualifying herself for that part which she had to sustain as an intimate with the men of the highest rank and most intellectual cultivation in Greece. The celebrated Aspasia had been at once the intimate of Pericles, and a hearer of Socrates; and Plato himself pays her the compliment of saying, that both Pericles and Socrates had taken lessons in rhetoric from her, as a most accomplished mistress of the art; to whom, indeed, Pericles had been chiefly indebted for his eloquence.^[44. Plat. Menex. ρ. 277· ] So now in Plato’s own school of the Academia were found, amongst others of the same class, the beautiful Mantinean Lasthenea, and Axiothea of Phlius.

Socrates attracted persons around him from all parts of the Grecian world, by the charm of his engaging conversation, and thus became in himself a great object of interest.^[45. During the representation of “the Clouds,” he stood up in a conspicuous part of the theatre to gratify the curiosity of the audience, many of them strangers visiting Athens at the festival, to see the philosopher who had attracted so much notice as to be personated orì the stage. Aelian. Var. Hist. ii. 13. ] Plato made Athens itself also, even more than his own person, an object of interest to the civilized world of his day; converting it, from being only the centre of political intrigue and agitation to the cities, of Greece, into a common university and common home for all. Compare what was said of Athens about half a century before, “that it was the nature of Athenians neither to keep quiet themselves, nor to suffer other people to do so,”^[46. Thucyd. i. 70. ] and its well-known character at that time of a “tyrant state,”^[47. ∏id. i. 124. ] with the respect which Plato had won for it, when it became, not through the versatility of its citizens, and its inexhaustible resources, but by a truer title, through the lessons of virtue and wisdom, which it freely imparted to all, pre-eminently the School of Greece;^[48. ∩,. ] —and what an exalted opinion does the change now operated give us of the influence of Plato!

Isocrates had, at the same time, his school of rhetoric overflowing with pupils. Aristippus, also trained in the school of Socrates, was inculcating his scheme of ethics, which maintained the theory of pleasure as the chief good. But esteemed as Isocrates was for the gentleness of his life, and his skill as a master of rhetoric; and acceptable as the doctrines of Aristippus must naturally have been to a corrupt society; neither of these great names sufficed to obscure the greater name of Plato, or could rival the pretensions of the Academia to be the great school of philosophy, and literature, and civilization.

A mind so intensely occupied as that of Plato, would scarcely find leisure for taking part in the political affairs of his country. The profession of philosophy was not as yet indeed become entirely distinct; but the teaching of Socrates had greatly tended to render it so. The rigorous method of interrogation which called forth the latent difficulties on other subjects, could not but produce great distrust in those who laid themselves fully open to it, as to their own ability to manage the complex matters of public concern, as well as impress them with despair of success in that walk of exertion. Socrates himself avoided as far as possible all interference in the politics of Athens. Plato strictly followed his example. Accordingly, we find, in several places of his writings, a contrast drawn between the philosopher and the man of public life; and an indirect apology for himself, as one who kept aloof from the public assemblies and the courts.^[49. Phaedo, p. 145; Theat. p. 115, et seq.; G or g. p. 82, et seq.; Repub. vi. p. 79; Epist. vii. ] He betrays indeed strong disgust, not un mixed with contemptuous feeling, at the state of misrule into which the democracy of Athens had degenerated in his day, and he was evidently glad to avail himself of the plea of philosophy to absent himself from scenes so uncongenial to his taste. Doubtless, independently of any political bias, he was glad to escape from the sycophancy and tumult of the popular assemblies at Athens, and to enjoy the calm shades of his beloved retreat. This was the sphere of action for which nature and his whole previous life had peculiarly fittéd him. Here he could effectually diffuse the salutary influence of his philosophy, in counteracting, in some measure at least, the selfishness of the world. Here he could maintain an undisputed supremacy over minds, which (such was the impatience of all authority in those times) no mere external power could have so entirely subjected to the direction of an individual.

Through the influence, however, of his Pythagorean friends, with whom he appears to have held constant intercourse, Plato was prevailed upon, at the age of sixty-five years, to quit the retirement of his garden for a time, and pay a second visit to Sicily.^[50. Diogenes Laertius says, he went to Sicily on this occasion, in order to found a city according to the principles of his Republic, but that Dionysius failed in his promise of land and men for the purpose. But others, he adds, stated that the object of his visit was the liberation of the island from tyranny. In Vit. Plat. ] It was the policy indeed of the Pythagoreans, like that of the Jesuits in modern times, to keep up an active intercourse with society, whilst in their internal system they cultivated philosophy with the ardour of exclusive devotees. Socrates wished to govern the conduct of men by an appeal to their reason; convincing them of their errors and follies, and leading them to seek the means of informing themselves aright. The Pythagoreans, like the Jesuits, aspired to carry out their views by a moral hold over men in society; by taking part accordingly in the management of states, and by a secret influence over those in power. The accession of the younger Dionysius to the throne of Syracuse, and the opening presented for producing an effect on him through Plato’s influence with Dion, the next in power to the tyrant, were opportunities which would not be lost by their watchful zeal. Such seems, if we may proceed on the authority of the Epistles, to have been the occasion of this invitation of Plato to Syracuse. We see, at the same time, that there was a struggle of factions at Syracuse at this period. The party opposed to Dion, in order to counteract his influence, obtained the recall of Philistus, a man distinguished alike as a statesman, a commander, and an historian,^[51. Cicero speaks of Philistus as a writer in the following manner: Philistum doctum hominem et diligentem. {De Divin, i. 20.) Catonem cum Philisto et Thucydide comparares? quos enim ne e Graecis quisquam imitari potest. {De Olar. Orat.} ] and a strenuous supporter of the existing government, but then in banishment through the ingratitude and caprice of the elder Dionysius. The result was, that though the reception of Plato at Syracuse was most flattering, for he was welcomed with the royal pomp of a decorated chariot, and the celebration of a public sacrifice, his mission was ultimately fruitless.

At first everything seemed prosperous. The change wrought in the manners of the court is described as marvellous. Philosophy became the fashion; and the very palace was filled with the dust stirred up by the number of geometricians. Even the expulsion of Dion, which soon followed, through the successful intrigues of his enemies, did not at once estrange Dionysius from the philoso [7:18:17]pher. He would not indeed allow Plato to leave Sicily with Dion; but, using a gentle constraint over him, detained him within the precincts of the citadel; shewing him at the same time all respect, and hoping at last, as it seems, to bring him over to his interest. At length the attention of Dionysius was called to preparations for war; and Plato, released from his embarrassing situation, was enabled to return to Athens.

He was not, however, deterred from once more making the trial, how far an impression could be made on the mind of Dionysius, and the restoration of Dion to his country effected; and, as on the former occasion, so now, he was chiefly induced to undertake the enterprise, by the earnest intercession of his Pythagorean friends. Dion himself was living at Athens, waiting the opportunity of returning to his country; and his relatives at Syracuse sent letters to Plato, urging him to use his exertions in behalf of Dion. Even Dionysius himself wrote a letter to him, entreating him to come, and promising satisfaction at the same time in regard to Dion. He also sent a trireme for him, with Archidemus, a disciple of Archytas, and others with whom the philosopher was acquainted, to render the voyage more agreeable to him.^[52. Plat. Epist. vii. p. 124. ] For a while Plato persisted in declining the invitation, pleading his advanced age, for he was now sixty-eight years old;^[53. . c. 361. ] but at length he gave way to these united solicitations. Dionysius, indeed, like his father, was fond of drawing around him men of eminence for literature and philosophy. At this time, amongst others of the same class at his court, were the philosophers Diogenes, Aeschines, Aristippus, and some Pythagoreans. Plato might have not unreasonably hoped, therefore, that a mind delighting in such society, or at least ambitious of the reputation of being a patron of literature, might yet be influenced to sound philosophy. He was, besides, desirous of making an attempt to produce a reconciliation between Dionysius and Dion. Thus did he pass the Straits of Sicily a third time, to be a third time disappointed in the object of his voyage. Though he was welcomed, as before, with great splendour and demonstrations of respect, not only were his endeavours for the restoration of Dion unsuccessful, but he incensed the tyrant by venturing to intercede in behalf of Heraclides, a member of the liberal party at Syracuse, who was under suspicion of having tampered with the mercenaries. Still Dionysius was desirous of retaining the friendship of the philosopher. Plato was removed, indeed, from the garden in which he lived, under the pretence of a sacrifice about to be performed there by women, and placed in the quarter of the mercenaries. Such a situation was most unpleasant to him; as he could not but feel himself in danger amongst that lawless class, who naturally disliked him, as an enemy of the power which gave them employment and pay.^[54. Plutarch, in Dion. ] But this indignity was probably more the effect of the hostility of the opposite party against Dion, than an act of the weak tyrant himself. Plato, in his perplexity, applied to Archytas and the Pythagoreans at Tarentum, to extricate him from these difficult circumstances. At their instance, accordingly, Dionysius consented to the departure of Plato, and dismissed him with kindness, furnishing him with supplies for his voyage.

Thus did Plato once more return to Athens, heartily disgusted with the untoward result of his visits to Sicily.^[55. tΛifiισn>ιui r¶r trιξi ∑jχ∣λjα> vλa>nf na iτuχ aν. (Plato, Ep. vii. 149, Bip. ed.) ]

Though the friend of Dion, the head of one great party at Syracuse, he had acted in Sicily consistently with his conduct at Athens, in not taking any active part in political affairs. Even Dionysius himself seems, throughout his conduct towards him, to have been jealous rather of his personal regard for Dion, than suspicious of any exertion on his part in the cause of Dion against him, and to have sought to detain him at Syracuse, not out of fear or ill will, but for the honour of the presence of the philosopher at his court. This is further evinced by the subsequent conduct of Plato. For, in the expedition which Dion planned and executed against Dionysius, he took no part; making answer to the invitation to join in it, “that if invited to assist in doing any good, he would readily concur; but as for doing evil to any one, they must invite others, not him.”^[56. Ep. p∙ 149∙ ]

The remaining years of his life were gently worn away amidst the labours of the Academia. These labours were unintermitted to the very close of a long life; for he died, according to Cicero’s account, in the act of writing; his death happening on the day in which he completed his eighty-first year. “Such,” adds Cicero, “was the placid and gentle old age of a life spent in quietness, and purity, and elegance.”^[57. Diog. Laert. in Vit. after Hermippus. ] Another account, however, of his death states that he died during his presence at a marriagefeast.^[58. De Sencct. c. 5. ] And another account besides (evidently the invention of some enemy to his fame), attributes his death to a loathsome disease.^[59. iΛυζiu,nntt J’ iν i Oμtitii fnτι, Φ<λ*>we ra^oιμιtt-s μv*μci ivtH rtζi τωr Ç&ueot, ù; èur&í κιιτβυ τιλtυτ>trarrer. (Diθg. Laert. in Vit·) ] On his first residence in the garden of the Academia, his health had been impaired by a lingering fever, in consequence of the marshiness of the ground. He was urged to remove his residence to the Lyceum, the grove afterwards frequented by the school of Aristotle; but such was his attachment to the place, that he preferred it, he said, even to the proverbial salubrity of Mount Athos; and he continued struggling against the disorder for eighteen months, until at length his constitution successfully resisted it.^[60. Aelian. ] Adopting habits of strict temperance, he thus preserved his health during the remainder of his life, amidst the harassings of foreign travel, and the undermining assiduities of days and nights of study.

Plato was never married. He had two brothers, Glauco and Adimantus, and a sister, Potona, whose son, Speusippus, he appears to have regarded with peculiar affection and interest, as the destined successor to his school of philosophy. He inherited a very small patrimony, and he died poor, leaving but three minae of silver, two pieces of land, and four slaves, and a few articles of gold and silver to the young Adimantus, the son, as it would seem, of his brother of that name.^[61. Diog. Laert. in Vit. ; Aul. Gell. Noc. Att. iii. 18. ]

In person he is described as graceful in his youth, and, if the etymology of his name be correct, as remarkable for the manly frame of his body.^[62. Erat quidem corpus validum ac forte sortitus, et illi nomen latitudo pectoris fecerat. (Seneca, Epitt. 58.) ] One circumstance, however, is mentioned, which detracts in some measure from his bodily accomplishments; the imperfection of his voice, which has been characterized as wanting in strength of tone.^[63. Diog. Laert. in Vit. ]

In regard to moral qualities, he was distinguished by the gravity, and modesty, and gentleness of his demeanour. He had never been observed from his youth to indulge in excessive laughter.^[64. Diog. Laert. in Vit. after Heraclides. ] Several anecdotes are told of his self-command under provocation; as, for example, his declining to inflict the due punishment on a slave when he found himself under the excitement of anger.^[65. Diog. Laert. in Vit. Seneca De Ira. The anecdotes themselves can hardly be regarded as original. Similar stories are told of others, as of Archytas. Ex quo illud laudatur-Archytae; qui cum villico factus esset iration, “Quo to modo, inquit, accepissem, nisi iratus essem ?” (Cicero, Tuse. Qu. iv. 36.) ] A pleasing instance is given of his amiableness and modesty, at a time [7:18:18]when his fame was at its height. Some strangers, into whose company he had been thrown at Olympia, coming afterwards to Athens, were received by him there with the greatest courtesy. All the while, however, they were ignorant who their host was. They merely knew that his name was Plato. On their requesting him to conduct them to the Academia, and show them his namesake, the associate of Socrates, they were astonished to find, by his smile and avowal of himseIf, that they had experienced so much unpretending kindness from the great philosopher himself.^[66. Aelian, Vαr. Hist. iv. 9. ] Again, being asked by some one if there would.be any saying recorded of him, he answered with the like modesty, “One must first obtain a name, and then there will be several.”^[67. Diog. Laert. in Vit. p. 23, Bip. ]

The gravity of his manner was by some interpreted as severity and gloom. The comic poet Amphis complained of him, that “he knew nothing but to look sad, and solemnly raise the brow.” Aristippus charged him with arrogance. It is no wonder, indeed, that, in contrast with the coarse freedom of Diogenes, and the excessive affability of Aristippus, he should appear haughty and reserved. But that this character did not really belong to him, we may judge from the social humour which mingles even with the sarcastic touches of his Dialogues, and from the anxiety which he shewed to correct such a disposition as a fault in Dion. His favourite pupil Speusippus was distinguished by the opposite quality of a lively temper; and to his especial direction we find Plato sending Dion, that he might learn, by the conversation and example of Speusippus, a more conciliatory and agreeable mode of address.

The instance given of his vanity in putting himself forward at the death of Socrates, as competent to retrieve the great loss in his own person alone, bears evident marks of a calumny. It may be so far true, as it represents a desire upon his part to console his brother disciples under their common affliction. But as an evidence of an assumption of superiority over them at such a moment, it accords little with that feeling of dismay for themselves, under which he, in common with the rest, fled to Megara as an asylum; or with his indisputable affection for the person of Socrates, and veneration for his wisdom and talents.

Again, the strictness of Plato’s philosophical profession, amidst the general dissoluteness of manners at Athens, was construed by some who had an envious eye on his reputation, as only an affected austerity. It was complained of him, that his life did not answer to the high requisitions of his moral teaching.^[68. “Aliter, inquit, loqueris; aliter vivis.” Hoc, malignissima capita, et optimo cuique inimicissima, Platoni objectum est, objectum Epicuro, objectum Zenoni· Omnes enim isti dicebant, non quemadmodum ipsi viverent, sed quemadmodum vivendum esset. (Seneca De Vit. Beat. c. 18.) ] Two of his brother disciples in the school of Socrates, Antisthenes and Aristippus, imputed to him the grossest licentiousness. The former taking offence at Pl⅛to for objecting to a treatise, which he proposed to read, on the Impossibility of Contradiction, vented his spleen in a most abusive dialogue, which he entitled Satho, intending at once by that term a satirical play on the name, and a stigma on the character, of the philosopher. These calumnies are in some measure supported by the tenor of certain epigrams attributed to Plato, and by passages of his Dialogues, which display a license of impure allusion, shocking to the feelings of the reader, in these days at least. His calumniators then found occasion for their scandal, in observing amongst those by whom he was surrounded, the young and. the handsome. But though we may see much to reprobate in such passages, and painful as the impression is which they leave on the mind, as evidences of the deep corruption of human nature, we are not warranted in regarding them as conclusive of corresponding immorality of conduct in a writer of his age and country. They shew, indeed, that the writer has not escaped the contagion of the vicious atmosphere which he breathed, and they are of course a great drawback in our estimate of the purity of his sentiments and character. But we ought to set off against them the high tone of religious and moral feeling which is the general characteristic of his philosophy; the beacon which it holds up to warn men of the debasing allurements of pleasure, and of the misery consequent on the indulgence of passion; and its glowing exhortation to seek for true happiness, not in externals, or by aiming at a mere human standard of virtue, but by internal purification, and by imitation of the perfections of the Deity.

Much has been said on the absence of any reference to Xenophon in the Dialogues of Plato. Xenophon, in his Memorabilia, has spoken of Plato, and alluded to the affection with which Plato was regarded by Socrates.^[69. Xenoph. Mem, iii. 6. ] But Plato has not availed himself of any opportunity of paying the like compliment to Xenophon. This silence cannot, perhaps, be entirely accounted for, without supposing that there was a feeling of literary jealousy on the part of Plato. But there are some considerations which may partly account for Xenophon’s not appearing as an interlocutor in the Dialogues. Xenophon, though a man of philosophical mind, evidently attended the teaching of Socrates, not to lcarn the art of disputation, or for the indulgence of a speculative curiosity. When he philosophized, it was as a man of the world, acquainting himself with human nature, with the manners and opinions of men, in order to his own conduct in life. He was not one of those eager and flippant sciolists, whom Plato takes delight in submitting as apt experiments to the interrogatories of Socrates. Nor was he, again, a devotee of science, like the wise Theaetetus, the interesting person who gives occasion to the dialogue of that name, and whom in some points he resembled. He would not therefore naturally be selected by Plato, in order to the carrying on of discussions intended for the development of his philosophy. It is remarkable, that Plato has only in two places even alluded to himself; in the Phaedo, to explain his absence from the death-scene in the prison;^[70. ∏λarajy 5i, οiμaι, r l rSινn. {Ρheedο, § 6.) This circumstance was perhaps thrown in for graphic effect. His own sorrow is too intense to be depicted; therefore he is concealed from the view: his name is introduced, but merely to state that he was not present. ] and in the Apologia, as amongst those present at the trial of Socrates, and capable of giving evidence as to the nature of those instructions which Socrates addressed to the young.^[71. Αpol. p. 78, Bip. ed. ]

Such Was the character of this eminent man. His distinguished career exposed him to the shafts of envy and detraction; and the high aspirings of his mind were clogged and weighed down by that corrupt heathenism with which he was surrounded. Still his reputation for wisdom and virtue stands above all these attacks and circumstances of disparagement. The more we converse with him in his writings, -the more we are charmed by the deep feeling of natural piety which pervades his philosophy as its masterthought, and by the sound practical wisdom which shines forth from them as the real character of the man, reclaiming and subduing the wild aberrations of his speculative fancy.

His remains were buried in the place which he had ennobled whilst living. Nor were they unattended by the [7:18:19]customary tributes of honour and affection. Aristotle, who had been his constant disciple during the last twenty years preceding his death, displayed his veneration for his preceptor by consecrating an altar to him. A festival, called after him Platonea, was instituted in honour of him, and celebrated annually by his disciples. A statue, dedicated to the Muses, was afterwards erected in the Academia by Mithridates the Persian. He had not, indeed, been dead but a very few years, when the great celebrity of his name called forth from his nephew and successor, Speusippus, an express work in his praise. Seneca further tells us of a singular mark of honour which was paid to him on the very day of his decease. There were some Magi, he relates, at Athens at the time, who, struck by the singular circumstance of his having exactly completed the perfect number of nine times nine years, performed a sacrifice to him, esteeming him on that account to have been more than man.^[72. Sence. Eμ lviii. 28. ] The story is evidently the invention of his later admirers. It is referred to here, as a testimony of the enthusiastic admiration with which his name has been ever attended. To the same feeling must be ascribed the fiction of the discovery of his body in the time of Constantine the Great, with a golden tablet on the breast, recording his prediction of the birth of Christ, and his own belief in the Saviour.^[73. Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil. tom. i∙ p. 654. ] plato’s writings and philosophy.

