Chapter VII (2)

F. A. Wolf, in a valuable note upon the [Greek: diaskeuastai\] (Proleg. ad Homer. p. clii.) declares, upon this ground, that it is impossible to determine the time when Plato composed his best dialogues. "Ex his collatis apparet [Greek: diaskeua/zein] a veteribus magistris adscitum esse in potestatem verbi [Greek: e)pidiaskeua/zein]: ut in Scenicis propé idem esset quod [Greek: a)nadida/skein]--h. e. repetito committere fabulam, sed mutando, addendo, detrahendo, emendatam, refictam, et secundis curis elaboratam. Id enim facere solebant illi poetæ sæpissimé: mox etiam alii, ut Apollonius Rhodius. Neque aliter Plato fecit in optimis dialogis suis: _quam ob causam exquirere non licet, quando quisque compositus sit_; quum in scenicis fabulis saltem ex didascaliis plerumque notum sit tempus, quo editæ sunt."

Preller has a like remark (Hist. Phil. ex Font. Loc. Context., sect. 250).

In regard to the habit of correcting compositions, the contrast between Plato and Plotinus was remarkable. Porphyry tells us that Plotinus, when once he had written any matter, could hardly bear even to read it over--much less to review and improve it (Porph. Vit. Plotini, 8).]

[Side-note: Hermann's view more tenable than Schleiermacher's.]

If we compare K. F. Hermann with Schleiermacher, we see that Hermann has amended his position by abandoning Schleiermacher's gratuitous hypothesis, of a preconceived Platonic system with a canonical order of the dialogues adapted to that system--and by admitting only a chronological order of composition, each dialogue being generated by the state of Plato's mind at the time when it was composed. This, taken generally, is indisputable. If we perfectly knew Plato's biography and the circumstances around him, we should be able to determine which dialogues were first, second, and third, &c., and what circumstances or mental dispositions occasioned the successive composition of those which followed. But can we do this with our present scanty information? I think not. Hermann, while abandoning the hypothesis of Schleiermacher, has still accepted the large conditions of the problem first drawn up by Schleiermacher, and has undertaken to decide the real order of the dialogues, together with the special occasion and the phase of Platonic development corresponding to each. Herein, I think, he has failed.

[Side-note: Small number of certainties, or even reasonable presumptions, as to date or order of the dialogues.]

It is, indeed, natural that critics should form some impression as to earlier and later in the dialogues. But though there are some peculiar cases in which such impression acquires much force, I conceive that in almost all cases it is to a high degree uncertain. Several dialogues proclaim themselves as subsequent to the death of Sokrates. We know from internal allusions that the Theætêtus must have been composed after 394 B.C., the Menexenus after 387 B.C., and the Symposion after 385 B.C. We are sure, by Aristotle's testimony, that the Leges were written at a later period than the Republic; Plutarch also states that the Leges were composed during the old age of Plato, and this statement, accepted by most modern critics, appears to me trustworthy.[54] The Sophistês proclaims itself as a second meeting, by mutual agreement, of the same persons who had conversed in the Theætêtus, with the addition of a new companion, the Eleatic stranger. But we must remark that the subject of the Theætêtus, though left unsettled at the close of that dialogue, is not resumed in the Sophistês: in which last, moreover, Sokrates acts only a subordinate part, while the Eleatic stranger, who did not appear in the Theætêtus, is here put forward as the prominent questioner or expositor. So too, the Politikus offers itself as a third of the same triplet: with this difference, that while the Eleatic stranger continues as the questioner, a new respondent appears in the person of Sokrates Junior. The Politikus is not a resumption of the same subject as the Sophistês, but a second application of the same method (the method of logical division and subdivision) to a different subject. Plato speaks also as if he contemplated a third application of the same method--the Philosophus: which, so far as we know, was never realised. Again, the Timæus presents itself as a sequel to the Republic, and the Kritias as a sequel to the Timæus: a fourth, the Hermokrates, being apparently announced, as about to follow--but not having been composed.

[Footnote 54: Plutarch, Isid. et Osirid. c. 48, p. 370.]

[Side-note: Trilogies indicated by Plato himself.]

Here then are two groups of three each (we might call them Trilogies, and if the intended fourth had been realised, Tetralogies), indicated by Plato himself. A certain relative chronological order is here doubtless evident: the Sophistês must have been composed after the Theætêtus and before the Politikus, the Timæus after the Republic and before the Kritias. But this is all that we can infer: for it does not follow that the sequence must have been immediate in point of time: there may have been a considerable interval between the three forming the so-called Trilogy.[55] We may add, that neither in the Theætêtus nor in the Republic, do we find indication that either of them is intended as the first of a Trilogy: the marks proving an intended Trilogy are only found in the second and third of the series.