The writings of Plato obtained an early popularity. Already, during his lifetime, copies of them appear to have been circulated. An iambic line, λογο ∣ σιν 'Eoμοδοιξος εμτο~ pευετaι, proverbially applied, long after the time of Plato, to those who made a traffic of the writings of others,^[74. Dic mihi, placetne tibi, primum, edere injussu meo? Hoc ne Hermodorus quidem faciebat, is qui Platonis libros solitus est divulgare; ex quo λογοιην ' E⅛α<Au i <. (Cicer. Èp. ad Att. xiii. 21.) ] shews that there was an immediate demand for them irt Greece. The Hermodorus here referred to, was one of his hearers, who is said to have sold the writings of the philosopher in Sicily for his own profit. The fact of their early circulation is further evidenced, if it be true, as has been stated, that complaints were made by some of the persons whose names appear in the Dialogues, and even by Socrates himself, of the manner in which they had been represented in them by Plato.^[75. Athenaeus, xi. 113. Axiothea is said to have been induced to attend on the teaching of Plato, from having read the Republic. ] It is very probable, also, that during the long time in which he was publicly teaching at Athens, and, doubtless, recurring frequently to the same topics of discussion, considerable portions of what he delivered orally, were treasured up in the memory of some who heard them, and afterwards written down, and thus published to the world without having received the finishing touches of the author’s hand. The practice, indeed, of thus carrying off the oral lessons of the philosopher is alluded to by Plato himself in passages of his writings, as in the Phaedo, and Theaetetus, and Parmenides; where the dialogue is related by some one remembering what has passed in conversation on a former occasion. This circumstance may, at once, account for the comparative inferiority of some of the Dialogues in point of execution, and for the fact that some have been passed under his name which are not really his; whilst we have, at the same time, a very considerable collection of writings authenticated by testimonies descending from his own times.

It is by no means necessary for our purpose here (which is to obtain a just general view of the character of the philosopher and his writings), to enter into the criticisms by which doubts have been thrown on particular Dialogues, and on different Dialogues by different critics, out of the number commonly included amongst the genuine works of Plato. We may only remark, that these doubts do not rest on external testimony, but are drawn from considerations of the internal character of particular writings, which have been judged inferior to the rest in matter and execution. Nor is it necessary that we should discuss the various theories proposed for connecting the several Dialogues, and tracing in them the gradual formation and development of the philosophical system of the author. This inquiry certainly has its interest; and could we arrive at any clear results in the prosecution of it, it would be valuable, for the light which it would throw on the interpretation of the philosophy of Plato. But though we can discover a connection between several of the Dialogués, like that of a series of discussions on the same subject, it is not possible to decide on the order in which the points discussed presented themselves to the philosopher’s mind, or which we are to regard as the more mature expression of his doctrines. This inquiry further demands a decision of the agitated question concerning the double teaching practised in the ancient schools, known by the technical division into esoteric and exoteric, or mystic and popular; the former addressed to the mature disciple, the latter to the novice or general hearer. There are undoubtedly marks of a recognition of this distinction throughout the writings of Plato;^[76. See particularly Conυiυ. p. 245. ∙ ] and it is also probably referred to by Aristotle, when he speaks of the “unwritten doctrines” of Plato.^[77. Aristot. Phys. iv. 2. ] But we cannot practically employ it in determining the relative value of particular discussions or statements in his writings, without in volving ourselves in a maze of theoretic disquisition, and ending at last, perhaps, in absolute scepticism respecting his doctrines.

But there is a particular class of writings attributed to him, which would possess a peculiar interest for us, if we could establish their genuineness; respecting which, however, the severe verdict of modern criticism compels ns to hesitate in pronouncing on their genuineness. We mean what are commonly published in the editions of his works as the Epistles of Plato. By some the question has been regarded as settled beyond controversy, against their reception.^[78. Mitford, Hist, of Greece, vol. vi.; Ritter, Hist. ofAnc. Phil. ] The style of their composition has been judged to be quite below the character of Plato’s mind. The apologetic tone of the chief part of them has also been considered as evidence of their having proceeded from friends or disciples of Plato, vindicating his character from misrepresentations in regard to his intercourse with the conrt of Syracuse. But though we may allow weight to these considerations, they are not sufficient peremptorily to decide the question against the Epistles; particularly as we have in their favour the authority, not only of Plutarch, who founds much of the narrative in his Life of Dion upon them, but of Cicero, referring to them and quoting them expressly as writings of Plato.^[79. Est praeclara Epistola Platonis ad Dionis propinquos; in qua scriptum est his fere verbis: “Quo cum venissem, vita illa beata quae ferebatur,” &c. Tuse. Qu. v. 35; also De offic. i. 7; and De Ein. ii 14. . ]

Perhaps no philosophical writer has ever received so early and ample a recompense of his labours, not only in the reception and circulation of his writings, but in the still more glorious tribute of the spread of his philosophy, as Plato has received. We have mentioned the ordinary marks of admiration which accompanied him during his life and after his death. A more enduring monument was reserved for him in the foundation of the school of Alexandria, not many years after his voice had ceased to be [7:18:20]heard in the groves of the Academia. There, as in a fitting temple, on the confines of the Eastern and Western Worlds, was enshrined the philosophy which had moulded into one the philosophical systems of the East and the West. And though, in the course of things, the infusion of Eastern Philosophy predominated at Alexandria, it was still under the venerated name of Plato that the new system was taught. The disciples of the Alexandrine school were proud to call themselves Platonists, and to regard themselves as interpreters of the doctrines of Plato, whilst they altered and disfigured those doctrines. Here, then, was erected the proper monument to his fame. Meanwhile, in the Academia, teachers in regular succession transmitted their inheritance of his name, and by the charm of that, prolonged a feeble existence. For the spirit which had formed and animated the school had fled with him; and the Middle and New Academics only attested, by their lingering decay, the strength of the foundation on which they had been built. How great the influence of Plato was on the philosophy of the Romans, needs not to be told to those who are even slightly acquainted with the philosophical writings of Cicero. And even when Christianity threw into the shade all systems of man’s wisdom, the only philosophy which maintained its credit at the first, was that of Plato. Christian teachers were found, not unwilling to own that there was great accordance between his doctrines and the revealed truth. Whilst, on the one hand, there were disciples of the philosopher who claimed for him all that was excellent in the Christian scheme, there were Christians who asserted, that he had learned his superior wisdom from the elder Scriptures. All this shews the hold which his name still retained over the minds of men at this period. The great father of the Western Church, St Augustin, avows himself a warm admirer of Plato. He concedes the approximation of the Platonists to the Christian doctrines; affirming that all other philosophers must yield to those who had speculated so justly as they had respecting the Chief Good.^[80. Augustin. De Civit. Dei, viíí Chapter after chapter is taken up in Eusebius’ Prxparaiio Evangelica, in shewing the agreement of Plato with the Scriptures. ] Afterwards, indeed, we find Aristotle supplanting Plato in favour with the Christian controversialist. The struggle had been for some time between their respective advocates, which of them should obtain the lead in-the Christian schools. But Plato,.on the whole, had the mastery, though the result of the struggle was an eclectic system, in which the principal differences of the two philosophers were studiously reconciled. In fact, we may consider Platonism as in the ascendency in the Christian schools, until the period of Scholasticism, that is, until the twelfth and the following centuries, when the discipline of argumentation was at its height in the Church, and with it the study of Aristotle’s philosophy. Even then the theories of Plato maintained their ground. The speculations pursued by members of the Church continued to be for the most part Platonic in their principles, though they were conducted and modified by the dialectical method of Aristotle.

What, then, was the character of this philosophy, it will naturally be asked, which both rendered it so attractive to those amongst whom it arose, and also secured for it such an immortality?

It is a very remarkable circumstance that, as far as we know, Plato should have escaped all censure at Athens on account of his philosophy, when other philosophers, who, like him, became centres of popular attraction, were the objects of extreme persecution. It is the more remarkable, as not only his master experienced such persecution, but his immediate disciple, Aristotle, was forced to fly from Athens to escape the storm with which he was threatened. Coming between these two, and enjoying, at the height of his po pularity, an influence perhaps surpassing that of either, he yet was suffered to wear out his life unmolested, amidst the tranquil labours of his school.

The only evidence to the contrary of this is an unauthenticated anecdote, told by Laertius, of Plato’s having accompanied Chabrias to the citadel of Athens, and shewn his zeal in support of that general, under the capital charge brought against him. Upon this occasion, it is said, Cro-bylus, the sycophant, meeting him, observed, “Are you coming to plead for another, as ignorant that the hemlock of Socrates awaits you too ?” to which he replied, “When I served my country in the field I underwent dangers, and now in the cause of duty I undergo them for a friend.”^[81. Diog. Laert. in Vita Plat. 18. ]

But though we may refuse to believe this story, it is quite evident, that the condition of philosophy at Athens was not without its obloquy and danger even in its most flourishing times under Plato. We may gather from many passages of the writings of Plato, that the cause of philosophy still needed defence, and that great caution was required on the part of those who publicly professed the study of it. A re-action indeed had taken place in favour of philosophers, in consequence of the severity with which Socrates had been treated; and the assailants of Socrates suffered retribution from the popular feeling. Still there was in the mass of the Athenian people a strong antipathy to philosophy, from their ignorance of its real nature. They had been taught to regard philosophers as idle and mischievous drivellers, ever prosing about nature and the phenomena of the heavens, and as contemners of the gods.^[82. W κωμd⅛ rer<>t 4∣n, i1tλtrxu, ». τ. λ. Pl∙xedo, p. 159; Apol. p. 44; Polit, p, 92, et alilι. ] They had seen also how some of those to whom Athens owed her greatest calamities, had been amongst the students of philosophy. Alcibiades, for example, had been a hearer of Socrates; one of singular natural endowments, in the formation of whose mind Socrates had taken especial pains, and who might therefore be regarded as the test of what philosophy could effect. The people had loved him as their spoiled child, in spite of all his follies; but they had felt also the mischief and misery of his wild career of ambition; and they threw ths blame on his instructors, and the system in which he. had been trained. Again, a great prejudice had been excited in the public mind against philosophy in general, from the many low and mercenary professors of it with which Greece abounded; minute philosophers, patronized by the public for their temporary services in teaching the arts of public life, but who produced ignominy and disgust to the true profession by their unworthy monopoly of its name. Add to this, that popular opinion had been corrupted by the false teaching, which had been so long and extensively at work throughout Greece. Erroneous principles of judgment and conduct had taken root in the public mind; or, to describe the case more correctly, all principles were unsettled, and the state of the public mind was a state of inward anarchy and insubordination. A philosopher, therefore, seriously devoted to his profession, and pursuing it with a single eye to the advancement of truth, was necessarily regarded with suspicion and dislike. For it is a natural propensity of the mind to adhere to what is established, whether it be good or evil, simply because the transition is easy, and no effort of thought is required, no trouble of self-examination imposed, no censure of self exacted; and what is inveterate in their own minds passes with men for the oldness of truth and nature. A reformer, therefore, is always an object of aversion; and no reform is successfully accomplished, until it has worked its way by subduing the prejudices which it has to encounter at the outset. Not [7:18:21]only was the oppósition to sound philosophy produced in the minds of the vulgar by this distemper of public opinion; but even the better part of society, the more educated and reflecting members of the community, were infected by it. The majority of these would be deterred from taking up a profession exposing them to so much dislike and risk. Some of them, too, with a view of standing well with the mass of those amongst whom they lived, and promoting their own interest, would avail themselves of the popular clamour against philosophy, cry down the pursuit of it as innovation and danger, and make it their business to exaggerate, instead of counteracting, vulgar prejudices on the subject.

These obstructions to the teaching of philosophy are pointedly referred to by Plato, as existing in his time, and demanding his attention, in order to the success of that mission of reform which he had undertaken. He treats the vulgar prejudice against philosophy as not altogether unreasonable,^[83. ∩ μaxagi i r l ν 3 ’ ιyβ, μνi navυ ίυτω rm wβλλuν ×aτnγeζiι f iλλ' ιιaν tŏi Jo⅜α* tζeurιν, ?» αΰτοις un fnaβmxa n. άλλα raζtt zυ3c l υμιvι>s i xaι κ<r∙λ⅛∙ iμιrι>S tm> rní φιλoμaSιιιii ίιαζόλην, hĭitxrvt άυν aiytι{ τt>υs φιλβroφovi, ×. <r. λ. {Rep. vi∙ p. 101.) ] in consequence of the perverse opinions which had been popularly inculcated; and endeavours to disarm the public hostility, by alleging the causes of the disrepute into which philosophy had unjustly fallen. Alluding, as it seems, particularly to the instance of Alcibiades, he points out, that it is not philosophy which corrupts the young, but the passions of the young and noble spirit which pervert the means of good to the greatest mischief. None but those of the highest order of talent and natural gifts are fully susceptible of its influence; but then these are the very cases, he observes, which are also capable of the most mischief, through their greater susceptibility of the seductions of the world. There cannot but be objections against philosophy, he further observes, as long as the mass of mankind is, as it is found, incapable of appreciating reaI essential good for its own sake; and as long as those of superior nature, who should be its devoted friends, and examples of its influence, are drawn away from it in pursuit of popular opinion. He endeavours, accordingly, to evince that there is no just ground for alarm, at least in those days, at the power of philosophy. It was now deserted and helpless, fallen amongst those who were not its own people. If disgrace now attached to philosophy, it must be imputed to the unworthy alliance into which it had been forced. The mean artisan, who has made his fortune, now quits his prison, and decks himself out, and aspires to the hand of the daughter of his master in her poverty and destitution.^[84. ∆txoi oυν t!, iιν i"tγu, ⅛ιaφiζi f iυτovf ìJti» κζγvgiw xrfiraµsnv χaλxιωf, φaaaxζoυ xaι rμι×ζtu i i’.nrri μιt J« 'iiirμωv λιλ∙jμwau, ?» βaλa,νuf ¢i λtλtυμινoυ^ twugγβι lµariíf tχ∙ms i if νυμpth naotvxιυairμlνiυ, ìia. %s»i<» xaι tζnμιav τoυ ⅛trnsrou'τr,t Sυγaτtζa, μιλλcrτ⅛ γaμtw {Rep vi∙ p. 9 , ) ] It was no wonder, therefore, that such spurious fruits, of so unsuitable alliance, were then seen in the world, and that the few who clung to the true profession were like strangers in the world, living away from public affairs, as unwilling to join in the general iniquity, and unable to resist it effectually by their single strength.^[85. Hid. p. 95. ]

If Plato thought it necessary thus to apologize for the pursuit of philosophy, it is clear that there was yet reason to apprehend an outbreak of violence against its professors. In fact, however, he appears not only to have escaped all such outrage, but, whilst he propagated, by his oral teaching and his writings, a system of doctrines directly contrary to the impure morality and superstition established around him, to have enjoyed an esteem beyond that which any other teacher on the same ground ever obtained.

The explanation of this is in a great measure to be sought in the circumstances under which his philosophy was formed and matured, and to which it was peculiarly adapted.

What Themistocles admitted truly of himself when he answered, that he should not have achieved his glorious deeds if Athens had not been his country, was as truly applied by Plato to himself, when he enumerated amongst his causes of gratitude to the Gods, that he was born an Athenian.^[86. Lactant. Div. Inst. iii. ] For his philosophy was eminently Athenian. Viewed at least as we have it in his writings, it was the expression, by a master-mind, itself imbued with the spirit of the age, but rising above that spirit by its intrinsic superiority, of those tendencies of thought and action, which had been working in Greece, and especially at Athens, the centre of Grecian civilization.

The Peloponnesian war terminated with leaving Athens humbled before the confederacy, which the hatred and jealousy of her power had leagued against her. But the loss of her ascendency in Greece was not the worst evil brought on Athens by the result of that war. The machinery of faction, by which the war had been principally carried on, produced the most mischievous effects on the character and happiness of the Greeks at large; aggravating the symptoms of evil already existing in the constitutions of the several states, and, not least, in that of Athens. Not only did the insolence of the Athenian democracy gain strength in the result, and rise beyond all bounds, but the excesses in which party spirit had indulged, drew into prominence the selfishness and ferociousness of a demoralized people. Then might be clearly seen the levity and licentiousness of men, who, living amidst constant hazards, had learnt to regard nothing beyond the enjoyment of the passing hour; the cunning and cruelty engendered by mutual distrust; and the wanton contempt of all law and religion, prompted by the sight of the calamities which the tempests of social life scatter indiscriminately on the good and the evil. On this stock of corruption, speculative irreligion, and speculative immorality, had also grown up as its natural offshoots. Men were found hardening themselves against the reproaches of conscience and the fear of retribution, by arguing against the fundamental truths of religion and morals. In religion, it was contended that there were no Gods; or that if the existence of a divine power were conceded, there was no Providence over human affairs; or, lastly, that if there were a Providence, the wrath of the offended Deity was placable by the prayers and sacrifices of the offender. In morals, the question was debated, whether all was not mere matter of institution, and the device of the weak against the stronger power; and whether right might not change with the opinions of men.

This state of things had produced and fostered a spurious race of philosophers, familiarly known by the name of the Sophists; a name, not at first implying that disrespect, by which it afterwards characterized the-pretensions of those to whom it was given. For the Sophists evidently were not the primary corrupters of the public mind in Greece, but themselves the offspring of· that moral chaos, which resulted from the internal disorders of the country, and which they sustained, as its own children paying the recompense of their nurture to their genuine parent. They were an evidence of the corruption having reached the higher classes of society; for their instructions were sought by those who could pay for them, and who desired to qualify themselves for office and power in the state. ∙ Going about from place to place, and domesticating themselves wherever they could obtain a reception, they undertook to render all that flocked to them adepts in the arts ' of government, and even in virtue. The pretension would have been absurd and extravagant, but for the prevailing looseness of opinion on moral subjects.^[87. Rep vi. p. 85. ] But when right was [7:18:22]understood as nothing more than what happened to be instituted and in fashion, there was an opening to every unprincipled teacher to adapt his moral lessons to the varied requirements of each distinct society.^[88. See Meno, pp. 371-380; Theat. p. 127; Soph. pp. 232-234. ]

At no place were these universal teachers more cordially received than at Athens. The anxiety with which an expected visit from any one of greater note among them was expected at Athens, and the zeal with which the young hastened to see and hear the wise man on his arrival, are depicted in lively colours by Plato. At Athens, evidently, if anywhere, the Sophist felt himself at his proper home. There was his readiest market. Herodotus may justly have been surprised at the success of so vulgar a deception at Athens, the seat of literature, as that practised by Pisistratus, when he exhibited to the people a woman of great stature, arrayed in full armour, and pompously borne in a chariot into the city, as the goddess Minerva, reinstating him in her own citadel.^[89. Herodot. Clio, 60. ] It would have been still stranger if these impersonations of Athenian wisdom had not succeeded in imposing on the understanding of Athenians. For their minds were in that fluctuating state, which disposed them to receive every various form. They were subject to chance-impressions from the last teacher. Their general cultivation of mind, and taste for literature, prepared them for listening with pleasure to exhibitions of rhetorical and dialectical skill, such as the Sophists gave. And from admiration of the skill thus displayed, the transition was natural to consider that, as the only wisdom, which was capable of maintaining both sides of a question with equal plausibility, and that, the only virtue, which could shift and accommodate itself to every expedient with equal satisfaction.

Yet the Athenian was not entirely the creature of those circumstances, which had so considerably modified his character. He yet retained some traces of that high feeling so beautifully touched by his own tragic poet, when that poet speaks of “the pious Athens,” and appeals to the ancient associations of religion which consecrated the land. Religion indeed had acquired the name of superstition, or the fear of supernatural powers, δεισιδαιμονία ; but even this marks that there were some who cherished, though in that degenerate form, a veneration for the truths of the Divine Being, and the Divine agency in the world. Nor was the Athenian ever insensible to his pride of birth, and rank among those of the Grecian name.^[90. Ibid. vi. 59; A,‰)κιι>s ων Aap∙ψaxnν*>, shews in a few words the Athenian estimation of themselves. ] He dwelt on the recollections of a remote antiquity of origin, as distinguishing him among the members of the Greek family. He claimed to be the offspring of the Attic soil, ai ∣ τοχ⅛ων, whilst others were descended from successive immigrations of strangers. Amidst his fickleness, and susceptibility of every passing impulse, he yet felt himself strongly influenced by his veneration for the past, and loved to connect himself with the ancient glo- ,ries of his country. In the Athenian character, accordingly, ,may be observed the union of extremes; devoutness of deep inward feeling, accompanied with superficial irreligion and profane, dissoluteness of morals; a mercurial temperament, ever eager for change, floating like a light cloud over a deep-rooted reverence of antiquity, and the tradition of ancestral wisdom and virtue.

Now, .on accurately studying the writings of Plato, we find them, both, a reflexion of this state of the public mind at Athens, and a corrective of it. Full of imagination and of severe subtile thought, they are formed to attract and fix the attention of the literary Athenian. Bringing the Sophist on the scene, and giving sketches of the social life of Athens, and making conversation the vehicle of his instruc tions, Plato in a manner transferred to his own teaching, what was every day witnessed at Athens in the professorial exhibitions of the Sophists themselves. His philosophy, a counterpart, in its way, to the drama of the comic poet, instructed the people, at once, through their wisdom and their folly. As Aristophanes spoke to them under the mask of folly, and gave utterance to lessons of severe wisdom under that mask; so Plato, on the other hand, put on the mask of the sage, and in grave irony ridiculed and exposed the light-hearted folly of his countrymen. Both were wiser than they seemed to the outward observation; as was indeed the volatile Athenian, to whom they addressed their counsel. Both presupposed that delicacy of perception and quick tact in their fellow-citizens, which would be flattered by such indirect modes of address, and would, at the same time, appreciate the jest of the one, and the irony of the other. Both speak with the freedom of the democratic spirit. But the counsel of Aristophanes is that of the privileged jester of the sovereign-people amidst festal scenes and the enthusiasm of mirth; whilst Plato appeals to the Athenian at the moment of quiet, serious reflection on the surrounding folly, and treats him as a contemplative spectator, rather than himself an actor in it.

Before the time of Plato, there were no philosophical writings which answered the requisitions of the Athenian mind. There were poems of the early philosophers. There were didactic writings of the later Pythagoreans, and even dialogues discussing speculative questions. Anaxagoras, too, whose name was well known at Athens, had published a treatise of philosophy.^[91. Laertius says that Anaxagoras was the first to publish such a treatise. In Vit Anax. viii. ] But none of these, if they were even accessible to the Athenian, were calculated to attract his attention. The philosophical poems differed nothing from prose but in the metre, and were exceedingly dry and uninviting to the general reader. The books of Pythagoreans were very few, at least at this time, and hardly known to any but the devoted student of philosophy.^[92. It must be of the more modern Pythagoreans that Dionysius of Halicarnassus speaks, when he recommends the reading of them, not only for their matter, but for their style. De Vett. Scr. Cens. iv. ] Nor would the dialogues of Zeno or Euclid, concerned about mere logical subtilties, or the physical discussions of Anaxagoras, possess any charm for the lively Athenian. Even afterwards, the instructive writings of Aristotle did not obtain that reception which could save them from a temporary oblivion. But the dialogues of Plato supplied exactly what was yet wanting in this department of Athenian literature. They were the proper development of the philosophical element in the genius of the people. The shrewd practical talent of the Athenians had been strikingly exhibited in the successful achievements of their great generals and statesmen, and in the lead of Athens itself amongst the states of Greece at the close of the Persian war. Their taste in arts, and poetry, and general literature, had put forth splendid fruits in the works of Athenian artists, Athenian masters of the drama, and of history. But their genius for abstract speculation as yet had nothing which it could claim as strictly its own. Socrates indeed laid the basis for such a work. During the half century preceding the appearance of Plato as the leader of a school of philosophy, Socrates had been engaged as a missionary of philosophy, awakening the curiosity of men; turning their thoughts to reflection on themselves, as creatures endued with moral and intellectual faculties; and inspiring them with longings after some information on questions relating to their own nature, and a taste for discussions addressed to the resolution of such questions. Plato succeeded him, and carried the philosophical spirit, now fully called into action, to its result. His works accordingly display this spirit at its maturity; exemplifying at the [7:18:23]same time that peculiar combination of qualities which formed the Athenian character. Thus are they at once serious and lively, abstract and imaginative; full of deep thought and feeling intermingled with gaiety and humour; instinctive with the awe of religion and ancient wisdom, whilst they present also an image of Athenian versatility, and frivolity, and love of change. They convey indeed a strong rebuke of the vices of the times. They draw, in no softened colouring, outlines of the evil and misery resulting from the profligacy of existing governments, and the excesses of individual cupidity; the two great causes assigned by Plato for the prevailing evil of his times. But these lessons were calculated rather to interest the hearer or reader by their faithful representation of manners, than to alienate him, as we might at first think, by the justness of the censure. Athenians would give their attention to such descriptions, as they did to the invectives of their orators,^[93. Thucyd. iii 38; Demosth. passim. ] acknowledging the general truth of the representation; and each, at the same time, taking no offence at what he applied to others, and to every one rather than to himself. Philosophy too, taught, as by Plato, colloquially, was such as peculiarly to suit the taste of the Athenian, whose life was in the agora, or the ecclesia, or the courts of law; and who regarded the interchange of words as no unimportant ingredient in everything that he had to do.^[94. Ou thus λoγoυι ∣τo∣i iζγo∣s βλaζν∣ν ηγoι>μtνoι, άλλα μη ∙rςoliiaχSηνaι μάλλον λογνf ∙τοοτtνοt, f∣ iτι à as* ιοyv tλβti>, χ. τ. λ. ( Thucyd. ίί· 40 | also iii. 42.) ] Such conversation, too, as that of Plato’s Dialogues, elegant conversation, steeped in the well-spring of Grecian literature, and expressed in language such as Jove, it was said, might use, and adorned with the charms of an exquisite musical rhythm, could not but be attractive to Athenian ears. We may see, accordingly, in these circumstances, at once, an occasion for the existence of such writings as those of Plato, and a reason of the peculiar mould in which they were cast, as well as of the success which attended them.

Not only, however, was the general character of his philosophy, as viewed in connection with the writings which convey it, derived from such influences; but the internal structure of it was the natural result of the peculiar education of such a mind as his, under the circumstances to which we have referred. His philosophy was essentially dialectical or colloquial; an examination and discussion of systems, and doctrines, and opinions. According to his notion, the true philosopher is the dialectician; the investigator, who has fought his way, step by step, through every argument capable of being adduced in support of a particular opinion, refuting those that are unsound, until at length he has found rest in some position that cannot be shaken.^[95. nrntς (V μaχν∣ Ji® <raντuν iλιγχaν 2<sξ∕<ua, X. τ. λ. CRcp. VÍÎ. ρ. 1G7∙) ] Hence he is the disciple of no particular system of philosophy, whilst he brings all systems under his survey, and compels all to pay a tribute to his stock of truth, by discussing them, and rejecting in them what will not abide the test of examination. We have seen that he was engaged in studying the doctrines of Heraclitus, and of the Pythagoreans, and of the other schools, whilst he was also a hearer of Socrates. He had thus begun in early life to analyse different systems by the searching method of Socrates; and his mature philosophy was only the same proceeding more deeply imbibed in his own mind, more extensively carried on, and more vigorously applied. So far, indeed, does the colloquial spirit predominate over his philosophy, so entirely dialectical is it in its whole internal character, that it leaves on the mind of the reader more an impression of a series of discussions, in order to the determination of the questions considered, than the conviction of any thing positively determined. Hence it is that Ci cero, speaking of Plato’s writings, says, that “in them nothing is affirmed; and much is discoursed on both sides; everything is inquired into; nothing certain is said.”^[96. CÎC. Acad. Quast, i. 12. ] So also Sextus Empiricus raises the question, in what respect the philosophy of Plato differs from that of the Sceptics.^[97. Sex. Ēmp. Pyr. Hyp. i. 33; Diog. Bae it. in VU. Piut. 33. ] And again his doctrines have been characterized as brilliant clouds, which we seem at the point of grasping, when they vanish from our hands. This effect is doubtless partly to be ascribed to the disguise of his irony; to the artist-design which presides over his whole instruction. But it is also the proper effect of that dialectical philosophy which is worked out in the Dialogues. Whilst he is a consummate artist throughout, he is also illustrating the lessons which he had learnt from Socrates, by bringing false opinions to the test of discussion, and leaving truth, for the most part, to be collected from refutation of error, rather than positively enunciating it, or exactly defining it.

For when we come to examine his philosophy more closely, we find, that it begins and ends, like the lessons of Socrates, with a confession of the ignorance of man. Socrates had led him to perceive how much was taken for granted in the popular opinions and systems of philosophy; how even those who had a reputation for wisdom and talents took up principles which they had never examined, and which they could not satisfactorily account for, or defend, when pressed in argument. Imbibing, accordingly, the spirit of the Socratic method, he did not endeavour to teach, in the proper sense of the term, so much as to explore and test the minds of men; to ascertain, how far they really understood the doctrines and opinions which they professed. The fundamental error of the Sophists was, that they assumed all current opinions to be true. They did not think it necessary to examine this preliminary; whether the opinions on which they built their fabric of knowledge were true or false. It was enough for them, that certain opinions were actually held; and to these, as given principles, they directed their whole system of teaching. Their teaching, accordingly, was entirely ngo⅛ δοζα,v, relative to opinion; and it must, consequently, stand, or fall, as existing opinions could be maintained or impugned. Now, with Plato, as with Socrates, the investigation of this preliminary point (that is, whether existing opinions are true or no), is everything. The presumption that they are true, is what he will by no means admit. He demands a positive evidence of them. And as the presumption of their truth is a bar to all inquiry concerning them, he commences with the opposite presumption of their falsehood, or at least a confession on the part of the inquirer, that as yet r —until he has investigated,—he does not know the truth of his opinions.

For the same reason, he avoids all dogmatism in his conclusions. Those might aspire to communicate the knowledge of new truth to the mind, who, as the Sophists did, assumed that knowledge was entirely subjective; or who held that any opinion which could be produced in the mind, was simply true, was really known, because it was there. But as Plato denied the truth of Opinion, if it had no other evidence, but that of its mere presence in the mind; so, neither would he concede that any process of the mind in itself, or any argumentative and persuasive instructions, could produce, by their own force, a conviction of truth in the mind. In other words, he required the student of philosophy, not only to begin, but to end, with a confession of the ignorance of man.

We have an apt illustration of this in the dialogue entitled the First Alcibiades. There Socrates is introduced, [7:18:24]questioning Alcibiades concerning his plans of life, and shewing how entirely he had presumed on his knowledge of matters with which he was unacquainted; and that until he . could be brought to feel and confess his ignorance, there was no possibility of his being able to direct himself or others aright.

In the Meno, the same is illustrated by the comparison of the effect of the searching questions of Socrates, on the mind of the person submitted to them, to that of the torpedo. Meno says, he had thousands of times, and to many a person, and with much credit to himself, as he thought, spoken on the subject of virtue; but on conversing with Socrates, he was quite at a loss now to say even what virtue was.

To the same purport is the general application by Socrates in the Apologia, of the oracle which pronounced him the wisest of men. The oracle, he observes, had only used his name by way of example, as if it had said, “He, O men! is the wisest of you, whoever, like Socrates, is convinced, that he is in truth worthless in respect of wisdom.”^[98. ' il<rτtζ Ùi tινrtι in' ’ Ov<rtt vμ∑ν, ω αvSea*tt, rtφωτΛτts rnν, irnt, αrνrιζ Tα>xζατf s, iγvu×t>, in iviirβ( lm, τ; κλr,3ιια, πζ<>s rofiaν. (Αρθ~ log. Soc. p 53.) ]

The method of Plato, accordingly, is the reverse of didactic. The Sophists could employ a didactic method; because they assumed principles as true, from which they might proceed to argue and persuade. But this was precluded to Plato, assuming, as he did, that all opinions demanded a previous examination. It was necessary for him to extort a confession of ignorance, to make men sensible of the difficulties belonging to a subject. It only remained, therefore, for him to proceed by Interrogation. In a colloquial philosophy, Interrogation is what experiment is in physical inquiry. It is the mode of discovering what the real state of a person’s mind is, in regard to the opinions which he professes. The whole art of Socrates consisted in putting questions to the person with whom he conversed, so that an answer bearing on the point in debate might be elicited; that the grounds on which a given opinion was held might fully appear; and the person’s own answers might open his mind to see it in its proper light. This method Plato has followed out in the interrogatory of his Dialogues. Under such a method of philosophy, the answerer is brought to teach himself. The lesson thus given by the philosopher, consists wholly in the questions which he puts. He preserves, from first to last; the simple character of the inquirer; and he pronounces only so far as he approves or rejects the answer given.

The popular opponents of this method called it a method of producing doubt; and regarded it as dangerous to the principles of the young. Plato carefully obviates such a misrepresentation of his proceeding, and guards his method from being confounded with that of the Sophists. The Sophists taught the art of exciting doubts on every subject; a mere effort of gladiatorial skill. They professed to make men apt to cavil and dispute on any given subject.^[99. " Rep. vii. p. 177. ] All principles, according to them, were equally stable; all were equally open to be impugned. They, therefore, did not care how they unsettled the minds of men, if their skill could only find materials on which to exercise itself. In Plato’s hands, however, the awakening of doubt has for its object, to remove the unstable ground on which opinions may happen to be rested, and to lead to more settled convictions. With him it is exalted into a regular discipline of the mind. With the Sophists, it was perverted to strengthen that universal scepticism in which their whole teaching was based. So strictly does Plato confine the application of his method to the single purpose of investigat ing the truth, that he strongly objects to the use of it as a mere exercise of ingenuity; lest the young, led on by the pleasure of refuting and perplexing others, should think, at last, that there were no real distinctions of right and wrong.

Plato seems the more anxious to distinguish his method of inquiry from that of the Sophists, as his method did in some measure resemble theirs. It was inquisitive on every subject, as theirs was. It did superficially appear to be nothing but questioning, and doubting, and cavilling. It did appeal to the reason of every man, and oblige him to see how he could defend his opinions. And on this very ground Socrates had been attacked: for he was accused of corrupting the young, by making them “doubt,” anege/v πo∕ovvra.^[100. * Αpolog. p. 54; Gorg p. 162; Μerio, p. 347: Polit.; Conv. ] Plato fully admits that this practice, as pursued by the Sophists, was dangerous to the principles of the young. In fact, he observes it would be even better to suffer them to remain under the guidance of some principles which, though not true, served as restraints on their passions, than to remove everything from their minds, and leave no check whatever to licentious indulgence. By a beautiful illustration, he compares the effect produced by the sophistical method, to the case of a child brought up amidst wealth, and luxury, and high connections, and the society of flatterers, but in ignorance as to his real parentage. Suppose, he observes, such a person to come to know that those, whom hd has hitherto believed to be his parents, are not so, and at the same time not to know who his real parents are. It is clear, that whilst in his state of ignorance concerning his supposed parents, he would respect and attend to them more than to his flatterers; but on finding out his mistake, unless he were of a superior character, such as is rarely met with, he would attend to his flatterers more than to those whom he once supposed to be his parents. So would it be, then, he shews, with one who should find out that the popular principles of morals in which he had been trained, were not the truth, without arriving, at the same time, at the real truth. He would no longer be controlled by those moral principles of which he had discovered the falsehood; but having nothing to substitute in their place, he would give way afterwards, without reserve, to the seductions of pleasures, the flatterers, whose blandishments he had before in some measure resisted.^[101. Rep. vii. pp. 174-178. ] In opposition to such a system of cavilling, Plato holds an even course between the scepticism which merely doubts about everything, and the dogmatism which pronounces on everything without examination.

The method by which he accomplishes his object, carried out to the fulness of a regular system and discipline of the mind, is, what he calls by a term conveying to a Greek ear its colloquial origin and application, dialectic. As contrasted with the spurious method of the Sophists, or the method of contradicting on every subject, and involving the mind in endless perplexity, it was the true art of Discussion. As contrasted with the mere wisdom of opinion, δoξotfop∕α, which the Sophists inculcated, it was philosophy, real science, or knowledge of the truth. The method of his philosophy, and his philosophy itself, thus run up into one, and coincide under the common name of Dialectic.^[102. ∆λλa ∕w ra γι 3>aatxnxn eíx άλλα it> β -n i , i s iγt>μa , τλr.ν nf χχάαςΣ; τt xaι hxniuι <pλtσι>(p>ιnn. (Soph. p. 275 ) 'θ μι> γaς βuνi∙rnx*i ^ιαλιχτιχβί' i 3s μη, iυ. (Rrp∙ vii. ρ. 173·) ]

To trace the manner in which this coincidence was effected, will lead us to a perception of the true character of Plato’s philosophy, as a system mediating between the dogmatism of the sciolist on the one hand, and the scepticism of the disputant on the other.

The hypothesis, we observe, on which he founded the whole of his proceeding, was the fallaciousness of Opinion; the Sophists, on the contrary, assuming the truth of Opinion [7:18:25]universally. Whilst to the Sophists every opinion served as a ground of argument, and for them there was no need to look beyond the apparent ; it was necessary for Plato, to seek for some Criterion of Truth out of the region of mere Opinion. Commencing with denying the sufficieney of what metaphysicians call subjective truth, or the assumption that whatever is perceived by the mind is true, because it is so perceived; he had to search after objective truth, truth independent of the mind of man, and exempt from the contingencies and variations of human judgment, as a foundation of his system of knowledge.

The hypothesis, accordingly, of the fallaciousness of Opinion from which his Method set out, involved a corresponding hypothesis in philosophy of the fallaciousness of the senses. It is the joint application of these two fundamental principles that combines his Method and his Philosophy in one master-science of dialectic. Opinion, aecording to him, is the kind of knowledge derived from the information of the senses, and is therefore no proper knowledge at all, but mere belief or persuasion, <sιστις ; whereas true knowledge is founded on that which is purely apprehended by the intellect, without any intervention whatever of the senses. Dialectic, as it is philosophy, is conversant about that which is, or which has being, as contrasted with presentations to the senses, which have only the semblance of Being; as it is a method, it investigates the reason, or account of the Being of everything ;—the account of everything as it is, and not as it appears ; not being satisfied, like its sophistical counterpart, with opinions of which no account can be given, but bringing all to the test of exact argument and definition.

In order, therefore, to give his Method a firm basis, and his philosophy a distinct object, it was required, that he should establish a sound theory of Being, or, in other words, a sure Criterion of Truth. Such, then, was his celebrated Theory of Ideas.

There are four distinct views embraced in this theory as it is developed by Plato; four phases, as it were, under which it is presented.

I. The first, and most strictly Platonic view of it, according to what we have already stated, is in its connection with logical science. None of the great philosophers before Plato; none, that is, of those who had speculated on the universe at large, as Thales, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, were conversant with logical science. Zeno the Eleatic, and Euclid of Megara, were known indeed as dialecticians. But the kind of logical science which they professed, was a rude and imperfect art, consisting chiefly in the knowledge and use of particular fallacies, and not founded in any deep study of the nature of thought and reasoning. They were, besides, mere dialecticians, rather than philosophers in the most extended sense of the term. Plato’s mind, however, while it was engaged in logical studies, was also no less intent on the investigation of the first principles of all things. And, as has been often observed in other casés, the favourite study of his mind gave its complexion to his theory of first principles, or doctrine of Ideas.

The term “Idea” does not indeed convey to the understanding of a modern any notion of a connection of the theory with logical science. In our acceptation, it belongs exclusively to metaphysics. But in Plato’s view there was no separation of the two branches of logic and metaphysics. Both were closely united in the one science to which he gave the name of Dialectic, and which was accordingly at once a science of the internal reason,—that is, of the processes of the mind in its silent speculation on things; and of the external reason,—that is, of the processes of the mind in communicating its speculations to others in words. The terms, therefore, belonging to the one process, are indiscriminately applied to the other. Thus, to “give a reason” of the being of a thing, διδοναι λογον της ουσιας, was equivalent to a scientific view of it; and the word λογoς denoted at once the terms of language by which that reason was expressed, and the reason itself as it existed in the mind. Thus, too, the word ιδεαι, or ideas, was only a little varied from the logical term ε'.δη, or species, which indeed is sometimes substituted for it in the phraseology of Plato. The simplicity, accordingly, and invariableness, and universality, which belong to terms denoting the agreement of a variety of objects in certain characteristics, were transferred to supposed counterparts in the mind itself, or to the notions represented by the terms which are the name of the species. Hence the idea, or eidos, was conceived to be, rot simply a result of a process of the mind, but something in the mind, and as having a being independent of the mind itself. As the species expressed in words was universal, so its counterpart in the mind was the universal nature in which the individuals to which it referred, participated. In that, the mind, perplexed by the variety and anomaly of individual objects, found an invariable sameness. In the contemplation of it, the mind no longer wavered and doubted, but obtained a fixedness of view. The idea, or species, therefore, was to be explored and reached in order to a just theory of everything, and was in itself that theory.