[Footnote 55: It may seem singular that Schlelermacher is among those who adopt this opinion. He maintains that the Sophistes does not follow _immediately_ upon the Theætêtus; that Plato, though intending when he finished the Theætêtus to proceed onward to the Sophistês, altered his intention, and took up other views instead: that the Menon (and the Euthydêmus) come in between them, in immediate sequel to the Theætêtus (Einleitung zum Menon, vol. iii. p. 326).

Here Schleiermacher introduces a new element of uncertainty, which invalidates yet more seriously the grounds for his hypothesis of a preconceived sequence throughout all the dialogues. In a case where Plato directly intimates an intentional sequence, we are called upon to believe, on "internal grounds" alone, that he altered his intention, and introduced other dialogues. He may have done this: but how are we to prove it? How much does it attenuate the value of his intentions, as proofs of an internal philosophical sequence? We become involved more and more in unsupported hypothesis. I think that K. F. Hermann's objections against Schleiermacher, on the above ground, have much force; and that Ueberweg's reply to them is unsatisfactory. (Hermann, Gesch. und Syst. der Platon. Phil. p. 350. Ueberweg, Untersuchungen, p. 82, seq.)]

[Side-note: Positive dates of all the dialogues--unknown.]

While even the relative chronology of the dialogues is thus faintly marked in the case of a few, and left to fallible conjecture in the remainder--the positive chronology, or the exact year of composition, is not directly marked in the case of any one. Moreover, at the very outset of the enquiry, we have to ask, At what period of life did Plato begin to publish his dialogues? Did he publish any of them during the lifetime of Sokrates? and if so, which? Or does the earliest of them date from a time after the death of Sokrates?

[Side-note: When did Plato begin to compose? Not till after the death of Sokrates.]

Amidst the many dissentient views of the Platonic critics, it is remarkable that they are nearly unanimous in their mode of answering this question.[56] Most of them declare without hesitation, that Plato published several before the death of Sokrates--that is, before he was 28 years of age--though they do not all agree in determining which these dialogues were. I do not perceive that they produce any external proofs of the least value. Most of them disbelieve (though Stallbaum and Hermann believe) the anecdote about Sokrates and his criticism on the dialogue Lysis.[57] In spite of their unanimity, I cannot but adopt the opposite conclusion. It appears to me that Plato composed no Sokratic dialogues during the lifetime of Sokrates.

[Footnote 56: Valentine Rose (De Aristotelis Librorum ordine, p. 25, Berlin, 1854), Mullach (Democriti Fragm. p. 99), and R. Schöne (in his Commentary on the Platonic Protagoras), are among the critics known to me, who intimate their belief that Plato published no Sokratic dialogues during the lifetime of Sokrates. In discussing the matter, Schöne adverts to two of the three lines of argument brought forward in my text:--1. The too early and too copious "productivity" which the received supposition would imply in Plato. 2. The improbability that the name of Sokrates would be employed in written dialogues, as spokesman, by any of his scholars during his lifetime.

Schöne does not touch upon the improbability of the hypothesis, arising out of the early position and aspirations of Plato himself (Schöne, Ueber Platon's Protagoras, p. 64, Leipsic, 1862).]

[Footnote 57: Diog. Laert. iii. 85; Stallbaum, Prolegg. ad Plat. Lys. p. 90; K. F. Hermann, Gesch. u. Syst. der Plat. Phil. p. 370. Schleiermacher (Einl. zum Lysis, i. p. 175) treats the anecdote about the Lysis as unworthy of credence. Diogenes (iii. 38) mentions that some considered the Phædrus as Plato's earliest dialogue; the reason being that the subject of it was something puerile: [Greek: lo/gos de\ prô=ton gra/psai au)to\n to\n Phai=dron; kai\ ga\r e)/chei meirakiô=des ti to\ pro/blêma. Dikai/archos de\ kai\ to\n tro/pon tê=s graphê=s o(/lon e)pime/mphetai ô(s phortiko/n]. Olympiodorus also in his life of Plato mentions the same report, that the Phædrus was Plato's earliest composition, and gives the same ground of belief, "its dithyrambic character". Even if the assertion were granted, that the Phædrus is the earliest Platonic composition, we could not infer that it was composed during the life-time of Sokrates. But that assertion cannot be granted. The two statements, above cited, give it only as a report, suggested to those who believed it by the character and subject-matter of the dialogue. I am surprised that Dr. Volquardsen, who in a learned volume, recently published, has undertaken the defence of the theory of Schleiermacher about the Phædrus (Phädros, Erste Schrift Platon's, Kiel, 1862), can represent this as a "_feste historische Ueberlieferung_"--the rather as he admits that Schleiermacher himself placed no confidence in it, and relied upon other reasons (pp. 90-92-93). Comp. Schleiermacher, Einl. zum Phaidros, p. 76.

Whoever will read the Epistle of Dionysius of Halikarnassus, addressed to Cneius Pompeius (pp. 751-765, Reiske), will be persuaded that Dionysius can neither have known, nor even believed, that the Phædrus was the first composition, and a youthful composition, of Plato. If Dionysius had believed this, it would have furnished him with the precise excuse which his letter required. For the purpose of his letter is to mollify the displeasure of Cn. Pompey, who had written to blame him for some unfavourable criticisms on the style of Plato. Dionysius justifies his criticisms by allusions to the Phædrus. If he had been able to add, that the Phædrus was a first composition, and that Plato's later dialogues were comparatively free from the like faults--this would have been the most effective way of conciliating Cn. Pompey.]

[Side-note: Reasons for this opinion. Labour of the composition--does not consist with youth of the author.]

All the information (scanty as it is) which we obtain from the rhetor Dionysius and others respecting the composition of the Platonic dialogues, announces them to have cost much time and labour to their author: a statement illustrated by the great number of inversions of words which he is said to have introduced successively in the first sentence of the Republic, before he was satisfied to let the sentence stand. This corresponds, too, with all that we read respecting the patient assiduity both of Isokrates and Demosthenes.[58] A first-rate Greek composition was understood not to be purchasable at lower cost. I confess therefore to great surprise, when I read in Ast the affirmation that the Protagoras was composed when Plato was only 22 years old--and when I find Schleiermacher asserting, as if it were a matter beyond dispute, that Protagoras, Phædrus, and Parmenidês, all bear evident marks of Plato's youthful age (Jugendlichkeit). In regard to the Phædrus and Parmenidês, indeed, Hermann and other critics contest the view of Schleiermacher; and detect, in those two dialogues, not only no marks of "juvenility," but what they consider plain proofs of maturity and even of late age. But in regard to the Protagoras, most of them agree with Schleiermacher and Ast, in declaring it to be a work of Plato's youth, some time before the death of Sokrates. Now on this point I dissent from them: and since the decision turns upon "internal grounds," each must judge for himself. The Protagoras appears to me one of the most finished and elaborate of all the dialogues: in complication of scenic arrangements, dramatic vivacity, and in the amount of theory worked out, it is surpassed by none--hardly even by the Republic.[59] Its merits as a composition are indeed extolled by all the critics; who clap their hands, especially, at the humiliation which they believe to be brought upon the great Sophist by Sokrates. But the more striking the composition is acknowledged to be, the stronger is the presumption that its author was more than 22 or 24 years of age. Nothing short of good positive testimony would induce me to believe that such a dialogue as the Protagoras could have been composed, even by Plato, before he attained the plenitude of his powers. No such testimony is produced or producible. I extend a similar presumption, even to the Lysis, Lachês, Charmidês, and other dialogues: though with a less degree of confidence, because they are shorter and less artistic, not equal to the Protagoras. All of them, in my judgment, exhibit a richness of ideas and a variety of expression, which suggest something very different from a young novice as the author.

[Footnote 58: Timæus said that Alexander the Great conquered the Persian empire in less time than Isokrates required for the composition of his panegyrical oration (Longinus, De Sublim. c. 4).]

[Footnote 59: "Als aesthetisches Kunstwerk ist der Dialog Protagoras das meisterhafteste unter den Werken Platon's.' (Socher, Ueber Platon, p. 226.)]

But over and above this presumption, there are other reasons which induce me to believe, that none of the Platonic dialogues were published during the lifetime of Sokrates. My reasons are partly connected with Sokrates, partly with Plato.

[Side-note: Reasons founded on the personality of Sokrates, and his relations with Plato.]