Further, as there is a relative classification of objects by means of words; some standing for characteristics common to a greater number of objects, whilst others stand for characteristics of only some out of that number; this property of words was in like manner conceived to have its counterpart in the mind. A graduated series of species was supposed to exist, first in the mind, and then independent of the mind, by means of which, as by steps, the mind might rise to the highest species, the ultimate idea itself, in which all others were comprehended. And hence there was no real perfect science but that which penetrated to this ultimate nature or being; and all other ideas, or theories, were truly scientific only as they participated in this.

This notion of “participation” of the ideas, was a still further application of logical language to the business of philosophy in general. For, as the several particulars belonging to a species all possess those characteristics which constitute their species, as well as those which connect them with a higher species or genus of which they are the species, their logical description is made up of an enumeration of those characteristics, together with the name of the higher class or genus under which the whole species is included. The higher class is an ingredient in the specification of a lower; or, conversely, a lower class participates in a higher. So Plato considered everything in the universe, as being what it is, by a “participation” of the Ideas; and consequently, that to explore its nature we must ascertain the idea which thus constitutes it. The Pythagoreans before him spoke of things as existing by “assimilation” to the essential being. Plato’s logical views occasioned this change of phraseology; for he varied only the term, as Aristotle observes, whilst he followed the Pythagoreans as masters in the fundamental conception of his theory.^[103. Aíistot. Mela-ρh, i. 6. ] Aristotle, indeed, whilst he assigns the logical studies of Plato as the occasion of the form of the ideal theory, more particularly accounts for the theory, from Plato’s observation of the importance of definitions in the ethical discussions of Socrates. Plato found how effectual an instrument Definition had been in the hands of Socrates in silencing the impertinencies of false opinion on moral subjects. As it had brought moral questions to an issue, so it might be applied, he thought, generally, as a stay to the extravagancies of opinion on all subjects whatever. Accordingly he had only to generalize the principle of definitions, and the result was the theory of [7:18:26]Ideas, or the universal science of reasons, and ultimate criterion of all truth.

To understand, however, rightly how Plato was led by logical considerations to his theory of Ideas, we should observe more particularly what his view was of the nature of logic. We should greatly misapprehend him if we supposed that he had that notion of the science which has prevailed since the systematic exposition of it by Aristotle. As it was conceived by Plato, it answered strictly to its original name of dialectic, rather than to that of logic; being the art of discussion, or the art of drawing forth the truth from the mind by questioning, rather than the art of deducing consequences from given principles. It was a higher, more comprehensive science, than the art of Deduction. For it was conversant about the discovery and establishment of principles; whereas the logical science which is employed about Deduction, assumes the principles in order to speculate about their consequences. It left the latter inquiry to be pursued by subsequent research, whilst the more ambitious flight of those who first speculated on the nature of Discourse was directed to the discovery of truth. In Plato’s hands it was an energetic reform of the quibbling shallow logic, which was as yet known and practised in the schools. This logic had no concern for truth, but only for victory and display. It consisted in a skill of wielding certain sophisms, known by familiar names in the schools, and founded on the equivocations of words. An appearance of truth being all that it aimed at, it did not exact of the student any consideration of the nature of things. It was enough that he could give the word reason, the mere logos, the symbol or counter. He was not taught to go beyond this legerdemain of language, or to search out the reason of the being of things, and correct the paralogisms involved in the use of words, by reference to the realities represented by them. This sophistical method affected indeed to be a didactic art; to instruct and furnish the mind with principles applicable to every subject of discussion. It considered, forsooth, language as an universal science of nature already constructed; and, proceeding on this supposition, professed to enable the student to apply the wisdom already embodied in language, to the purpose of appearing wise himself, and imparting to others the same apparent wisdom. But going no further than this, it ended in mere δοζα, mere opinion. It produced, that is, in the result, only a wavering state of mind, subject to be changed by every new impression of opposite arguments, and imparted no steady knowledge.

It was a great reform, then, which Plato undertook, in following up the example proposed in the conversations of Socrates, and instituting a proper science of Dialectic, a science of the reason of the being of things. It was a change from an empirical system, a vain art of words, to a scientific method or investigation of the reasons themselves, on which an instructive use of words must be founded.

For, we must observe, it was still a science of words which he teaches as the true logic or dialectic. It had throughout a reference to discussion. Still it was a real science as compared with the verbal and technical logic of his predecessors. Though it was a science of words, it had for its object the determination of such words as should fully correspond to their intention as symbols, in characterizing the proper being of the thing denoted. These reasons of the being of things, the "kογοι της ουσιας, were the Ideas.

His logical method, accordingly, was an analytical, inductive method. Setting out on the assumption of the erroneousness of opinion as such, it examines hypothesis after hypothesis on each subject proposed for discussion, rejecting and excluding, as it proceeds, everything irrelevant.

The scrutiny instituted consists in searching for the grounds of contradiction with regard to each opinion, and shewing that opposite views on point after point in the matter discussed, are at least as tenable as the assumptions contained in the given opinion or hypothesis. Hence it consists almost entirely of refutation, or what both he and Aristotle denominate elenchus, a process of reasoning by which the contradictory of a given conclusion is inferred.

A method of this kind was calculated fully to put to the test every unsound opinion. It collected everything that could be said either for or against a given opinion. It made the maintainer of it state on what grounds he maintained it, what consequences followed from it; and either forced him to self-contradiction in his defence of it, or obliged him to modify it according to the requisitions of the argument. And the result was, that whatever stood its ground after this complete sifting of the question, might be regarded as stable truth. When refutation had done its utmost, and all the points of difficulty and objection had been fully brought out, the dialectical process had accomplished its purpose; and the affirmative which remained after this discussion might be regarded as setting forth the truth of the question under consideration. For everything connected with it, and yet not founded in the truth of things, was then removed. And the result therefore might be accepted as a simple truth of being, an object which the eye of the intellect might steadily contemplate.

The process throughout corresponds with the process of investigation in modern philosophy. Only we must conceive the dialectical investigation of Plato as nothing more than an admirable scheme for clearing a question of everything foreign to it; whilst the latter draws out the true law of nature from the promiscuous assemblage of phenomena under which it is presented to observation, and concealed until analysis has done its work on the mass. The nomenclature of the two methods varies accordingly. Argument is the instrument of the former; experiment that of the latter. Refutation is the primary business of the former; rejection and exclusion of irrelevant phenomena that of the latter. Definitions of words, as they are signs of the being of things, are the result of the former; whilst the latter developes laws of nature.

Both processes are carried on by Interrogation. But whereas the analysis which investigates a law of nature proceeds by interrogation of nature, the analysis of Plato’s dialectic proceeds by interrogation of the mind, in order to discover the true being or idea of the thing discussed. Therefore it was that Socrates called his art, in his own playful manner, μαιευμα, a kind of midwifery;^[104. Taei£tet. ] l a delivering of the mind of the notions with which it was pregnant. Thus the dialectic of Plato, being entirely directed to observation on the mind, and not to external nature, takes the state of knowledge as it exists in the mind for the ground of its proceeding. It deals with things; that is, as they exist in the forms of thought; going, as Plato says, “from species to species, until it arrives at the principle of all things,”^[105. Jieμ. vi. p. 124. ] and following throughout the steps by which the mind advances in obtaining an exact view of any object of its contemplation. It is, in fact, the true thought spoken out. The process of thinking by which it is attained, is the dialectical process of interrogation. The decision of the mind when its conviction is settled, is the dialectical conclusion.^[106. Thextet. p. 151. ]

The chief logical instrument employed in this method is division. The being able to divide according to genera, and not to consider the same species as different, nor a different one as the same, is stated to belong especially to dialectical science.^[107. Soph. p. 2"4. ] In searching out the true definition of the being of a thing, this portion of the internal process of [7:18:27]the mind would naturally strike the attention. General ideas being founded on general resemblances of objects, the first step towards a more distinct idea of an object is to see that the generalization is complete; that it neither excludes nor includes any objects which it ought not to exclude or include. The true idea of any object would be that which characterized every object belonging to the idea, and none other. The analysis accordingly pursued by Plato is conversant about Division, using the induction of particulars in subordination to this.^[108. ∏iλu 5ε μa×nrra, xaι πλωτόν την μs⅜oiov <raυτnν τιμZν, roũ xaτ liir 3uvarav swaι iia ξS ιι. (PθJit. p. 66.) ] We find, indeed, a constant use of Induction by Plato, after the manner of Socrates. But it is always in reference to the main purpose of determining, not a general fact, but the dominant Idea in every object of thought.

At the same time, we may observe, the Dialectic of Plato is truly a method of investigation, though it does not penetrate to the depth of the modern analysis. It employed deductive reasonings; but these were not essential parts of its method; since the whole was a process of ascent to the theory of the Ideas.

Afterwards, indeed, Dialectic approximated to what is now commonly understood by Logic. The transition was first to the consideration of it as a method of drawing out the probable conclusions deducible from given premises. This was natural. For in Plato’s method every opinion was admitted as an hypothesis to be examined, in order to rejecting the falsehood and eliciting the truth that might be contained in it; and so far his Dialectic might be regarded as a speculation on probabilities. This transition prepared the way for a further one, when Dialectic became strictly the science of Deduction. Attention would be drawn more and more to the use of words as instruments of reasoning, when Dialectic was once exalted into the rank of a science.

The progress seems to be this. The science being cultivated primarily with a view to discussion, the importance of language in order to reasoning could not fail, from the first direction of the mind in this channel, to strike the philosophical observer. The phenomena of sophistical argument would suggest the necessity of inquiry into words as they are employed in reasoning. Philosophers, accordingly, would be led to examine into the nature of words considered as signs and representatives of thought. Thus they would proceed to arrange words into classes, according to their import in this respect. Thus would be obtained that great division of words into those that denote an individual alone, and those that stand both for many and for one, or into singular and common ;—the fundamental principle of logic properly so called, or of logic as the science is now considered. The use of Division and Definition would soon appear. These processes, indeed, would be naturally discovered in the very prosecution of discussions addressed to the refutation of false opinions and popular fallacies. The early dialectics, accordingly, abounded in the use of them.^[109. Taυτaiv 3» lγωγs aims τs Sζa<rτr s, ω Φα∕3gs, των iia ζsatωv xaι ouvaγωγωv, ïv o7oars ω λsγsw τs xaι <f(>ovι7v∙ sav τs uva akXov ⅛γr σωμaι ivvarov sis sν xx in ’ ι wβλλα π ’ sφυxo>ra «çãv, τούτοι iιωxω, ×arotfiod⅛s μsτ i%vio>ι ωaτs 3so7o∙ xaι μswoι xaι tous ivvaμsvovs ai>τo igãv, sì μsv 0ζ3∙ωs ñ μη n-ζoaaγoζiυω, iT3e∙ xaaω 3¢ t>υv μtχςι τovis i aλsχτ xovs. CPhoedr. pp. 362, 363.) Plato appears to have been the author of a work “On Divisions,” not now extant. ] Afterwards, as the analytical power of language came to be more particularly observed, the connections of words in propositions and arguments would attract speculation. The possibility of exhibiting any given proposition or argument under abstract formulae, in which unmeaning symbols were substituted for the terms themselves of the proposition or argument, would at length be discovered. Thus in the result would be erected a formal science of logic, in which language would be considered as an artificial system of signs, and the validity of arguments would be explored, independently of the subject-matter about which they happen to be conversant.

When Plato, however, drew his Theory of Ideas from the logical speculations in which his mind was engaged, there was no such system as that now found in treatises of logic. There are the materials in the writings of Plato for constructing a method of dialectic, such as the science presented itself to his view; but that method remains, even to this day, to be fully explored and stated. It is clear that he had such a system, and that his writings proceed on regular method; though he has nowhere accurately sketched it, and perhaps never even proposed it to himself in the form of a system. His thoughts were engaged in this, as in other subjects, in giving the great outlines of his philosophy. It was enough for him to have seized the bearings of logical truth on all truth; and to this general view of the science he has made everything secondary and subservient.

II. The next aspect under which the Theory of Ideas should be considered, is that in which it sums up and measures the infinites of the sensible world. In this point of view it more immediately represented its Pythagorean prototype, than under its logical aspect. It is in reference to this intention of the theory that Aristotle objects, that whilst it professes to give the account of things, it introduces an additional number of objects in the Ideas themselves; an absurdity, he observes, like that of attempting to facilitate a calculation by adding to the numbers to be calculated.^[110. Ωβ∙πiξ sì τ s aζAμnaaι βoυλoμsvos, sλaττoνωv μsν ιwuν, oioιτo μ∏ ivvn<rso⅛aι, orasιω is noir σas à¢&µoir,. (Aristot. Metaph. i. 7∙) ] It was, accordingly, an endeavour to reckon up the individuals of the universe, and exhibit their sum in one statement. As Plato’s logical speculations gave their colour to his whole philosophy, so the devotion of the Pythagoreans to mathematics led them to form a mathematical theory of the universe. The universal nature of number gave them the ground for this application of their peculiar studies. For all things are in number; and there is nothing from which the notion of number may not be abstracted. That number, then, which alone measures all other numbers,—Unity, —would be regarded as the common measure of all things. And thus the philosophy of the universe would be reduced to a system of calculation; and the infinity of existing things summed up in definite proportions of numbers. The Greek word logos, whilst it combined in it the notions of “word” and “reason,” also further combined that of “ratio,” and reasoning and calculating were expressed by the one term ∖ aγιζε(fyaι. This marks the connected trains of thought by which the arithmetical theory of the Pythagoreans was formed. The effects of this combination of thought are seen, not only in the fundamental conception of the theory, but in our ordinary phraseology on the subject of reasoning even at this day; as, for example, in our use of the word “Term,”—that is, “limit,” or “boundary,”—for words, not only in their logical signification, but even in their familiar use.^[111. Hobbes uses the mathematical phraseology throughout. Reasoning, with him, is “reckoning,” and words are “counters.” (Leviathan, i. 4, et aiib. ]

It appears to have struck the mind of Plato that the theory of the Pythagoreans was not sufficiently comprehensive, or even ultimate, as an account of the Being of things. The simplicity of Number did not adequately explain the great variety of natures found in the universe; and though the science of Arithmetic held almost the highest place in his scale of knowledge, on account of its abstract[7:18:28] nature, and its leading to the consideration of Being, apart from the changeable objects of sense; he still viewed it as practically implicated with the physical sciences, and, as such, therefore, not strictly and exclusively conversant about Being. In like manner, the science of Geometry, though purer than the physical sciences, as being conversant only about abstract magnitudes, is excluded from the highest place. Geometry, no less than Arithmetic, might seem to be simply an intellectual contemplation; since, though it employs visible figures in its demonstrations, the demonstrations do not refer to these, but to the abstract notions which the diagrams represent. Yet Geometry, as it assumes its principles, and its truths consequently depend on assumptions which in themselves demand evidence, cannot, he observes, rank as perfect intelligence.

Perfect intelligence, vοησις, implies an absolute stay to dte thought; something beyond which no further inquiry .can be made, which may be seen as it were by the mind’s eye immediately in itself. And such an object only is furnished by the Idea. Though, accordingly, Plato thus carried his theory beyond that of the Pythagoreans, we find him still cherishing the Pythagorean doctrine of Number, by assigning to it the second place in his scale of knowledge, and only barely distinguishing it, in regard to scientific value, from his own Theory of Ideas.^[112. Rep. vi. adJin. The importance assigned to arithmetic in the early philosophy, is shewn in that line of Aeschy’us: Kα∕ μw άζίάμαν iζ<>χι>ν. roφιβ∙μaτa>v, εξευζav aurais. (Prom. 459.) ]

When we come indeed to look more closely into his theory, the mathematical approximation will distinctly appear. The ideas are the finite, applied to the infinite of the sensible world, and thus producing measure and proportion in the universe.^[113. Phlleb. pp. 234—240. ∙ ] The physical sciences, as, for example, astronomy and music, are not truly scientific, because, addressing themselves to what is passing before the senses in the world, they do not consider the immoveable beings themselves, which are only imperfectly represented in the observed physical movements. The astronomer computes the actual velocities of the heavenly bodies; the musician counts the intervals of∙sounds. But neither of these is intent on the real beings, the Ideas themselves of velocity and of harmony. We can discern in such language as this, a mathematical basis of thought. Perpetual variations, as contemplated in their inconstancy, admit of no calculation. To estimate them, we must find the limit to which they continually approximate, and we thus, as it were, reduce to fixed order the apparent disorder and irregularity, and see the variable in its ultimate form of invariableness. This notion is not fully developed by Plato. But it is conveyed in his doctrine of a twofold class of sciences, under the same names; a popular astronomy, for example, and an higher astronomy; a popular music, and an higher music; the latter of which are sciences of the invariable and the finite, and run up into his Theory of Ideas.^[114. 'Ω; εiσι aςιS∙μιirixaι, ×aι ravraις άλλαι 2uo roiaũrai ζυvεsτoμεvaι ffυχνaι, rnv ⅛lδυμw,ra εχavfaι ravrr v, ivoμaros s>βj xtxoivωvnμε∙ιaι. {Phileb. p. 303; also Rep. vi.) ]

III. The third phasis of the Theory is that in which it is a philosophy of Being, in opposition to the mere knowledge of sensible phenomena. According to the school of Heraclitus, the sensible world was ever flowing, ever in a state of becoming or incipiency; being a mere development of successive phenomena, displacing each other without cessation. As duration is no positive existence as a whole, but is made up of an infinite number of moments, each of which is gone as the succeeding moment appears; so was it asserted generally in the doctrine of that school, that every object in the universe was a mere collection of successive phenomena. Of nothing could it be affirmed that it is. The very sensations, no less than the objects of them, were in constant production; being the momentary, ever-varying results of the concourse of agent and patient. Colour, for example, as the object, and sight of the colour in the eye as the sensation, are momentary relations simultaneously produced by something that acts in the coloured object at the moment, on something that receives the impression in the eye.^[115. * .Tħe<rtet. ] This doctrine resolved all knowledge into sensation, and (which was equivalent to this) made “man the measure of all things,” according to the celebrated enunciation of Protagoras.

Plato saw, that if these view’s were admitted as an account of the universe, his whole dialectic must fall to the ground. It would be nothing but miserable trifling to try to call forth those reasons of things which he conceived to be in the mind, if knowledge were of this fluctuating character.^[116. Ibid. p. 90. ] There could not, in fact, be then any such reasons. There was nothing stable, nothing that remained in the mind, to serve as the standing criterion of true and false opinions. There would be no distinguishing whether all that passed in life were not a dream, or whether the occurrences in dreams were not rather the realities.^[117. Ibid. þ. 82. ] Some sure criterion was therefore wanted, to which the phenomena of sensation might be referred. The theory of Ideas, as a theory of Being, furnished this.