First, in reference to Sokrates--we may reasonably doubt whether any written reports of his actual conversations were published during his lifetime. He was the most constant, public, and indiscriminate of all talkers: always in some frequented place, and desiring nothing so much as a respondent with an audience. Every one who chose to hear him, might do so without payment and with the utmost facility. Why then should any one wish to read written reports of his conversations? especially when we know that the strong interest which they excited in the hearers depended much upon the spontaneity of his inspirations, and hardly less upon the singularity of his manner and physiognomy. Any written report of what he said must appear comparatively tame. Again, as to fictitious dialogues (like the Platonic) employing the name of Sokrates as spokesman--such might doubtless be published during his lifetime by derisory dramatists for the purpose of raising a laugh, but not surely by a respectful disciple and admirer for the purpose of giving utterance to doctrines of his own. The greater was the respect felt by Plato for Sokrates, the less would he be likely to take the liberty of making Sokrates responsible before the public for what Sokrates had never said.[60] There is a story in Diogenes--to the effect that Sokrates, when he first heard the Platonic dialogue called Lysis, exclaimed--"What a heap of falsehoods does the young man utter about me!"[61] This story merits no credence as a fact: but it expresses the displeasure which Sokrates would be likely to feel, on hearing that one of his youthful companions had dramatised him as he appears in the Lysis. Xenophon tells us, and it is very probable, that inaccurate oral reports of the real colloquies of Sokrates may have got into circulation. But that the friends and disciples of Sokrates, during his lifetime, should deliberately publish fictitious dialogues, putting their own sentiments into his mouth, and thus contribute to mislead the public--is not easily credible. Still less credible is it that Plato, during the lifetime of Sokrates, should have published such a dialogue as the Phædrus, wherein we find ascribed to Sokrates, poetical and dithyrambic effusions utterly at variance with the real manifestations which Athenians might hear every day from Sokrates in the market-place.[62] Sokrates in the Platonic Apology, complains of the comic poet Aristophanes for misrepresenting him. Had the Platonic Phædrus been then in circulation, or any other Platonic dialogues, he might with equally good reason have warned the Dikasts against judging of him, a real citizen on trial, from the titular Sokrates whom even disciples did not scruple to employ as spokesman for their own transcendental doctrine, and their own controversial sarcasms.

[Footnote 60: Valentine Rose observes, in regard to a dialogue composed by some one else, wherein Plato was introduced as one of the interlocutors, that it could not have been composed until after Plato's death, and that the dialogues of Plato were not composed until after the death of Sokrates. "Platonis autem sermones antequam mortuus fuerit, scripto neminem tradidisse, neque magistri viventis personâ in dialogis abusos fuisse (non magis quam vivum Socratem induxerunt Xenophon, Plato, cæteri Socratici), hoc veterum mori et religioni quivis facile concedet," &c. (V. Rose, Aristoteles Pseudepigraphus, pp. 57, 74, Leipsic, 1863.)--Val. Rose expresses the same opinion (that none of the Sokratic dialogues, either by Plato or the other companions of Sokrates, were written until after the death of Sokrates) in his earlier work, De Aristotelis Librorum Ordine et Auctoritate, p. 25.]

[Footnote 61: Diog. L. iii. 35.]

[Footnote 62: In regard to the theory (elaborated by Schleiermacher, recently again defended by Volquardsen), that the Phædrus is the earliest among the Platonic dialogues, composed about 406 B.C., it appears to me inconsistent also with what we know about Lysias. In the Platonic Phædrus, Lysias is presented as a [Greek: logogra/phos] of the highest reputation and eminence (p. 228 A, 257 C, and indeed throughout the whole dialogue). Now this is quite inconsistent with what we read from Lysias himself in the indictment which he preferred against Eratosthenes, not long after the restoration of the democracy, 403 B.C. He protests therein strenuously that he had never had judicial affairs of his own, nor meddled with those of others; and he expresses the greatest apprehension from his own [Greek: a)peiri/a] (sects. 4-6). I cannot believe that this would be said by a person whom Phædrus terms [Greek: deino/tatos ô(\n tô=n nu=n gra/phein]. Moreover, Lysias, in that same discourse, describes his own position at Athens, anterior to the Thirty: he belonged to a rich metic family, and was engaged along with his brother Polemarchus in a large manufactory of shields, employing 120 slaves (s. 20). A person thus rich and occupied was not likely to become a professed and notorious [Greek: logogra/phos], though he may have been a clever and accomplished man. Lysias was plundered and impoverished by the Thirty; and he is said to have incurred much expense in aiding the efforts of Thrasybulus. It was after this change of circumstances that he took to rhetoric as a profession; and it is to some one of these later years that the Platonic Phædrus refers.]

[Side-note: Reasons, founded on the early life, character, and position of Plato.]

Secondly, in regard to Plato, the reasons leading to the same conclusion are yet stronger. Unfortunately, we know little of the life of Plato before he attained the age of 28, that is, before the death of Sokrates: but our best means of appreciating it are derived from three sources. 1. Our knowledge of the history of Athens from 409-399 B.C., communicated by Thucydides, Xenophon, &c. 2. The seventh Epistle of Plato himself, written four or five years before his death (about 352 B.C.). 3. A few hints from the Memorabilia of Xenophon.

[Side-note: Plato's early life--active by necessity, and to some extent ambitious.]

To these evidences about the life of Plato, it has not been customary to pay much attention. The Platonic critics seem to regard Plato so entirely as a spiritual person ("like a blessed spirit, visiting earth for a short time," to cite a poetical phrase applied to him by Göthe), that they disdain to take account of his relations with the material world, or with society around him. Because his mature life was consecrated to philosophy, they presume that his youth must have been so likewise. But this is a hasty assumption. You cannot thus abstract _any_ man from the social medium by which, he is surrounded. The historical circumstances of Athens from Plato's nineteenth year to his twenty-sixth (409-403 B.C.) were something totally different from what they afterwards became. They were so grave and absorbing, that had he been ever so much inclined to philosophy, he would have been compelled against his will to undertake active and heavy duty as a citizen. Within those years (as I have observed in a preceding chapter) fell the closing struggles of the Peloponnesian war; in which (to repeat words already cited from Thucydides) Athens became more a military post than a city--every citizen being almost habitually under arms: then the long blockade, starvation, and capture of the city, followed by the violences of the Thirty, the armed struggle under Thrasybulus, and the perilous, though fortunately successful and equitable, renovation of the democracy. These were not times for a young citizen, of good family and robust frame, to devote himself exclusively to philosophy and composition. I confess myself surprised at the assertion of Schleiermacher and Steinhart, that Plato composed the Charmidês and other dialogues under the Anarchy.[63] Amidst such disquietude and perils he could not have renounced active duty for philosophy, even if he had been disposed to do so.

[Footnote 63: Steinhart, Einl. zum Laches, vol. i. p. 358, where he says that Plato composed the Charmidês, Lachês, and Protagoras, all in 404 B.C. under the Thirty. Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Charmides, vol. ii. p. 8.

The lines of Lucretius (i. 41) bear emphatically upon this trying season:

Nam neque nos agere hoc patriai tempore iniquo Possumus æquo animo nec Memmi clara propago Talibus in rebus communi desse saluti.]

But, to make the case stronger, we learn from Plato's own testimony, in his seventh Epistle, that he was not at that time disposed to renounce active political life. He tells us himself, that as a young man he was exceedingly eager, like others of the same age, to meddle and distinguish himself in active politics.[64] How natural such eagerness was, to a young citizen of his family and condition, may be seen by the analogy of his younger brother Glaukon, who was prematurely impatient to come forward: as well as by that of his cousin Charmides, who had the same inclination, but was restrained by exaggerated diffidence of character. Now we know that the real Sokrates (very different from the Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias) did not seek to deter young men of rank from politics, and to consign them to inactive speculation. Sokrates gives[65] earnest encouragement to Charmides; and he does not discourage Glaukon, but only presses him to adjourn his pretensions until the suitable stock of preliminary information has been acquired. We may thus see that assuming the young Plato to be animated with political aspirations, he would certainly not be dissuaded,--nay, he would probably be encouraged--by Sokrates.

[Footnote 64: Plato, Epist. vii. p. 324 C. [Greek: Ne/os e)gô/ pote ô)\n polloi=s dê\ tau)to\n e)/pathon; ô)|ê/thên, ei) tha=tton e)mautou= genoi/mên ku/rios, e)pi\ ta\ koina\ tê=s po/leôs eu)thu\s i)e/nai]. Again, 325 E: [Greek: ô(/ste me, to\ prô=ton pollê=s mesto\n o)/nta o(rmê=s e)pi\ to\ pra/ttein ta\ koina/], &c.]

[Footnote 65: See the two interesting colloquies of Sokrates, with Glaukon and Charmides (Xenoph. Mem. iii. 6, 7).

Charmides was killed along with Kritias during the eight months called The Anarchy, at the battle fought with Thrasybulus and the democrats (Xen. Hell. ii. 4, 19). The colloquy of Sokrates with Charmides, recorded by Xenophon in the Memorabilia, must have taken place at some time before the battle of Ægospotami; perhaps about 407 or 406 B.C.]

Plato farther tells us that when (after the final capitulation of Athens) the democracy was put down and the government of the Thirty established, he embarked in it actively under the auspices of his relatives (Kritias, Charmides, &c., then in the ascendant), with the ardent hopes of youth[66] that he should witness and promote the accomplishment of valuable reforms. Experience showed him that he was mistaken. He became disgusted with the enormities of the Thirty, especially with their treatment of Sokrates; and he then ceased to co-operate with them. Again, after the year called the Anarchy, the democracy was restored, and Plato's political aspirations revived along with it. He again put himself forward for active public life, though with less ardent hopes.[67] But he became dissatisfied with the march of affairs, and his relationship with the deceased Kritias was now a formidable obstacle to popularity. At length, four years after the restoration of the democracy, came the trial and condemnation of Sokrates. It was that event which finally shocked and disgusted Plato, converting his previous dissatisfaction into an utter despair of obtaining any good results from existing governments. From thenceforward, he turned away from practice and threw himself into speculation.[68]

[Footnote 66: Plato, Epist. vii. 324 D. [Greek: Kai\ e)gô\ thaumasto\n ou)de\n e)/pathon u(po\ neo/têtos], &c.]