Plato admitted, accordingly, the perpetual flux of sensations and their objects, as taught by Heraclitus, whilst he refuted the sophistical extravagancies into which the doctrine had been carried. Granting, therefore, that there was no test of truth or falsehood in the sensations themselves, he points out, that the ground of fallaciousness is in the judgments formed by the mind concerning the impressions of the senses. The soul is endued with a common power of perception, to which the reports of the different senses are referred, and by means of which the mind is enabled to compare past and present· sensations of the same kind, as also different sensations with one another. It is in the conclusions then formed on these comparisons that we are to seek for knowledge; or in the purely mental processes, abandoning altogether the mere informations of sense.^[118. Ibid. pp. 139-144. ]

He was led, accordingly, to examine these processes of the mind, in order to discover the grounds of truth and knowledge. He observed, that when the mind compares two sensations, and decides on their similarity or difference, there is always some ground on which that judgment is made. When, for instance, it decides on the equality of two things, there is a standard to which they are referred, the general notion of equality itself, which serves as a middle term for testing the equality of the two things compared. In like manner, there is always, whenever a comparison is made by the mind, some general principle, which is the medium of the comparison. And this is a principle not in any w∙ay produced by the sensations; for it is evidently prior to them, and independent of them; being appealed to by the mind as a criterion of them. This general principle, then, is in every instance the Idea; and not being formed by the sensations, it is not subject to their variableness. It remains unmoved, and the same, amidst the flow of the sensations, or of the objects of the sensations;—the standing criterion of all the judgments of the mind to which it applies.^[119. Phcεdo, pp. 170, 230-236; Rep. vii. pp. 145-147; Theoetet. ]

Hence we may see the peculiar meaning of the term, “Idea” in Plato’s philosophy. It consists in its contrast with the objects of sensation. The latter never attain to any definite perfect form—to any clear outline, as it were, to [7:18:29] the eye. They flow and have vanished before they could attain to such form; since, in the very succeeding one another, they not only pass away, but undergo alteration. But the standard to which they are referred in the mind, is a positive defined shade, or form, or species, simple and uniform, analogous to an object of sight of which we can clearly trace the whole outline by the eye.^[120. Hanc illi ideam appellabant, jam a Platone ita nominatam; nos recte speciem possumus dicere. (Cicer. Acad. Qu. i. 8.) Formae sunt, quas Graeci iotas vocant, &c. (Cicer. Topic. 7.) ] For the like reason, the term exemplar, παράδειγμα, is also applied to denote the Idea. As the one perfect standard to which all the reports of the senses are referred, it appears in the light of a pattern, to which they would be conformed, but for that incessant mutability which necessarily belongs to them. This, however, was rather the Pythagorean view of general principles than the Platonic, though Plato himself not unfrequently recurs to it.

Plato, at the same time, in thus constituting Ideas the sole absolute criteria of real existence, did not intend to deny all reality whatever to conclusions drawn from our sensible experience, such as those of the physical sciences. But he means, in the first place, to shew the delusive character of all informations of sense which are not corrected by the internal reason of the mind. In the next place, his design is to point out the inferior knowledge which every other kind of evidence conveys, but that which is drawn from the intuitive perceptions of the mind. The mere informations of sense, he teaches, are only a knowledge of semblances or idols, εικασια, conjecture founded on mere images of the truth. He describes this kind of knowledge by an admirable illustration from a supposed case of men placed in a long cavern, with their bodies so chained from infancy, that they can only look before them, whilst the light of a fire from behind casts on the side opposite to them, the shadows of vessels, and statues of stone and wood, carried along a track leading upwards from the cavern by persons who are themselves concealed by a wall, like the exhibitors of puppets. As men so circumstanced would see nothing of themselves, and of each other, or of the things thus carried along, but the shadows, they would mistake the shadows for the realities; they would speak of the shadows as if these were the things; and if any voice was heard from the persons carrying along the figures, they would think the sounds proceeded from the passing shadow.^[121. Rep. vii. ad init. ] Just like this, he declares, is the influence of education in the lower world of sense on the minds of men. They must be carried up from this cavern, in which they see everything only by an artificial light, to the light of the sun itself, to the region of Ideas, where alone objects are seen as they are in themselves.

As to the knowledge conveyed by the physical sciences, neither is this properly science. It amounts only, as he states it, to belief or opinion. These are less intellectual than the mathematical sciences, because they are conversant about human opinions and desires, or about the production and composition of things, or about the means of sustaining things produced and compounded.^[122. Ibid, p t 165. ] They are therefore as unstable as the things about which they are. But they are still not devoid of evidence, so far as they collect t⅛h real informations of the senses, and do not learn from*mere shadows. This is implied in his calling such knowledge belief, and distinguishing it from conjecture; though he is rigid in preserving the exclusive prerogative of Truth to the knowledge of the Ideas.

The evidence of Experience was necessarily slighted in such a philosophy, and condemned as insufficient for the discovery of truth. For what is Experience but the memory of several similar previous informations of sense, combined into one general conclusion? And though Aristotle allows that such a general conclusion, in which the mind acquiesces, might be regarded as scientific,^[123. ’E» S ’ tμνtiζias ii tχ raντos 7∣ζtμnaaντos του χa3oλoυ tν rñ ’ ψυχr∣, τον ινos παζα τα πολλά, ό αν εν άπαβϊν εν έν»ι tκtινo∣s το αϋτο, τιχν⅛s χαι iνιaτr,μr l ξ∙ έαν l αεv πtζi yεvεβ ’ ∕v τtχw εάν Jε πtζt το ον, ίοίΙττοιμνις. (Aristθt. Analyt. partii. C∙ dit.) ] this could not be admitted by a philosopher who placed the objects of sensation out of the pale of Being. It was not enough for Plato’s system to answer in favour of the scientific value of Experience, that though this and that particular instance of an information of sense had no immoveable truth in it, yet, from the observation of a number of similar instances, a general uniformity might be inferred, and an immoveable general principle established. He would grant that generalization was a corrective of experience. For this he did when he granted some importance to the arts in education, and for the purposes of life. But truth with him must be universal, not simply general: it must be that which is always the same, not simply that which is for the most part. And the highest degree of the evidence of experience, even that which amounts to what is called moral certainty, falls short of this absolute universality. It might be urged, for example, that though what was sweet to one person and at one time, might be bitter to another person and at another time; and though what seemed the same sensation of sweet, was not in fact the same at two successive moments, but a reproduction; still it was possible, by combining recollections of many similar instances, to form a general notion which should adequately characterize that sensation. Still Plato would say, this was only belief or opinion, and not science. The object of science must be such as cannot be otherwise: it must be absolutely one and the same permanent being: you must altogether quit the stream of the world of sense, and land on the rock of unchangeable eternal Being.

Thus Rhetoric is strongly reprobated by Plato, on the very ground on which it is systematically taught by Aristotle, of its being nothing more than an instrument of persuasion, or an art speculating on the means of persuasion. Much of his invective indeed derives its point from its application to the servile rhetoricians of his day. Still we find him condemning Rhetoric on the abstract ground of its having no higher view than persuasion. In the modern view of the subject, as in Aristotle’s, Rhetoric is a real science, so far as it is framed on just conclusions respecting those modes of speaking, or writing, which excite interest and produce conviction. With Plato it is mere quackery; and for this reason, that it is founded on experience of what persuades, being only an εμπειρία or τξ ∣ Qη, a knack acquired by experience and converse with the world; an accomplishment, learned by practice, without any real knowledge, in flattering the passions of men. He in fact regarded Experience as corresponding with what we call empiricism; contrasting it with the conclusions of abstract reason, as we contrast an illiterate and unscientific use of experience with that of the philosopher.^[124. Gorgias, ρ. 117, et κq. ; Phoedr. ]

Looking to that sort of experience on which the popular teaching of the Sophists was founded, Plato, we should say, was fully justified in his condemnation of the experimental method of his day. It was in truth mere quackery. It was contentwith shadow’s and images of the truth, and entirely directed to producing íl desired effect, without caring for the absolute truth ;—a shallow philosophy of sensation, not founded in the nature of things. He had thus to contend against a system, which distorted that criterion of truth, which man has in himself, by the right use of his reason conjointly with his experience, to the undermining of all truth and reality. This empirical system was the crying evil of those times.
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It had infected politics, and education, and private intercourse, as well as philosophy. In opposition to it, he had to take up an antithetical position; to call in question the existing acceptation and use of the human criterion of truth; to limit it within its proper bounds, and guard against its perversion. Accordingly the whole stress of his philosophy is on this point. It is a perpetual polemic against the sophistical principle, that “man is the measure of all things.”^[125. ∏awωv χςvμarωv μιτςov 0,vSςωπ >ι. CThCoetet. ; De Leg. IV.) ] This amply accounts for his disparaging so much as he does, the scientific value of Experience, and insisting on the necessity of the existence of higher principles than those of Experience, in order that the mind may duly receive and appreciate the information of sense. He taught men, at any rate, to perceive that the popular notion of that evidence of truth which man has in his own nature was false and deceptive, and that in all judgments and reasonings there is also something more than is merely of man.

IV. The fourth leading point of view under which the Theory of Ideas remains to be considered, is its aspect as it is a theory of the Cause of the universe. Under this aspect it is identified with the speculation into the Chief Good. Here it is an account at once of the first principle of motion, and of the end to which all things tend as their perfection and ultimate good. According to Plato, there was no other cause worthy of the name, or which really accounted for the phenomena of the universe, but “The Good,” or, as it is technically called, the Final Cause. The early speculations of philosophers had been chiefly directed to the material phenomena of the universe, and had attempted to account for them in a rude manner, by referring them to some one or more of the material elements. Some indeed had introduced also moral influences into their theory. The Pythagoreans combined with their speculation of the mysterious Unity, the notion of Love as the one-making principle. The Ionic school, however, appears to have led the opinion of philosophers in regard to the cause of the universe at the time of Plato. And though Anaxagoras asserted the ascendancy of mind, he had lost sight of his great theory in the explanations from material causes, to which he descended in the completion of his system. Socrates began a strenuous opposition to the physical philosophers. Plato carried on that opposition, and, blending the familiar ethics of Socrates with the moral and theological mysticism of the Pythagoreans, established the Final Cause or theory of “the Good,” as supreme over the domain of science.

Anaxagoras had certainly prepared the way for the theory. Plato took up his doctrine of a Divine Intelligence, and gave it that development which, as it had been taught by Anaxagoras himself, it yet waited to receive. It was but a vain theory of a Supreme Mind (sublime and important as the simple enunciation of the great truth was), - which did not also exhibit the Supreme Mind as operating in the universe by design, and as diffusing the energy of its intelligence and goodness, as well as of its power, throughout its operations.

The Supreme Mind, therefore, according to Plato, must be conceived, as exemplifying the attributes of its own nature in the works which have proceeded from it. If it be granted that there is a Supreme Mind, that must be the true measure of all things in the universe. All things must have been framed according to the scheme which such a mind would contemplate in their production. As intelligence, it cannot be regarded but as working for some object, ενεκα τοt ∣ ; for by this is intelligence distinguished from unintelligent force; and the only object to the supreme intelligence is the most perfect nature, which is itself. The pattern of its own per feetions, therefore, must have been present to it, and in its design, in the construction of the universe. In other words, the Deity himself is not only the author of all things, but he has designed to exemplify in them his own attributes. The principle, accordingly, by which all true philosophy must hold, and which it must carry out into its speculations, is, that “God is the measure of all things.”^[126. De Leg. ∏∙. ] And hence, whenever the proper being of any thing is to be explored, it must be studied in that light in which it is seen as a work of the Supreme Mind, designed after the pattern of the divine perfections. In such a contemplation, the theory of the Best is the view by which philosophy must be guided; for, in ancient philosophy, an object of intelligent aim, and good, are equivalent terms. The object at which the most perfect intelligence aims, must be, therefore, that which is best; and in tracing out, accordingly, the workings of the Divine Mind in the world, we must look for “the best” in everything. That notion of everything by which it is “best,” is both its real nature, and the cause of its being produced.

But why is not everything, as it is actually seen, a work of “the best ?” why is not good visibly impressed on everything as it stands forth to the view? why must we, in short, resort to the Idea of good, in order to ascertain its nature, instead of taking it simply as it appears?

The antagonist force of unreason in the nature of that which has body, and is apprehended by the senses, occasions all the imperfection and evil in the world, as the world actually exists. It subsisted already in the mass of disorder and confusion which the Divine intelligence, by its operation, had brought into order and regularity of motion; and it still subsists, though reduced into subordination to intelligence. It is overruled so as to minister to the designs of mind, but still impedes by its contrariety of nature the development of good in the world. And thus Plato says that it is impossible for evils to perish out of the world, for that there must ever exist a contrariety to good.^[127. Aroasvθα< τα kλxλ, aìvvari»· ντιναντιβν γaς, x∙ τ∙ λ∙ (De Leg. iv.) ] Evil pre-existed, and evil accordingly must be displaced by the presence of good; as contraries are displaced by contraries; and as all generation, or production, is carried on by a process from contrary to contrary. Thus, though evil retires before good in the world of generated things, evil still manifests itself in the very act of its retiring before good; and a perpetual opposition of good and evil remains. What we see, accordingly, in the world, is not the perfect accomplishment of good, but effort and tendency after good in all things. The effects of a struggle between reason and unreason are manifested, on the one hand, in the evanescent imperfect nature of all sensible things; and, on the other hand, in their constant renewing, or in that undying vigour with which they flow on, and are reproduced, and aim at a perfection beyond themselves.^[128. T.vìcous ; l’vΑt. p. 30. ]

Though, therefore, the Divine Artificer has designed everything in the world for the best, they are not actually the best as they are presented to our senses. They are the best that such things can be, but they do not attain to the Idea of good, according to which they have been made. Time, for example, only imperfectly represents the divine eternity, which is its true Idea. In eternity there is no distinction of past, present, and future. But the bodily nature will not admit of this co-instantaneous development of the divine Idea. Existence is here broken up into successive moments; and these successive moments, marked by the periodic motions of the heavenly bodies, introduce the distinctions of number into the simple idea of duration.^[129. Ttruceitιι. ] Again, the velocities of the heavenly bodies, which are observed by the astronomer, must be conceived as very inadequate[7:18:31] representatives of the “real velocities performed in the true number and true figures,”^[130. Repub. vii. p. 158; also Phìlebus, p. 303. ] which are the Ideas after which they have been established. Or, again, it is clear that the ideas of the good, and the just, and the honourable, and the beautiful, as they are seen in the world around us, are only imperfectly developed. Our thoughts arc distracted by the contemplation of them in the world, by the multiplicity of forms under which they are apprehended by men, and it seems to the superficial glance as if there were no one perfect standard of each. At the same time, we are able to trace evident signs of such a standard, when we look thoughtfully at the course of things. We cannot doubt, on such examination, that these principles exist, and are working their way, and that the universe has been constructed after the pattern of them. But all that the most attentive study will disclose to us as actually observed, is tendency towards these principles—a “becoming” or incipiency of being.^[131. τ ∏αvτα ra sv <ra g aiirânrtriv ιxiwoυ τι iζiγιτaι τov⅛' o lruv ’ ιrov xaι airoυ gvSitβ ’ riξa i<ruv {Phoed. 170) ί νe >oSvμiiraι u,tv nawa τα τοιαϋτα ίίναι β,i, ιt t×tινolan 3t αΰτου φaυλoτgςa {Ibid. 171)∙ He goes on to say this applies to all subjects as well. ] We do not see their full effect, or what would be their effect, if the world were such as to give them free scope and exercise, and if the impressions of sense did not diversify and obscure the presentations of them to our minds. Must we not say, then, that if we formed our notions of these principles from the visible world, and the impressions of sense, that we must estimate them improperly? And must we not rather elevate our minds to the Ideas themselves, after which the universe has been constituted in its present order, and take our measures of them from the Divine Being, whose goodness, and truth, and beauty, they represent?

Thus did the Theory of Ideas serve as a moral explanation of the course of nature, and meet the demand of philosophy, by removing the perplexity of the mind on the contemplation of the apparent disorder of the world, and giving a firm stay to the thought in this direction. This apparent disorder has been the constant appeal of the atheist and the sceptic in all ages. And in Plato’s time there was need, we find from several passages of his writings, of an answer on the part of philosophy to speculative objections on this ground. The Theory of Ideas supplied this answer. By the theory of a perfect model of good, imperfectly wrought out in the visible universe, the existence of evil was accounted for in some degree, and the eye of thought was enabled to see a chain of goodness, and beauty, and order, binding together the most untoward appearances of the moral world. As the Pythagoreans enchained these disjointed portions of the moral fabric, by supposing a fundamental Unity pervading the whole, and reducing the multiple and the unlimited to definite proportion—a sort of keynote, modulating the apparent discords of nature^[132. xaaλιarog, eg av aυτov ×aι τα ⅛υvooυμwa ότιμαλιττα ¢v πcι>j, τούτο 3¢ πiφυxiv αναλογία ×aλλι<rτa aπoτελιιv∙ onorav γaζ άοιΟμων χ. τ. λ. {Timams, p. 307.) The Pythagoreans were fond of describing moral ideas by terms drawn from mathematics and music. Ι he good man, for example, was τtτςaγωvog avtu ∙ψoγoυ ; and the words πλnμμtλωg, lμμtλωg, and the like, known from their philosophy, are familiarly used in a moral sense. ] —so Plato made the one moral good the all-pervading moderator of the system of the universe. The abstract notions, the genera, and the species, and the definitions, which dialectical science brought out by the aid of language, presented the materials for extending the moral view to other notions besides those strictly moral; and thus a theological and moral complexion was spread over the whole region of philosophy.

Ideas of evil were evidently excluded. “The good” could not be the cause of all things, but only of those that were well constituted; of evils it was causeless.^[133. 0υx aoa πάντων γt αίτιον το άγαμον, άλλα των µiv lu ίχοντων αίτιον, των 5ί χάχων άναιτιον- (Rep. Π ) eaτ lζ oυ φυo∙ ] Evil, as we have seen, had no exemplar or pattern in the nature of the Author of the universe. It was a condition of that bodily nature on which the good was actively displayed. Evil arose from the nature of the “diverse”^[134. . {Tim. ρ. 315.) ] inherent in body; that nature in body by which it was contradistinguished from the “sameness” belonging to the Ideas.

In considering the Theory of Ideas under the different aspects which it presents, we have in fact taken a summary view of the whole of Plato’s philosophy. This theory is the cardinal principle of the whole. The speculations on particular branches of philosophy are all included in this one theory, which bindsi them together and explains them. For when the mind had once risen to the contemplation of the Ideas, it needed no further helps from observation or study of nature to understand all knowledge. The mind was then in possession of the only true principles of knowledge; and to enter into the consideration of material and sensible phenomena, was only to return to the darkness and the dreams from which the eye of the intellect had been purified,—to quit the light of the sun for the cavern of shadows.

Accordingly, all his writings are devoted to the establishment of this theory. Proceeding on that notion of the importance of the theory which he inculcates, he bends every thought to this one point. No one science is set forth by him in detail; no one subject obtains with him a full and explicit consideration. All is resolved into its most abstract and general view, that the mind may be led to see the common principles of all truth; so intent is he throughout on his theory of Ideas, whatever may be his immediate subject of discussion. He assumes hypotheses, and examines them, and refutes them, in the way of argument, without pronouncing on either side of a particular question, as if indifferent about the establishment of any mere opinion, and desirous only of clearing his way for the perception of his theory.

But to place that theory in its full light, we should advert to the theories of Knowledge and of the Soul, which are intimately connected with it. These theories contain his account of the origin of the Ideas.

Knowledge, according to Plato, is Reminiscence, 'Kναμ-νησις, a recovery of forgotten truth, which had been possessed by the soul in a former state of existence. His dialectic professed to do nothing more than to lead the mind, by apt interrogation, to perceive the Truth for itself. It abandoned the attempt to communicate the Truth by didactic propositions. It only removed falsehood, and left the truth to its own course, to suggest itself to the mind, now disabused of its error and prejudice. It appealed to principles as certain criteria of truth, and yet confessed its inability to state those principles, and place them distinctly before the mind of the learner. They were simply referred to, as existing in every mind, whatever might be the peculiar opinions of the individual to whom the questions of the dialectician were addressed. How, then, conld those principles have been acquired? No time in the present life could be pointed out when they first appeared in the mind. They are prior to the sensations, for the sensations arc referred to them; and the sensations we have had from our birth. These standard principles, then, must have been acquired in a previous state of existence, and what is commonly called learning, is, in fact, Reminiscence; and to know, is, properly speaking, to remember.^[135. Pl ia do, ρρ. 166-174. ]

In proof of this account of the origin of the Ideas, Plato [7:18:32]introduces Socrates making an expepmeñt on the mind of an uneducated person. Socrates is'represented putting a series of questions to a slave of Meno, and at length eliciting from the youth, after repeated correction of his errors, a right enunciation of a geometrical truth.' Socrates then points triumphantly to the instance, and bids Meno observe how he had taught the youth nothing, but simply interrogated him as to his opinions, and the youth had himself recalled for himself the knowledge thus evidently existing in his mind.^[136. Aieno, pp. 352—361. ]

Again, in illustration of the same, Plato refers to instances of association. Often, on the sensation of a particular object, we are reminded of something else not present to us. On seeing a lyre, or a dress, which one whom we love has used, a thought occurs of the person to whom it belonged. So also, on seeing pictures of objects, persons and objects will be suggested to the mind, unlike as well as like to the objects in the picture. Or one of two friends, being presented to our view, we are reminded of the other who is absent.^[137. P1κεdo. ]

Now the instances here referred to, both those of association, and those of the self-teaching of the mind by the excitement of its reflection, are highly interesting and important in the history of the origin of ideas. But they do not prove the point for which Plato adduces them. The case of the slave interrogated by Socrates certainly shews, that there are principles in the understanding, which are not derived from external information, but which only wait to be developed by occasions apt to call them forth. And as to the instances of association, we can only say, it is an ultimate fact of our mental constitution, that particular objects serve to bring others before our thoughts. All such instances are illustrations of the fact, that the mind is not passive in its admission of truth, receiving knowledge simply as something infused in it from without; but that its knowledge is in great measure owing to its exertion of its faculties, and its bringing to bear on the instruction given its own intuitive convictions;—that consequently the excellence of all teaching consists, not so much in the positive mass of instruction conveyed, as in stirring up the mind to learn from itself.