[Footnote 67: Plato, Epist. vii. 325 A. [Greek: Pa/lin de/, bradu/teron me\n, ei)=lke de/ me o(/môs ê( peri\ to\ pra/ttein ta\ koina\ kai\ politika\ e)pithumi/a.]]

[Footnote 68: Plato, Epist. vii. 325 C: [Greek: Skopou=nti dê/ moi tau=ta te kai\ tou\s a)nthrô/pous tou\s pra/ttontas ta\ politika/], &c. 325 E: [Greek: Kai\ tou= me\n skopei=n mê\ a)postê=nai, pê= pote\ a)/meinon a)\n gi/gnoito peri/ te au)ta\ tau=ta kai\ dê\ kai\ peri\ tê\n pa=san politei/an, tou= de\ pra/ttein au)= perime/nein ai)ei\ kairou/s, teleutô=nta de\ noê=sai peri\ pasô=n tô=n nu=n po/leôn o(/ti kakô=s xu/mpasai politeu/ontai].

I have already stated in the 84th chapter of my History, describing the visit of Plato to Dionysius in Sicily, that I believe the Epistles of Plato to be genuine, and that the seventh Epistle especially contains valuable information. Some critics undoubtedly are of a different opinion, and consider them as spurious. But even among these critics, several consider that the author of the Epistles, though not Plato himself, was a contemporary and well informed: so that his evidence is trustworthy. See K. F. Hermann, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, pp. 282-283. The question has been again discussed recently by Ueberweg (Untersuch. über d. Aechth. u. Zeitf. d. Plat. Schriften, pp. 120-123-125-129), who gives his own opinion that the letters are not by Plato, and produces various arguments to the point. His arguments are noway convincing to me: for the mysticism and pedantry of the Epistles appear to me in full harmony with the Timæus and Leges, and with the Pythagorean bias of Plato's later years, though not in harmony with the Protagoras, and various other dialogues. Yet Ueberweg also declares his full belief that the seventh Epistle is the composition of a well-informed contemporary, and perfectly worthy of credit as to the facts and K. F. Hermann declares the same. This is enough for my present purpose.

The statement, trusted by all the critics, that Plato's first visit to Syracuse was made when he was about 40 years of age, depends altogether on the assertion of the seventh Epistle. How numerous are the assertions made by Platonic critics respecting Plato, upon evidence far slighter than that of these Epistles! Boeckh considers the seventh Epistle as the genuine work of Plato. Valentine Rose also pronounces it to be genuine, though he does not consider the other Epistles to be so (De Aristotelis Librorum Ordine, p. 25, p. 114, Berlin, 1854). Tennemann admits the Epistles generally to be genuine (System der Platon. Philos. i. p. 106).

It is undeniable that these Epistles of Plato were recognised as genuine and trusted by all the critics of antiquity from Aristophanes downwards. Cicero, Plutarch, Aristeides, &c., assert facts upon the authority of the Epistles. Those who declare the Epistles to be spurious and worthless, ought in consistency to reject the statements which Plutarch makes on the authority of the Epistles: they will find themselves compelled to discredit some of the best parts of his life of Dion. Compare Aristeides, [Greek: Peri\ R(êtorikê=s] Or. 45, pp. 90-106, Dindorf.]

[Side-note: Plato did not retire from political life until after the restoration of the democracy, nor devote himself to philosophy until after the death of Sokrates.]

This very natural recital, wherein Plato (at the age of 75) describes his own youth between 21 and 28--taken in conjunction with the other reasons just enumerated--impresses upon me the persuasion, that Plato did not devote himself to philosophy, nor publish any of his dialogues, before the death of Sokrates: though he may probably have composed dramas, and the beautiful epigrams which Diogenes has preserved. He at first frequented the society of Sokrates, as many other aspiring young men frequented it (likewise that of Kratylus, and perhaps that of various Sophists[69]), from love of ethical debate, admiration of dialectic power, and desire to acquire a facility of the same kind in his own speech: not with any view to take up philosophy as a profession, or to undertake the task either of demolishing or constructing in the region of speculation. No such resolution was adopted until after he had tried political life and had been disappointed:--nor until such disappointment had been still more bitterly aggravated by the condemnation of Sokrates. It was under this feeling that Plato first consecrated himself to that work of philosophical meditation and authorship,--of inquisitive travel and converse with philosophers abroad,--and ultimately of teaching in the Academy,--which filled up the remaining fifty years of his life. The death of Sokrates left that venerated name open to be employed as spokesman in his dialogues: and there was nothing in the political condition of Athens after 399 B.C., analogous to the severe and perilous struggle which tasked all the energies of her citizens from 409 B.C. down to the close of the war.

[Footnote 69: Compare Plat. Protag. 312 A-B, 315 A, where the distinction is pointedly drawn between one who visited Protagoras [Greek: e)pi\ te/chnê|, ô(s dêmiourgo\s e)so/menos], and others who came simply [Greek: e)pi\ paidei/a|, ô(s to\n i)diô/tên kai\ to\n e)leu/theron pre/pei.]]

[Side-note: All Plato's dialogues were composed during the fifty-one years after the death of Sokrates.]

I believe, on these grounds, that Plato did not publish any dialogues during the life of Sokrates. An interval of fifty-one years separates the death of Sokrates from that of Plato. Such an interval is more than sufficient for all the existing dialogues of Plato, without the necessity of going back to a more youthful period of his age. As to distribution of the dialogues, earlier or later, among these fifty-one years, we have little or no means of judging. Plato has kept out of sight--with a degree of completeness which is really surprising--not merely his own personality, but also the marks of special date and the determining circumstances in which each dialogue was composed. Twice only does he mention his own name, and that simply in passing, as if it were the name of a third person.[70] As to the point of time to which he himself assigns each dialogue, much discussion has been held how far Plato has departed from chronological or historical possibility; how far he has brought persons together in Athens who never could have been there together, or has made them allude to events posterior to their own decease. A speaker in Athenæus[71] dwells, with needless acrimony, on the anachronisms of Plato, as if they were gross faults. Whether they are faults or not, may fairly be doubted: but the fact of such anachronisms cannot be doubted, when we have before us the Menexenus and the Symposion. It cannot be supposed, in the face of such evidence, that Plato took much pains to keep clear of anachronisms: and whether they be rather more or rather less numerous, is a question of no great moment.

[Footnote 70: In the Apologia, c. 28, p. 38, Sokrates alludes to Plato as present in court, and as offering to become guarantee, along with others, for his fine. In the Phædon, Plato is mentioned as being sick; to explain why he was not present at the last scene of Sokrates (Phædon, p. 59 B). Diog. L. iii. 37.

The pathos as well as the detail of the narrative in the Phædon makes one imagine that Plato really was present at the scene. But being obliged, by the uniform scheme of his compositions, to provide another narrator, he could not suffer it to be supposed that he was himself present.

I have already remarked that this mention of Plato in the third person ([Greek: Pla/tôn de/, oi)=mai, ê)sthe/nei]) was probably one of the reasons which induced Panætius to declare the Phædon _not_ to be the work of Plato.]

[Footnote 71: Athenæus, v. pp. 220, 221. Didymus also attacked Plato as departing from historical truth--[Greek: e)piphuo/menos tô=| Pla/tôni ô(s paristorou=nti]--against which the scholiast (ad Leges, i. p. 630) defends him. Groen van Prinsterer, Prosopogr. Plat. p. 16. The rhetor Aristeides has some remarks of the same kind, though less acrimonious (Orat. xlvii. p. 435, Dind.) than the speaker in Athenæus.]

[Side-note: The Thrasyllean Canon is more worthy of trust than the modern critical theories by which it has been condemned.]

I now conclude my enquiry respecting the Platonic Canon. The presumption in favour of that Canon, as laid down by Thrasyllus, is stronger (as I showed in the preceding chapter) than it is in regard to ancient authors generally of the same age: being traceable, in the last resort, through the Alexandrine Museum, to authenticating manuscripts in the Platonic school, and to members of that school who had known and cherished Plato himself.[72] I have reviewed the doctrines of several recent critics who discard this Canon as unworthy of trust, and who set up for themselves a type of what Plato _must have_ been, derived from a certain number of items in the Canon--rejecting the remaining items as unconformable to their hypothetical type. The different theories which they have laid down respecting general and systematic purposes of Plato (apart from the purpose of each separate composition), appear to me uncertified and gratuitous. The "internal reasons," upon which they justify rejection of various dialogues, are only another phrase for expressing their own different theories respecting Plato as a philosopher and as a writer. For my part I decline to discard any item of the Thrasyllean Canon, upon such evidence as they produce: I think it a safer and more philosophical proceeding to accept the entire Canon, and to accommodate my general theory of Plato (in so far as I am able to frame one) to each and all of its contents.