The stress of Plato’s argument in favour of the theory of Reminiscence, and of the previous existence of the Soul as a consequence of it, is laid, we find, on the ground of the priority of the ideas compared with the several particular sensations which are referred to them as criteria. But the priority which he here claims for the Ideas, is not, in fact, a precedence in the order of time, but of logic. In the process of reasoning, general principles are prior to, and more known than, the particulars which fall under them; because in possessing them we possess the particulars, and the particulars, as yet unknown, are known by deduction from them as already known. Thus we familiarly speak of a conclusion as following from the premises. Now, Plato appears to have transferred a priority of this kind to the Ideas, and then to have concluded their priority absolutely, as principles existing in the mind independently of the occasions on which they are called forth. But to establish a theory of Reminiscence, it was further required to be shewn, that the ideas are prior in the order of time, — that we possess them antecedently to, and independently of, all experience. The instance which he has given of the way in which a mathematical conclusion is reached by the simple leading of the mind in the right track, is an instance of what has in modern philosophy been more properly called “Suggestion,”— not of Reminiscence. So far from being an instance of Reminiscence, it shews, on the contrary, that the general principles of the mind are developed subsequently to the particular occasions which suggest them. It shews, further, that these principles are in some way dependent on sudi occasions for their development, though not dependent on them for their truth and reality; for the mind accepts them as true, and as the criteria of all other truth, at the moment when they are presented to it. This, then, is what is really illustrated in Plato’s instance in the Meno. Geometrical science is the best illustration of it, though it is seen also in all our judgments and reasonings; because the remote conclusions to which we are brought by the chain of demonstration in that science, from a few very simple definitions, present the fact most strikingly. Those conclusions are clearly far beyond the compass of the definitions themselves. They are strictly deduced from them, however, and with an irresistible cogency of argument. The wonder is accounted for, by the fact to which Plato has called our attention. The demonstration of the problem appeals in every step to the intuitive convictions of the mind. Ideas are suggested by which the statements at each point of the proof are tested; and we sanction the conclusion, because the process by which we arrive at it, has been approved throughout by clear principles of our own minds.

But though the theory of Reminiscence has not been satisfactorily made out by Plato, he has the merit of having distinctly noticed and marked, in speculating on the origin of the Ideas, a class of notions of which no previous account, as it seems, had been given. The philosophy of sensation had before his time chiefly engaged the attention of thinking men, whether of those of the Eleatic school, who made everything stationary, or of the Ionic, who made everything flow.^[138. Plato characterizes them; the one, as the τoυ ìwoí στατιωται ; the others, as λ lo>wii. Thcoet. ] It had been carried into the extreme of refinement by the Sophists, its devotees, when Plato commenced his antagonist system. He found that this philosophy was too narrow a basis for the structure of science, and that it could not stand alone. He saw that it left altogether unexplored the perceptions of the mind itself, such, for example, as the notions of equality, identity, time, causation, right, &c.; and that these notions were, in truth, more important for the establishment of science, than those which had previously chiefly attracted the attention of philosophers. He applied himself accordingly to examine and characterize these principles. The main thing to be accomplished in such an inquiry, was to distinguish them accurately from the informations of sense; to shew that they were not included in, or in any way derived out of, the informations of sense, but developed by the workings of mind, This fact he has recorded in his theory of Reminiscence,—a term expressing the point of contrast in his method, to that of the empirical philosophers before him exclusively founded on sensation.

The truth and importance, accordingly, of Plato’s Theory of Ideas, appear in this; that by that theory he laid a stable foundation of science, in the principles themselves of the human mind. His error is, that he carried that theory too far; that he included in it notions which are not part of the fundamental principles of the mind, and thus involved his theory in vagueness and paradox. The war of nominalism and realism is well known to every one, who has looked into the history of philosophy, or of theological opinion. This found its occasion in the wide generalization of the Ideal Theory. Had Plato restricted his theory to such notions as really exist in the mind; and had he not extended it, without discrimination, to those which belong to general terms, and which are purely notional; there would not have been that ground for controversy on the subject. As the case has been,—one class of disputants, looking to the generalizations of language, the genera and species of logic, took the nominalist view of the subject,—- [7:18:33][7:18:34] truth, rather a condition in order to the development of the ideal theory in connection with the phenomena of sensation, than any positive nature, according to his conception of it. He has left it in the most mysterious form: nor does he seem indeed to distinguish it from Space, when he shadows it out by negatives of the attributes of all actual existence. In giving an analysis of production, γενεσις, he enumerates three principles as concerned in the process: 1. The thing produced; 2. That in which it is produced; 3∙ That from which the thing produced takes the pattern of its production; depicting them under the analogy of the father, the mother, and the offspring.^[139. Tirnoeus, pp. 342-344. ] The notion of body is here represented by the intermediate term of the three, namely, that in which the production takes place. “The nurse,” “the general receptacle,” and “the laboratory,” εκμα-γtιον, are also expressions by which he endeavours to characterize it, as being in its own nature incapable of being pre-» sented to the senses or the intellect. “As a person,” he says, “observing a perpetual succession of figures moulded of gold, if asked during the process what was moulded, could only safely answer, that it was gold ;”^[140. ≡ Ibid. p. 344. ] so we must be content to speak of this nature, calling it only a receptacle of forms or species, and not attributing to it any particular species whatever. The tendency of this theory of Body is obviously to. remove all material phenomena from the class of real existences. And it seems to point to the origin of Plato’s ideal theory in some older philosophy avowedly idealistic. At any rate, the speculation concerning body, as it stands in his system, leaves a hiatus in the transition from the world of Ideas to that of material existence.

• The doctrine of Soul, as delivered by Plato, is properly the connecting link between the worlds of being and sensation. Hence is derived the importance of the theory of the immortality of the soul in his philosophy. For it is in the soul that the eternal and immutable is found in the presence of the incipient and evanescent; the intellectual idea in contact, so to say, with the phenomena of sense. The soul partakes of change, as it is connected with the bodily nature: it is eternal and unchangeable, as it is the seat of intelligence.

Soul, then, according to Plato, is the necessary condition for the development of intelligence in the universe, as Body is for the existence of sensation. Soul, therefore, was necessarily prior to Body, as the first condition in order to the constitution of the universe. It was the animating principle by means of which the Deity, when he brought the world out of the disorder and confusion of unreason, communicated intelligence to it, fashioning it after the pattern of the eternal ideas. And not only is the whole universe thus ensouled by the immediate agency of the Deity; but every particular system in it, in which any degree of intelligence is found united with body, has in the very gift of that intelligence a soul originally imparted to it by the Father of the universe himself

This is the ultimate account of that immortality which Plato attributes to the soul of man. It is not as a human soul that it is immortal; but it derives an eternal existence' from its being among the original intelligent units of the animated universe. We see indeed a constant production of living things in the world; but it is not, as they have being, that they are thus produced or generated. This is the result of that “diverse” nature which was blended in their original composition with their higher principles, viz. the natures of “sameness” and “being.”

For these are the three principles into which Plato analyses Soul,—the principles of the same and the diverse, and being ;^[141. Ibid. ] and by these he explains the phenomena of its actual existence. No time can be assigned, then, to the origin of that which by its nature is, and is the same essentially. No one soul, therefore, can now begin to exist. And again, whatever once exists can never cease to exist, unless there is anything capable of destroying its principles of Sameness and Being. But Death, as he shews, has no such power. It may disengage the soul from its present body by dissolving the body; but it cannot affect the essential vitality which is in the soul. This essential vitality is the direct contrary to death. It therefore recedes when death comes, according to that law of Contraries, which holds throughout the world of generation and corruption, and which is the agent in all changes. But it still lives as vigorously as ever, and returns to animate another body in the course of Generation.^[142. ΑνωλζάξΟίί 2t iν γmeμsνι>ν, iλλ' lux, aiωi nw. (De Leg. X. p. 106.) ] Nor, for the same reason, can it maintain an unvaried perpetuity of existence. It remains ever undestroyed; but from that “diverse” principle which enters into its composition, it both alters in its internal character, and only imperfectly imitates the eternal nature by a successive re-appearance in the forms of new bodies.^[143. ⅛ Phaedo ; Meno. ] Thus, whilst it returns to the sensible world, it migrates from the male to the female sex, or to forms of the lower animals, according to that condition of purity in which it departed from its last body, or its previous degree of intellectual cultivation. For, as we may observe, there is no original distinction, according to the theory, between the soul of one man and another, and the soul of man and brute. All are equal in intelligence and goodness, as the immediate work of the Divine Author. The varieties in the characters of souls arise from the operation of the inferior deities who framed the bodies of men and brutes, and the use which individuals may make of their circumstances in the world. Whilst the number of souls, then, remains the same, they are continually changing their habitations, and passing by death from one body to another in the different forms of animal life; undergoing degradation with the forms of inferior animals, or elevation with those of superior nature, according to their state in a former existence.^[144. .Tirnoeus, p. 433; Phaedo, ad Jin. ]

The theory of the immortality of the soul thus rests entirely on the Theory of Ideas. It is the universality, and being, and truth, and perfection of the Ideas which prove the soul to be eternal.^[145. Ouxoυν, si ast ή άλνιάιια tiµīv των ίντων t<rτιν ív τji ψvχ>i, aΑavaτι>i av ⅞ ∙ψvχfl tin. (Meno, p. 361.) ] Ideas are 'found existing in the mind, but their acquisition cannot be traced to any particular period of a man’s present life. They have been there from time immemorial, for no one can say when they first appeared in his own mind. They were therefore born with us; and if so, they must have had existence before our birth: and who can limit that existence? They have existed, for ought we know to the contrary, from all eternity: and who, then, shall limit their existence by any future period? why may they not be born with us in a life subsequent to the present, as they were born with us in the present life, and so on to all eternity in endless generations? This is in substance the train of reasoning by which Plato seeks to establish the immortality of the soul. A similar argument has been reproduced in modern metaphysical treatises, variously modified and stated, but the same in substance. How little calculated it is to produce practical conviction, whilst we admire its ingenuity, is evidenced by Cicero’s confession, that whilst he wept over the Phaedo, his mind retained no deep impressions from the argument.^[146. Cicero, Tuse. Qu. i. 11∙ ]

This brings us to the consideration of Plato’s ethical system, in its vital connection with his physical and metaphysical, doctrines.

The two great principles on which his ethical system reposes, [7:18:35]are; l∙+ that no one is willingly evil;^[147. Tvnau!, 218; De Legibue, ix. ] 2J, that every one has in his own will a power of inducing changes in his character.^[148. De l. es ib utf x .. lbidt v . p> 2 1∏ ∙ ibid. ix. p. 17; Phikb. p. 231. ]

These principles are only the counterpart ethical expressions of his theories of immutable Being, on the one hand, and of the world of phenomena, or mere Becoming, on the other.

For the soul of man, so far as it has any good or truth in it, is framed after the pattern of the eternal Ideas of the good and true. These Ideas, under the various moral aspects which they present, constitute its moral nature. All its desires, therefore, naturally tend to the Good and True. These qualities are what the soul would be. They are the mysterious realities to which it is striving to attain, in all those various efforts after Pleasure which it makes in the present life ;—unconscious it may be, as it is in fact in the depraved, of the true nature of the objects to which its affections ultimately point. Still, if it be conceded that Ideas are the only proper Beings, and that everything else is phenomenal, or the mere product and offspring of the generating power of the eternal Ideas, it must also be admitted, that nothing else can be the real source of moral phenomena but the Good and True. In the moral, no less than in the physical world, a constant succession of passing events is found to take place. We perceive a variety of affections in the nature of man as he is in the world, directed to a variety of objects, each aiming at some particular gratification; one desire and its gratification passing away, and others succeeding it in endless flow. All this restless course, then, of moral events exhibited in the life of man is phenomenal; not in the sense of its having no reality whatever, but of its having no permanent reality—of its being no more in the result than effort towards being—restless, endless effort towards that which may give rest and full satisfaction, and stable being.

This ultimate object, then, however indistinctly sought, is the aim of every individual soul of man. Some, indeed, avowedly make mere sensual gratification the end of their desires. They endeavour to satisfy themselves with the limited and the evanescent. But the true cause of all that perverted activity which they display, is the Good itself. They know not what the Good is; but they love it in spite of themselves, and bear evidence, by their life of unceasing pursuit, that they are secretly actuated by the desire of it,—and that they can find no rest in anything short of it. Their soul, originally formed in the likeness of the Deity, can never willingly be separated from its Divine image. In the midst of its wildest aberrations, it feels the attraction of like to like, impelling, and at the same time reclaiming it to right.

This accordingly is Plato’s meaning in the principle, which he so emphatically lays down, that “no one is willingly evil.” It is very different, we may observe, from saying that no one commits evil willingly. And Plato himself takes care to guard his theory from this misconstruction. He readily grants, that acts of wrong are distinguished by being voluntary and involuntary, without which there could be neither merit nor demerit; but he strenuously maintains that this distinction does not apply to evil itself. It is in all cases involuntary. No one can choose it in itself. It is necessarily the object of aversion, as the good is invariably the object of choice and pursuit.

How is it, then, it will be inquired, that men do become evil ;—that whilst they are really seeking to be conformed to a divine pattern, they practically do what is evil, and, losing more and more of their likeness to the Eternal Being, conform themselves rather to the fleeting character of the world of sensation?

The explanation is found in the other great principle of Plato’s philosophy, the theory of Becoming, to which we have referred. Change is the characteristic of all that belongs to this subject; as immutability is the characteristic of Being. The course itself of successive phenomena may be varied by impressions from circumstances. In the soul there is a principle of change in the power of regulating the desires,—in indulging them to excess, or moderating them, according to the will. And the circumstances in which the soul is placed, as connected with the sensible world by means of the body, present the occasion for such change. The humours and distempers of the body produce discomposure in the soul. It becomes diseased analogously to the body. This state of disease is what is commonly called folly, άνο/α; and it takes the form either of madness, μανια i or of mere ignorance, αμα‰. Where even ignorance only is the result, the internal harmony of the soul is disturbed. Pleasures and pains are unduly magnified; the democracy of the passions prevails; and the ascendancy of reason is cast down. In addition to these disturbances or ailments through the body, come the influences of evil governments, evil public lessons, evil education. Hence the soul is changed from what it was when it first came from the hands of its Divine author. The eternal Ideas after which it was framed are not effaced from it. This cannot be; for then it would cease to have being; but it loses distinct apprehension of them,—mistakes appearances of good for good itself,—and under that delusion willingly does evil, and presumes on obtaining happiness by a course of evil conduct.

But the same principle of change in the soul gives an opening also for its moral restoration. As the soul is deteriorated by the contagion of the body, so it may also be restored to a sound state by remedial treatment. The yielding to every passing desire, and suffering the desires to grow out of proportion, and destroy the harmony of the soul, is the cause of men’s falling into that blindness which hides the good from their mental eye. By restraining them, and moderating the desires, the internal disorder is gradually corrected; reason resumes its ascendancy; the soul once more “sees and hears aright,” and thus returns to that good to which its desires naturally tend. It is a long process, indeed, by which the restoration is effected; a process of gradual purification, καSαjΛj, of the soul, by chastisement and suffering. Nor is it accordingly completed in a single life; many courses of existence must be passed through. Not only is the present life of the soul a consequence of its conduct in a former one; but it is destined to many successive stages of existence, each adapted to the character acquired at the stage next preceding, until its defilements are purged away.

These ethical doctrines of the philosopher, when divested of the extravagance of his theory, so far accord with the truth both of inspiration and experience, as they indicate, that the utmost man can do in the present life is insufficient to restore in him the lost image of God. Whilst they lay down this truth under the disguise of the remedial process of the transmigration of the soul, they further agree with the inspired authority, and with experience, in imposing on man the duty of commencing the process of restoration, and in holding him strictly responsible for the state of his mind and affections, through that power of selfdirection and capacity of improvement by discipline, with which he has been endued. Thus does he also bear evidence both to the fact of the perfection of man at his crea-tibn, and that of his existing corruption. But he differs from the Scripture account of that corruption, in making it originally a physical rather than a moral debasement, [7:18:36]and representing it as taking place by a gradual process, and not by a sudden and entire fall, the effect of a first transgression of a positive divine command.

The Sophists, indeed, boasted of their power of transforming the characters of men, and accordingly made great profession of “teaching virtue.”^[149. Gorgias, however, laughed at the other Sophists for pretending to teach virtue. He professed only the art of words. ] But they coupled with this pretension, the admission, that all opinions on moral, no less than on other subjects, are equally true. All opinions in morals, they said, are true; “but all are not good. What we would effect, therefore, is to lead men to such opinions as we know also to be both good and wise.”^[150. ≡ Protag. ] But this was a mere evasion; for if all opinions are equally true, then must also each man’s view of good be true, as well as that which his instructor would inculcate on him; and there is no fixed standard to which he may be conformed. Plato’s theory of good, as the sole object of desire,—or the invariable tendency of the will to good, and its invariable aversion from evil,—was a strong ground of opposition to the sophistical doctrine. It pointed out that there was a principle in man superior to instruction, and independent of the accidents of worldly circumstances, the Θεος μετζον, the “God-measure,” the fixed Divine standard, to which all moral teaching should be directed, and from a reference to which all moral discipline obtained its value.

From this mode of enunciating the fundamental principles of morals, it followed, that the practical morality which Plato teaches, should be directed to the means of removing the false appearances of good by which the mind is deluded to evil. He shews, accordingly, that there are false pleasures as well as false opinions—that men’s ignorance extends, not only to mistakes in regard to their w calth .or bodily accomplishments, but as to their moral characters; for that most men think themselves better than they .really are.^[151. iXι>λυ Si πλt7στaι γι, oïµai, πεςι to Tζ vov tì'òos tv va7s ∙ψυχa7s raυτωv Sι∏μaζτr.κaσw aξtriis, δoξaζavvts βtaviovs taυτaι>s, o'υκ iwts. (Philcbux i p. 285.) ] Thus does he apply to morals more particu-Jarly, the general confession which his philosophy exacts of its disciple on all subjects, that he knows not what he presumed he knew, and sends every one to learn himself, in order that he may be a moral man.^[152. Ta γvω⅛ι ruυτoν, λtγt s, ω Zωκςarts, ×. τ∙ ×∙ (Ibid. p. 284.) This is drawn out in a beautiful passage of the Charmides. 2χtSov γaζ τι tγωγt aυ<ro πoυτo φr,μι είναι <rωφζaσυvv v, va γιγvωσxiw iaυτov, κ∙ <r. λ. (Charm, pp. 130-135.) ]

This, therefore, according to Plato, is the great purpose for which philosophy must be cultivated. Philosophy alone can open the eyes to see the true value of things, and alone elevate the mind from the evanescent region of the phenomenal world to the seat of true and eternal Being.

For the same reason Dialectic, as immediately conversant about the Ideas of the good and true, is the ultimate study of him that would seek to educate and improve the powers of his soul to the utmost.

Philosophy and morality, in fact, in his system, perfectly coincide. The love of truth is also the love of good, and the love of good is the love of truth.^[153. M>jτ' tìs uvas ωφελtlas εitiaτνιμων βλε∙ψawts> μr τε vivas tuSaxiµtas, aλλ ’ tins πtφυxε τr s ∙ψυ%⅛s iiµũv Sυvaμ s 'εζav vt τov αλ⅛θauj, κaι 7,‘z vra iv∙xa ravvi>υ πξaττειv∙ (Philebus, p. 305.) ] The same process by which the good man is effected, philosophically viewed, is a power of analysing pleasure and pains, an art of mensuration, enabling the mind to discriminate between Truth arid Good on the one hand, and their semblances on the other, and distinctly to apprehend them, under whatever disguise they may be presented and obscured by the senses.^[154. Polit.; Protagoras. Hp also characterizes it as a knowledge of geometrical equality, opposed to πλεονεξία. ] Morally viewed, it is the one motive of the love of truth and good predominating over, and purifying, and absorbing into itself, every desire of human nature.^[155. Conυiυ. p. 247, et seq ] In the first view, it is wisdom or philosophy; in the latter, it is purification,— and perfect virtue,—and discipline of immortality,—the resemblance and participation of the Deity.^[156. Δ/a xaι ntioaσSaι χςv svθs∙√Js tκsirt φευγεw ivιτaχι<rva∙ φυγn 3s, iμoιω∏s âtS xa,ra το Suvarov∙ ίμοιωσι; 5≈, Sικaiav και όσιον μtτα φζavτ,σtωs yι- vεσ⅛αι, x∙ v∙ λ. (Thcoetct. p. 121.) ]

These views of moral truth are in themselves certainly grand and ennobling. As guides, however, to duty, they are deficient in that particularity and homeliness of application, which are required for the real business of morality. Their tendency, too, to contemplative mysticism is obvious, left as they are by Plato in undefined outline, and clothed in the charms of his imaginative eloquence. Nor shall we wonder that they have easily combined with the feeling of asceticism, so congenial to the human heart. The contempt which they throw over everything belonging to the bodily nature of man,—the delusiveness imputed to the senses, without any limitation of it, or guard against abuse of the theory,—and the abstractedness from the world which they propose,—admit of being construed into a theory of mortification of the body, and of the purifying efficacy of self-inflicted punishments. These tendencies, indeed, of Plato’s ethical doctrines, were, not long after his time, exemplified in the apathy and austerity of the Stoic morality. And it is well known to what extent they have been developed in the teaching and practice of religionists of all creeds. It cannot be denied, also, that where they take hold of a morbid and susceptible temperament of mind, they tend to substitute, in such a case, the morality of imagination and sentiment for that of common sense and household feeling, and to fritter away the convictions of duty into mere proprieties of taste; so that even whilst they elevate the character above sordid and vulgar seductions of pleasure, they emasculate and corrupt it, through the very excess of its refinement.

As bad education was regarded by Plato as the other great cause of human corruption, in addition to the influence of Body on the soul, he directs a large portion of his philosophical disquisitions to correct the evil arising from the second source. His ethical discussions go to the limiting of the desires, and curing the diseases produced by them in the soul. His political discussions have for their immediate object, the laying down right principles of education, and enforcing them by the constitution, laws, and power of the state.^[157. De Legibus, vii. p. 354. ] His two great works, the most elaborate of his writings, the Dialogues of the Republic and the Laws, are rather theories of Education than of Government and Laws. The former indeed inquires more particularly into the principles on which a right government may be formed; whilst the latter gives a systematic view of the principles of legislation. Both, however, have in view the improvement of human nature by social institutions expressly framed for that purpose. It has been supposed that in the Republic we have his theory of a perfect state, and in the Laws a practical exemplification of the theory. But this is clearly a mistake. Both are doubtless intended by Plato as theoretical disquisitions on the political matters of which they treat, whilst the real matter in hand is Education.^[158. ∏ξω<rov avi o!v πςos rav λoγov, 'oζitrωμι∑)α παιStιαv τι ποτ tστι, ×αι viva Sυvaμιν εςζtι∙ Sia γaζ ravvns φaμεv ιτεov tivai rav πςoxtiit ζiσμtvov tv τ∑ vũv, λoγov iιφ , fiµũv, μtχoι πtζ άν πd>s rav Stat iψικtιται∙ (ibid. i. p. 41.) ] This is expressly asserted by Plato himself, when he compares his legislation to the method of the philosophical physician.
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When the mere empiric, he observes, should hear such a physician discoursing to his patient of the origin of the disease, and ascending to the speculation on nature, hê would be disposed to object that such proceeding was folly; “for it was not healing the sick man, but rather educating him, as if he wanted to become à physician, and not to be made well.”^[159. De 'Le fP bu FF; P∙ 11. ] The like objection, he says, might be applied to his method of legislation; for, “whoever pursues the inquiry concerning laws,” he adds, “as we are doing now, educates the citizens, but does not legislate.”^[160. Ibid. ] And he goes on to say, in the person of the chief speaker, addressing the other interlocutors of the Dialogue, that in their work of legislation they were at leisure, as speculators on the subject, to consider, not what was most necessary, but what was best.^[161. bid ^ ]

We are not to suppose, then, that Plato had in view the actual foundation of a state, according to the principles of government and legislation laid down in his two famous dialogues. His object was to give an example of the most perfect life,^[162. llã¢ra oS, iµī, ⅛ πολitiω ⅛m<rτ ri xs μιμnfit το» xa,×κι<r to» xaι iζ l <rrou βιoυ∙ (ibid. vii. p. 380.) Tαi⅛α 0η xa3aπiξ iroν s lν μuSω, raΛv λιγo-μιν urnv tυχaι∙ γι μw iζι<rτa,, iioriζ γιγνoιτo b oraroii; τoλισι γιγvoιτo άν (Ibid, viii. p. 423.) ] free from those impediments which all existing governments and laws threw across the path of the virtuous man. As philosophy is the guide of private life, elevating it to the knowledge of the Good and True, so he would have philosophy also seated on the throne of government, and exhibit the eternal Ideas of Good and Truth, modifying society after their pattern. Hence it is that he overlooks impossibilities in his arrangements; as is pointed out by Aristotle in his acute comments on the leading points of Plato’s political theories.^[163. Anstot. PoZitíc.^ii. app. 1, ver. 4. ] All is sacrificed, in fact, to the one great object of Plato’s mind, the sketching of the Idea of the Good as a social principle, apart from the evil influences of society.

The most extravagant hypotheses, accordingly, arc put forward in this part of his philosophy; not indeed with a view of their being ever exemplified in any institutions of real life, but in extreme contrast with the existing selfishness of human society, and as theoretic developments of the unchangeable idea of good. Such, for example, is his theory of a community of wives and children, and the training of women to the hardiest exercises of the gymnasium and of war. We justly take exception at the immorality and unnaturalness of such hypotheses. But Plato looks down upon man from the height of his sublime theory. He sees everything in the unity and invariableness of that theory, and overlooks distinctions deeply founded in the nature of man. Thus it is that in his view man himself becomes a thing of little consideration or importance,—a sort of plaything of the Deity, Siou τι ταιγνιον, scarcely worth any serious attention. “You disparage altogether the race of man,” says an interlocutor in the Dialogue of the Laws. “Wonder not at it,” replies the Athenian; “but make allowance for me; for it was from looking off to the Deity, and under this impression, that I said what I have now expressed. However, let it be granted that our race is not insignificant, if you like, but worth some serious consideration.”^[164. De Legibus, vii. p. 353. ] It is in this spirit that he himself sports with human nature, as if human beings were only so many chessmen, to be moved on the board, so as to display the admirable design of the disposing mind, and illustrate the working of the eternal Ideas. His fault is the same as in his physical speculations, that of commencing from the final cause, or the notion of the Best, and forming the world of social life after that, instead of rising from the study of its actual formation to the notion of the Best ;—or at least in supposing, that he could arrive at a just view of the divine pattern of Good, by presenting a theoretic copy of it, after his own conceptions of the Best. But such extravagancies as those we have referred to, could only have proceeded from so bold a mind as that of Plato,—a mind, not checked by the repulsiveness of particular consequences from pushing a theory to the utmost.

At the same time, tins fundamental notion of the Divine standard and pattern on which he proceeds, imparts a solemn dignity, in the midst of these excesses of the spirit of theory, to the substance of his speculations on government and laws.

Religion is thus secured as the basis of all right government and legislation. That government only which most resembles a theocracy is, in Plato’s view, a true polity. All others, popularly termed governments, as democracy, oligarchy, aristocracy, monarchy, arc merely settlements of cities, and not Polities, ^[165. ibid. iv. J 78. ] being called after that power which has the ascendancy, in each over the other parts of the state. So far as a state is truly such, it ought to be named, he says, after the true God, the lord over all intelligent beings. Governments, as they exist, are only the results of the struggles of contending factions: whence we find, as he observes, one party in the ascendancy excluding and depressing another, in order to its own maintenance, and no concern taken for the welfare of the whole community. To remedy this general evil of existing governments, he would have the simple and straightforward course of the divine procedure brought before the minds of men, and a conformity with that procedure inculcated on them as the only rule of life and happiness. “God,” he teaches, in an animated and noble passage,^[166. ,7fii τ °" r °'° ur " υ Tt>ì> ςr ° λ,il το τον αλ^ϋί το» των νο»ν iχoντων iir*oZ,oντo s âioS iνoμ<x λtγιo⅛a l . ' (Ibid. ] “as the ancient story is, holding the beginning, and end, and middle of all things that are, describes a straight line, according to nature, as he walks his circuit.^[167. The train of thought is entirely mathematical; ’ Apχ^ v « xaι r tλεvr> ν κu,ι μιτa των ι i τt ν iπaντuν iχων, lv3tικν vtpaινu xara Φu∏ν rvι∙ *o^uoμwo i . (Ibid. IV. p. 185. ] In his train ever follows Justice, the avenger of these that are left behind by the divine law; to which, he that would be happy, keeping close, follows in the train, humble and orderly; but whoever is puffed up with high boasting, or elated with wealth, or honours, or grace of person, together with youthfulness and folly,—his soul burning with insolence, as presuming, that he requires neither ruler nor any guide, but is competent even to be a guide to others,— is left, forsaken of God. And being left, and taking to himself others besides, such as he is, he frolics, throwing everything into promiscuous confusion. And to many he seems to be some one; but, after no long time, undergoing a retribution, of which he cannot complain, to Justice, he utterly subverts himself, and his house, and his city.”^[168. Ibid. ]

Here we have emphatically recognized the great truth, that the foundations of all government and law are laid in the unchanging nature of the Divine Being. The law of right, as exemplified in the dominion of party, is the law of the strongest, fluctuating with the accidents of power, and never attaining to any permanent being. Such was the law of right, as taught by the Sophists, from city to city, and which was fully established in public opinion throughout Greece,—not only as manifested in the factious character of the particular governments, but avowedly declared and acted on as a principle of conduct. “It is nothing,” say Athenian ambassadors, “out of the course of the established opinion of men concerning the Divine Being, or [7:18:38]their sentiments concerning themselves, that we expect or do. For we hold that the Divine Nature, so far as we can judge of it, and human nature, as we see clearly, by an instinctive necessity, ever exercise power where they can obtain the mastery. Nor are we the first, either to propose the law, or to use it when laid down: it was in being when we took it up; and it will subsist for ever, for us to transmit to others after us; and we merely act upon it; convinced, that yourselves, no less than others, were you placed in the same power in which we are, would do so.”^[169. Thucyd. V. 105. ] Here, then, is the law which belongs to the region of instability,—. to that nature which is ever becoming, and never is. Contrast with this Plato’s principle, which deduces the origin of law from the eternal idea of good, and it will then be more distinctly seen what the spirit of Plato’s legislation really is. ∙

It follows, indeed, from bis principle, that all instituted law is imperfect.^[170. 'Oτι vομοs ουκ av <rοτi ^υva,ιτο to τt iοιστον ×aι to 'iι×.a.ιοτaτοv, ×∙ τ∙ λ∙ (pθlii. p. 82.) ] And he admits, accordingly, that if a perfectly virtuous ruler could be established on earth, it would be best that the business of government should be carried on by his will; which would in such a case be only the copy of the Divine exemplar of right. But as this is past hope in the present condition of human things, the substitute for the more perfect system is the institution of laws framed after the eternal Idea of Good; not laws adapted merely to the preservation of a particular form of polity, but embodying in them the immutable principles of right. And even such laws, as being matters of institution, are inferior in dignity to unwrittén laws—the principles of right—which, themselves resting on no external sanction, are yet the conserving principles of all positive laws.

Having his eye fixed on the eternal pattern of the good and the true, Plato looked with a feeling of disappointment and disgust at the several forms of polity which the states of Greece exhibited. He is generally thought to have inclined to a preference of aristocracy, and to have regarded with aversion all popular government. But though it is probable, that, from what he saw of the tyranny of an unrestrained democracy, he sighed in secret for a better order of things, we cannot conclude from his political speculations that he regarded any single polity as the best. He, in fact, condemns all particular forms;^[171. ‘Αλλα ujv οrζοσiiκουtrav aùrÿ τινa, τZν sũn asy∙∕s π∙ολιτtιωv ου J’ r l vτηιuουν ιιπον t κ∙ <r∙ λ∙ CRep. vi, p. 96.) ] and when he asserts a preference, it is for a polity such as was nowhere seen in his times, combining in it monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy.^[172. De Leg. iii. pp. 137, 138. ] But in his view, as governments then existed, they were all one-sided; the dominion of one part of a community over the rest, and not the dominion of good over the whole. This dominion, as we have observed, was only to be found in the government of God over the world, and to it, therefore, he would have all human government conformed. His sole preference, then, is for a theocracy, if such could be realized on earth. His slighting manner of speaking of the lower orders of society, and of all indeed but those who are gifted with superior talents and other natural endowments, is to be ascribed to his general low estimate of human nature, considered apart from that cultivation, which the highest and most intellectual studies impart to it.

Respect for antiquity and prescriptive authority is strongly inculcated by Plato. In nothing was the changeable·, ness of all generated things more evident than in the evervarying forms of the states of Greece, and especially of Athens itself. The democracy of Athens had been an universal market, τrαντο<ιrωλιον, as Plato terms an extreme democracy of all sorts of po!ities.^[173. Rep. viii. ] And laws had so far lost their force there in the most corrupt times, that everything was transacted by the decrees of the day; the variable determinations of popular assemblies being substituted practically in the place of the records of former experience and wisdom. Early legislators had devised expedients for counteracting this love of change on the part of their countrymen, as Solon, for instance, and Lycurgus, had done. And in some instances, we find a temporary and partial expedient adopted, by the popular assembly itself fixing the penalty of death to the proposal of rescinding a measure before a certain period.^[174. Thucyd. ii. 24. ] Plato’s expedient was supplied by the principle itself of his philosophy. If the Idea of Good was eternal and unchangeable, the constant pursuit of change must lead men astray from their happiness and the truth. They must be called back, therefore, from that which is present and passing, to the recollection of the past. They must not look on wisdom as a thing which is different to-day from what it was yesterday, or in former times, but hold it as what by its very nature is unalterable. To regard it as susceptible of improvement in the lapse of time, would be to deny its proper Being, to reduce it to the condition of mere Becoming. A distrust in the wisdom of any existing generation of men, and a sacred reverence for that of former generations, and especially for the earliest traditions of knowledge, would naturally be inculcated in such a philosophy. Thus he highly commends the Lacedemonian and Cretan polities for the provision, that no young man should inquire whether the laws were good or bad, but that “all should with one voice and with one mouth agree in declaring that everything in them is well appointed, as being by the appointment of gods ;” and that no other sentiment should be allowed to be expressed. Further, not even does he permit a young person to be present when such matters are considered by the old.^[175. De Legibus, i. 24, 25. ] In the same spirit, the Egyptian immutability in the arts for thousands of years, is admired, as a proof of admirable legislative and political wisdom.^[176. De Legibus, ii. p. 67. ] Even in regard to the fine arts, and to sports and amusements, he reprobates the tendency to innovation, as dangerous to the serious institutions of a state, on the ground, that changes in these lighter matters “imperceptibly change the manners of the young, and bring what is primitive into disrepute, and what is modern into repute ;” and that there cannot be a greater mischief to states than such a habit of “blaming antiquity.”^[177. Ibid. vii. pp. 338, 339. ]

All this, which under certain limitations may be true, appears, when thus broadly laid down by Plato, a misapplication of the proper sanction of religious truth to truth in general. In religion, the only question being what is really taught by its Divine author, there can be no addition made in the course of time to the truths revealed, except by another divine revelation, though there may be advancement in the exposition and teaching of it. What is primitive and ancient, accordingly, in this subject, once fully ascertained to be so, is the truth, and the whole truth. Only we must not mistake antiquity of exposition and comment, for primitiveness of the truth itself; for these admit of improved knowledge by human study, when the original truth itself does not. The contest between the advocates of the respective claims of the past and of the present, in the matter of knowledge, is doubtless much older than the time of Plato. But his authority and eloquence have probably been mainly instrumental in starting and sustaining the controversy in modern times, through the early reception of his philosophy into the literature of the Christian church.

But we may further see a reason for the stress which Plato lays on the wisdom of prescription and authority, in that state of public opinion to which he is addressing himself. It was not, as might be supposed, a state of things [7:18:39] corresponding exactly to a demand for religious or civil changes, in our days, under established governments and institutions. The question of change is now gravely discussed, and deliberately carried or rejected, not with the view of unsettling everything, but in order that some particular institution or law may be established for the future. Except in violent outbreaks of human passions long pent up within artificial restraints, exasperated by resistance, and at length forcing their way out, and levelling all barriers before them, as in the instance of the French revolution, it cannot be said with truth, of the struggles for particular changes in modern institutions, that they have been actuated by the mere desire of change, and the hatred of everything established. The religion and the civilization of modern times have in some measure presented a check to this. But at the centre of movement in Greece, change was the order of the day. Athens would neither rest itself, nor suffer other states to rest When its very demagogues are forced on some occasions to endeavour to repress this incessant changeableness; as Cleon was, when he told the Athenians it was better “to have worse laws unmoved, than good laws perpetually changed ,∙"^[178. Thucyd. iii. 37. ] —it is evident that the spirit of change was then developed in its most fearful form. For we find the magician himself who had evoked it, starting in terror at the apparition, and finding it too strong for his direction and control, ∆oυλo∕ οντες των αει άτονων, υvεξοwuι δε των ειω⅛οτων, “Slaves of every new extravagance, but de-spisers of accustomed things,”^[179. . 38. ] are the words with which he attempts to exorcise it, and which the historian of the times puts into the mouth of one who, as the creature of the system, could most pointedly characterize it. Such was that spirit, then, against which Plato had to contend. It was an enemy not only to the existing government, but to all government, and all law, and all religion and morality. It demanded, therefore, the most forcible counteraction. It was to be met by inculcation of the opposite. According to his own universal principle, contrary was to be expelled by contrary. Everything that was ancient was to be upheld, accordingly, as worthy of veneration and acceptance, simply because it was ancient. The voice itself of antiquity, though speaking without evidence, was to be received with implicit acquiescence and submission. Thus it is that Plato is found strenuously appealing to the instinctive feeling of his countrymen, which they still retained in spite of the prevailing folly,—the feeling with which they so fondly reverted to their early glories, and delighted to view themselves in the past ;—and labouring to correct their vacillations of present opinion by recalling them to the stable lessons of memory.

Political philosophy, then, according to Plato, is the history of those changes which the will of man produces in the matter of government and laws, and an endeavour to limit those changes by restoring in the social world the primitive order and rule.

Education is the means by which those changes are counteracted. It avails itself of that principle of contrariety by which all changes are carried on; and endeavours to expel the evil by inducing the good. The process by which it carries on this effect is, a discipline of the intellect, prescribed by the state, and promoted by all its institutions and customs, framed, as these are supposed to be, after the idea of the Sovereign Good. That discipline lays down a course of exercise for the body as well as for the intellect, that the body may be brought into the best condition, in order to the exercise of the intellect. The intellect itself it conducts through the steps of the several sciences, from the bodily and sensible to the unembodied and intellectual,—from the phenomenal and changeable to that which has real being, and is unchangeable. And thus in Plato’s system it is classed under the two comprehensive heads of Gymnastics and Music; the latter term being understood, according to its derivation, to denote literature in general. Philosophy itself was the ultimate attainment of education,—the result of the whole intellectual training of the accomplished man. Ostensibly, under this system, there was no peculiar discipline of the heart. Indirectly there was; so far .as it inculcated purification and self-denial. But the strengthening and elevating of the intellect was its direct object. Its tendency was thus to exalt the virtues of the intellect above those of the heart; and, in opposition to the evidence of facts, to assert the power of knowledge over the determinations of the will. Not that Plato denies the existence of what we call self-command, or that controlling of the passions which is the result of a previous struggle with them. But he did not admit (as Aristotle does, and urges against him^[180. Aristot. Ethic. Nie. vii. 2. Aristotle, though controverting the extreme view of the doctrine of Plato on this point, in the result nearly coincides with him. Ibid. c. 3. ]) that reason could ever be overpowered by the passions, or that if there were a distinct knowledge of the truth in the mind, it could give way to passion.

In the matter of Religion, Plato’s theory of Ideas led him to see that there were truths above the evidence belonging to Experience, and which must be received solely on the ground of the Divine authority. For whilst he taught that the mind of man must work its way up to the Ideas by a course of argument and examination of evidence, yet, having reached the Ideas themselves, it had attained the ultimatum of truth; no further evidence of these was to be sought; they carried their own light in themselves. So, when any truth was presented to the mind, which related immediately to the Divine Being, it was not to be supposed capable of being examined in itself, and established on any higher ground of internal evidence, but must at once be admitted, if there were sufficient external authority for it. The only question respecting such truths is, are they historically true? Is it certain, or at least highly probable, that they have descended to us from the Father of Lights himself? Have we reason to think that they were originally real divine communications,—and are they vouched to us as such by a competent evidence?^[181. Eα> ouν, ω ∑ωx., πoλλa πoλλuι ιinovτωv πiξ 9sω> ×aι τr,g rou nawos γwisia>s, µr, 2υvaroι γιγνωμιSa rit>rι πaνrωg au rtu; avrous aùroif ιμoλoγou-μivavs' xaι aπχxζ Sωμwovι λoγous anoiovwι, µr, âauµaaxg, x. τ. λ. (Timaeus, p. 304.) ] Now, in regard to the primary principles of the mind, such as we have before spoken of, though they are not evidenced by any higher principles, or by any conclusions from Experience, they carry their own evidence, by their invariable presence in the mind on certain occasions, being naturally suggested by such occasions to every rational understanding. But the truths of religion are of a different nature. They cannot be authenticated by the mind itself to itself, as being out of its range of thought. They must therefore be authenticated from without. And in regard to these, accordingly, we must appeal to the Reason and Word of God, as the simple, and proper, and unanswerable vouchers of them.

This is the account of Plato’s disclaimer of all evidence, either of demonstration or probability, on matters strictly divine, and his frequent appeal to mythic traditions when his discussion touches a mystery of the Divine Being or the Divine conduct. He resolves the whole authority of such matters into the evidence of “ancient story,” vαλαιος λογος, ^[182. Otniζ οι παλαιοί ri xaι τοφοι λιγοw r ο όμοιο} τω 'oμoιγ. {Gorgias, p. 137∙) ] — and “primitivehearing,” άξχαιαάκοη, — and “learninghoary with time,” μα3ημα χgονω vολιον. ^[183. Timaus, p. 291. ] In speaking of the generation of the subordinate divinities, in the Timaeus, he makes [7:18:40] an observation applicable to the whole subjectof divine things as treated by him. Instead of entering into explicit accounts of them, he observes that the subject is “too great for us, and that we must believe those who have spoken before, being the offspring of gods, in the way in which they said it, and because they must be conceived to have known their own ancestors ;” adding, that we cannot refuse credit to the “sons of gods, although they speak without probabilities and necessary demonstrations, but must follow the rule of believing them on their word, as declaring what belongs to them.”^[184. Timaeus, p. 324. ] He commends, too, the primitive generation of men for their docility in following rules of life founded on oral tradition,—their “holding as true what was said τα as- γομενα, concerning both gods and men.”^[185. De Leg. iîî. p. 111. ] Again, speaking of the state of die dead, and their interest in the concerns of men on earth, he appeals to the same kind of evidence. “We must believe,” he says, “the voices of others in such matters, so current as they are, and so extremely ancient; and it is enough for our belief that legislators, unless they be proved absolutely unwise, have asserted them.”^[186. De Leg. xi. 150. ] So justly does he insist on the reasonableness of being content with the voice of a declaratory authority in matters incapable, by their nature, of a direct evidence from our reason.

By the heathen philosopher, in the absence of an authentic revelation, the authority for such truths was naturally sought in ancient traditions,—traditions mounting up beyond all memory of their origin, and therefore referable to times when the world was yet fresh from the hand of God. The voice of remote and undefined antiquity, indeed, by a natural delusion, represents itself to the mind as but little different from the sanction of eternal truth. For it is but a slight and imperceptible transition from the indefinite to the infinite. Many such traditions were found in the heathen mythology, connecting themselves with another order of things, when gods conversed with men on earth. Some of them, certainly, were full of absurdity and profaneness; and all were disfigured with the colouring of fable; but still there were some, beautiful in the conception, and sublime and impressive in the doctrine. Of this latter character, for the most part, are those exquisite mythical legends, with which Plato has diversified his discussions, throwing the solemnity of religion over truths which he would especially enforce.

Thus, though he has elaborately argued the immortality of the soul, he is not content to leave the question on those abstract grounds of conviction. He feels that the conviction which may practically influence the conduct, must be draw n from another source,—that of a simple belief in some authority declaring it,—when he closes the discussion, as in the Phaedo, and in other places, with a scenic representation, from the legends of ancient tradition, of the doctrines which he has been enforcing. The whole of the Timaeus, in fact, is a legend rather than a philosophical inquiry. It appeals, for the reception of its truths, to the shadows with which it veils them, and the mystic echoes of sounds heard by the listening ear from afar. In that legend, indeed, we have very considerable evidence of the pure source, from which the heathen world drew much of the sacred truth that was wrapped up and disfigured in their fables. We perceive in such a document of ancient philosophy, at once the sure and wide-spread knowledge resulting from a scriptural Revelation, and the obscurity and fallibility of the information of Tradition. To this effect are the description in the Timaeus, of the universe as the “one” work of the “one Supreme

Being,”—as the “visible likeness of one himself the object only of intellectual apprehension,”—as the “only-generated,” μοvογενης, of the Father of all things; and the strong assertion of the goodness, and beauty, and perfection of the universe; and particularly, in reference to this, that striking passage, “When the Father who generated it, perceived, both living and moving, the generated glory of the Everlasting Divinities, he was filled with admiration, and, being delighted, he further contemplated the working it still more to a resemblance of the pattern.”^[187. '∩i Jt x<viiθw τι a,υτo κaι ζων iνινettrt των άώιων Sιων γιγaνaν aγaλp,a ó γtνν∏eaι πaτ∏ζ, νιγααάη <rt, xaι in βn j καλλβv aμaiav vro<>f r∙ napa⅛iiγμa wrtvatirιν άτίζγασασάαι. (Ibid. pp. 316, 317∙) ] Add to these instances the simple and magnificent words which he has put into the mouth of the Father of the Universe, as an address to the generated gods, respecting the formation of the bodies of men and other living creatures.^[188. Θιtι ων iγω 2nμιevoγti, praτ∏a τι 'iξγων, x. ∙r. λ. (Ibid. p. 325.) ] The attributing to Him a speech at the first formation of man, is alone sufficiently remarkable; and the plural address with which it opens, makes the correspondence still closer to the sacred words, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our∙likeness” The order of the generation of things, it may be further observed, agrees with the order of the creation. First the heavens and the earth are produced, and then the living creatures; and among these Man, designated as “the most religious of animals.”^[189. Zuõ! t¢ S{eβ∙sCsβ∙τατa>. (Ibid. p. 326.) ] But at the same time there is much confusion and degradation of the high subject. We look in vain for those sublime features of the inspired account, that the creation arose out of nothing, by the word of God. This is darkly intimated in the shadowy nature which the narrative assigns to Body; but, though it be but a shadow, Body still subsists in his system, as the co-eternal contrary of the Divine Intelligence. Traces of the descent of holy truth, in the like disguise, appear in the references found in Plato to early deluges and genealogies;^[190. Ρo'it. p. 290; De Leg. i. ] to the notion of God as the shepherd of his people;^[191. Θsβf tνiμtν awovs abraς tvtvraτων' xa⅛aiti∕> νυν αν^ζωνβι, ξωaν iν tτtζa> ^siarspaν, άλλα γtνn fαυλa∙τt∣>α ai/των νaμιυurι. (Polit. p. 35.) ] ö and to accounts of variations in the course of the rising and setting of the sun.^[192. Polit, p. 28. The same are evidently referred to by Herodotus in Eittcrpe, 142. ]

Such, then, is the character of Plato’s philosophy, both in its general method, and in its results, as a theory of the universe, and an information respecting the leading branches of human knowledge.

It was concerned, we find, more in investigating and establishing first principles, than in drawing out results; in exciting the love of wisdom, rather than in aiding in the research after it. With him, indeed, philosophy and its method of inquiry, as we have seen, are one; and, in like manner, philosophy and its several branches coalesce in his system into one. We have spoken of his logical, and physical, and ethical doctrines, as if they were distinct subjects; but in his mind the one theory of Ideas held these several doctrines in its embrace, and made them indissolubly one with itself. For his design throughout is, to establish universal principles common to every subject, and on these to build a structure of philosophy,—a counterpart in the human mind to the universe itself, and comprehending therefore all that relates to the Deity, to man, and to the world. He would place the mind of the philosopher far above the scenes in which man lives, and endue him with a keenness and range of vision, extending over the whole region of speculation, and leaving no part, either from its largeness or from its minuteness, unexplored. The problem which he undertakes to solve is, how all things are both one and many; how, amidst the multiplicity of phenomena with which we are surrounded, a real unity still subsists and pervades the whole. He proceeds on the conviction, that to attain to this unity, so far at least as our faculties will enable us to attain to it [7:18:41](for in itself it is incomprehensible and ineffable), is to find the clue to that maze of sensible things which bewilders human observation. He was not intent, therefore, on distinguishing and arranging the several branches of knowledge, but on bringing all into subjection to his commanding theory of the perfect unity. He has not, in fact, elaborated, or even sketched, any one particular science. He has shewn how the sciences may be distributed, or rather furnished hints for such a distribution. But he has left the task of doing so to others after him, as subordinate agents, filling up the details and supplying the omissions of his system. His was characteristically a one-making mind. It analysed,— not, however, for the purpose of finding and arranging the component elements of a subject, bjjt in search of the one vivifying principle, which gives form, and truth, and goodness, and beauty, to everything. He omits, accordingly, to examine with minuteness into secondary agencies, which are the proper study of the particular sciences, in order that he may direct attention to the master-principle, by which all subordinate principles are held together, and by which they work as concurring causes in the infinite variety of actual phenomena with such energy and constancy of operation.^[193. Ταΰτ íu» sraw , if, των ζριιαιτιωι, i∑f Sse; iι<!ru>r τβυrι χζ>ιτxι, την του xοιστου xxrx το ίννχτον i2iaι χοτοτελάίν. (7 ’ im. p. 336.) The genesis of the universe is from the union of >ou; and àvxy×n, and the dominion of νου; over aνχγχ> causes wayxn to bring των yιγνοu,'.νιuν τχ οrλnrra iτ< το ßì/.rirot. (Tim. p. 339.) ]

It was left for his pupil Aristotle to take up the business of philosophy where he had designedly left it unfinished, and, by a more rigorous method, to introduce order into the field of science, by assigning to each particular science its distinct objects and office.

It required, indeed, some philosopher worthy of such a master to take up the subject where Plato had left it, and to carry it out to the fulness of an instructive method, and a systematic exposition of truth; and such a successor was found in Aristotle. Aristotle, as controverting the Theory of Ideas, may perhaps be regarded by some as an antagonist, rather than a successor, to Plato. But every succeeding system of philosophy is partly a polemic against its predecessor, by whose labours it nevertheless -has profited. So it was with the great movement of mind commenced by Plato. It languished under Speusippus and Xenocrates, and the still more remote successors in the Academia. But in the Lyceum, the rival school in name, but the rival only as the vigorous offspring of the declining parent, a crowd of hearers such as that whom the great magician of the Academia had called around him, was once more assembled, and Athens again assumed the form of an university. In Aristotle’s system, accordingly, we see the productiveness of t]aose germs of philosophy which the genius of Plato had planted and reared. Others cultivated the germs themselves; and some fostered them into a wild luxuriance. It was by being engrafted on the sturdy stock of Aristotle’s mind, that they received fresh vigour, and produced fruits, though not strictly their own, yet partaking of their life and richness.^[194. Dionysius of Halicarnassus speaks justly of Aristotle, as » ι yνν riuraroi niτοu μχ⅜nτr i< (tiiρ∙ οd Cn∙ Ρ ’ οmρ∙) ]

If we take Plato’s philosophy as a whole in its complex form, not simply as a system of philosophy, but a system in which philosophy, and eloquence, and poetry, and deep religious and moral feeling, are harmoniously combined, it stands alone in the history of literature. There is nothing which approaches to it under this point of view, nothing which may be properly regarded as a continuation of it. It is a splendid work of rare genius, like the Homerie poems or the Minerva of Phidias, which no other artist has ever equalled. Philosophical dialogues have been written in imitation of those of Plato; but how unlike to them, how altogether inferior to them in conception and execution! There is learning, and eloquence, and grace, in whatever the accomplished mind of Cicero has touched. But compare his most finished specimens in this way with the Dialogues of Plato, and what a deficieney appears! Dignity and refinement of mind, and an acquaintance with the stores of philosophy, shine forth in the Dialogues of Cieero. But we miss altogether the depth and the exquisiteness of thought, the range and the minuteness of vision, the exactness of reasoning, the lively sketches of character and manners, which interest and astonish us by their combination in the Dialogues of Plato. Xenophon had great knowledge of human nature, and has thrown an air of great naturalness over his simple descriptions, whether it is conversations and moral lessons that he relates, or stirring scenes of history. But his Soeratic dialogues do not admit of comparison with the elaborate efforts of Plato. They were clearly intended only as accounts of what Socrates had taught, and did not aim at any artist-like effect, as compositions. Or, if we turn to the Symposium of Plutarch, there, again, much as the author admired and studied Plato, we observe an entire want of that tact in the management of the dialogue, which so engages our attention amidst the subtilties of Plato’s discussions. If we compare, again, the imitations of Plato in the Dialogues of Berkeley and Shaftesbury, we find the like contrast as in those of Cicero. Superior as these are in composition to other efforts of the kind in our language, they still give no proper representation of the spirit or the form of the Platonic Dialogue. There is no life in the interlocutors of these Dialogues; and the author himself is scarcely concealed behind their masks. Nor are there any touches of natural feeling or incident to connect the argument with the personality of the speakers; such as those in the Phaedo, where the discussion opens with the loosing of the chains from the limbs of Socrates, his bending and rubbing his leg, and expressing the pleasure arising from the contrast of his pain before; circumstances, not merely thrown in by way of dramatic interest, but leading, in immediate application, to the argument in hand. As we have said, then, the philosophy of Plato taken in connection with the admirable compositions in which it is contained, stands alone in the history of literature. It is due to the charm of the composition, that the interest of the reader is sustained amidst much of dry abstract speculation, requiring the closest attention, and considerable acquaintance with the subjects of philosophical discussion, in order to follow it. It was this charm in great measure, doubtless, which rendered the writings of Plato, in spite of their abstruseness and subtilty in many parts, so acceptable to Grecian taste. He had his crities also and censors; but all seem to have concurred in placing him at the head of the philosophical writers of Greece. Objection was taken by some to the severity of his sarcasm against the leading Sophists and other great names. Complaint, too, was made of his putting sentiments and words into the mouth of Soerates which Socrates had never used; and of his anachronisms, in bringing together in conversation, persons, who, from the period at which they flourished, could never have met. But these were merely minute criticisms. It was seen by those who entered into the spirit of his writings, that he was still the great master throughout,—that he was not giving,, in his Dialogues, a history of individuals or of the times, but a general character of classes of men, and the prevailing tone, both of philosophical discussion and of popular opinion. The enlightened critic saw that Soerates, for example, is not pourtrayed by him simply as Socrates, but as the characteristic spokesman of the system on which he is engaged ;—and in like manner, that when he brings together· persons of different periods, he overlooks the anachronism, that he may enunciate the doctrines inquired into, in their proper person.

The perfection to which he wrought the style of his most elaborate Dialogues, will be apparent to those who [7:18:42]Study them accurately under this point of view. So fastidious, indeed, is the taste with which they have been wrought into their present form, that it cannot be duly appreciated without an accurate and even delicate observa-tibn. Every word seems chosen with care, and every clause of his periods made to flow with its proper rhythm; and this effect at the same time is produced out of the ordinary materials of the language. The words and idioms are those of conversation, and the way in which they are put together seems, at the first view, to be as unstudied as mere conversation. But the result is an exquisite composition, in regard to which we are at a loss to pronounce, whether the depth and the elegance of the thought, or the grace and propriety of expression, most prevail.^[195. ’ The fastidiousness of taste with which he touched his compositions, is illustrated by the account of the opening of the Republic having been found with the clauses variously transposed. Dionys. Hal. De Comp. Pub. 25. ] It is quite evident that he was not the first to compose Dialogues, were we to look simply to the finished form in which his Dialogues have been executed. They are, doubtless, not the first efforts in that way. But the school of Elea had preceded him in this style. More particularly, however, we are told, that Alcamenus of Teos was the first to write Dialogues; or at least his is the earliest name to which, on the testimony of Aristotle, in a work now lost, the honour of originating the Dialogue has been assigned. But we need look no further than to the Greek drama for the first thought of the Platonic Dialogue. The Mimes of Sophron, and the Comedies of Epicharmus, probably furnished materials from which he was enabled, if not to mould, at least to enrich his Dialogues. The Mimes of Sophron, indeed, it is said, found a place under his pillow.^[196. Diθg. Lacrt. in Vit. ] And what are the Protagoras, the Gorgias, and the Symposium, it may be asked, the particular Dialogues in which he has most fully displayed his dramatic power, but philosophical comedies in prose, analogous to the Clouds of Aristophanes, and only differing from that play, as addressed to a higher class of hearers, and as intended, not to call forth the applause of spectators, but to elicit thought from a reader.

Nor, in touching upon the peculiar excellencies of Plato’s

Dialogues, ought we to omit to notice especially, under this point of view, the delightful mythic narratives, with which he has adorned and relieved his abstract discussions. The art with which he has introduced them is most admirable. They are openings of rich scenery, suddenly presented to the view when least expected ;—tales of an Arabian night succeeding to a morning’s pastime of disputation in some school of Greece ;—solemn shadows from an unseen world, casting their majestic forms over some ordinary incident of daily life. But they are not to be regarded only as embellishments and reliefs to the argument. They bear an important part in the teaching itself of his philosophy. Theysoften down the outline of his reasonings,—taking from them that positive didactic form in which they might appear, amidst the strife of debate, and as wrought out by discussion. The knowledge which his theory aims at imparting, is that of Reminiscence, as we have shewn; and he would not, accordingly, have the results of his inquiry present themselves as anything else but Reminiscence. We are, indeed, to search out the reasons of things. We are not to rest in mere opinion, but to battle our way against error and falsehood, until we rise to the eternal Ideas, the causes of all knowledge, as they are the causes of all Being. Still, we are not to suppose that we can distinctly comprehend the eternal Ideas in themselves. Though they are at last intellectually discerned, it is only “at the last,” and that “scarcely.”^[197. “ ’ Eν ra γνωστή riawra a ⅛ τ-.υ aγa.'3ov <7i<s xaι μ»γ>ί iζκσ5aι. CRfp. vii. ρ. 133∙) ] For they carry up the eye of the soul to the fountain of all knowledge,—theDivine Being himself, who cannot be conceived, much less defined in words.^[198. Tim. ρ. 303. ] The mythic legends admirably combine with the refutative form of the discussions to leave this impression of indefiniteness on the mind. Whilst the mind’s eye is directed steadily to the objects which can alone give stability and certainty to its knowledge, we are thus throughout reminded by Plato, that we live amidst shadows and darkness, and that our eye must be purified and endued with heavenly light before it can look undazzled on the truth itself. (ι. ι.)