[Footnote 72: I find this position distinctly asserted, and the authority of the Thrasyllean catalogue, as certifying the genuine works of Plato, vindicated, by Yxem, in his able dissertation on the Kleitophon of Plato (pp. 1-3, Berlin, 1846). But Yxem does not set forth the grounds of this opinion so fully as the present state of the question demands. Moreover, he combines it with another opinion, upon which he insists even at greater length, and from which I altogether dissent--that the tetralogies of Thrasyllus exhibit the genuine order established by Plato himself among the Dialogues.]

[Side-note: Unsafe grounds upon which those theories proceed.]

Considering that Plato's period of philosophical composition extended over fifty years, and that the circumstances of his life are most imperfectly known to us--it is surely hazardous to limit the range of his varieties, on the faith of a critical repugnance, not merely subjective and fallible, but withal entirely of modern growth: to assume, as basis of reasoning, the admiration raised by a few of the finest dialogues--and then to argue that no composition inferior to this admired type, or unlike to it in doctrine or handling, can possibly be the work of Plato. "The Minos, Theagês, Epistolæ, Epinomis, &c., are unworthy of Plato: nothing so inferior in excellence can have been composed by him. No dialogue can be admitted as genuine which contradicts another dialogue, or which advocates any low or incorrect or un-Platonic doctrine. No dialogue can pass which is adverse to the general purpose of Plato as an improver of morality, and a teacher of the doctrine of Ideas." On such grounds as these we are called upon to reject various dialogues: and there is nothing upon which, generally speaking, so much stress is laid as upon inferior excellence. For my part, I cannot recognise any of them as sufficient grounds of exception. I have no difficulty in believing, not merely that Plato (like Aristophanes) produced many successive novelties, "not at all similar one to the other, and all clever"[73]--but also that among these novelties, there were inferior dialogues as well as superior: that in different dialogues he worked out different, even contradictory, points of view--and among them some which critics declare to be low and objectionable: that we have among his works unfinished fragments and abandoned sketches, published without order, and perhaps only after his death.

[Footnote 73: Aristophan. Nubes, 547-8.

[Greek: A)ll' a)ei\ kaina\s i)de/as ei)sphe/rôn sophi/zomai, Ou)de\n a)llê/laisin o(moi/as, kai\ pa/sas dexia/s.]]

[Side-note: Opinions of Schleiermacher, tending to show this.]

It may appear strange, but it is true, that Schleiermacher, the leading champion of Plato's central purpose and systematic unity from the beginning, lays down a doctrine to the same effect. He says, "Truly, nothing can be more preposterous, than when people demand that all the works even of a great master shall be of equal perfection--or that such as are not equal, shall be regarded as not composed by him". Zeller expresses himself in the same manner, and with as little reserve.[74] These eminent critics here proclaim a general rule which neither they nor others follow out.

[Footnote 74: Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Menon, vol. iii. p. 337. "Und wahrlich, nichts ist wohl wunderlicher, als wenn man verlangt, dass alle Werke auch eines grossen Meisters von gleicher Volkommenheit seyn sollten--oder die es nicht sind, soll er nicht verfertigt haben."

Compare Zeller, Phil. d. Griech., vol. ii. p. 322, ed. 2nd.

It is to be remembered that this opinion of Schleiermacher refers only to _completed works_ of the same master. You are not authorised in rejecting any completed work as spurious, on the ground that it is not equal in merit to some other. Still less, then, are you authorised in rejecting, on the like ground, an uncompleted work--a professed fragment, or a preliminary sketch. Of this nature are several of the minor items in the Thrasyllean canon.

M. Boeckh, in his Commentary on the dialogue called Minos, has assigned the reasons which induce him to throw out that dialogue, together with the Hipparchus, from the genuine works of Plato (and farther to consider both of them, and the pseudo-Platonic dialogues De Justo and De Virtute, as works of [Greek: Si/môn o( skuteu/s]: with this latter hypothesis I have here no concern). He admits fully that the Minos is of the Platonic age and irreproachable in style--"veteris esse et Attici scriptoris, probus sermo, antiqui mores totus denique character, spondent" (p. 32). Next, he not only admits that it is like Plato, but urges the _too great likeness_ to Plato as one of the points of his case. He says that it is a bad, stupid, and unskilful imitation of different Platonic dialogues: "Pergamus ad alteram partem nostræ argumentationis, eamque etiam firmiorem, de _nimiâ similitudine_ Platonicorum aliquot locorum. Nam de hoc quidem conveniet inter omnes doctos et indoctos, Platonem se ipsum haud posse imitari: ni forté quis dubitet de sanâ ejus mente" (p. 23). In the sense which Boeckh intends, I agree that Plato did not imitate himself: in another sense, I think that he did. I mean that his consummate compositions were preceded by shorter, partial, incomplete sketches, which he afterwards worked up, improved, and re-modelled. I do not understand how Plato could have composed such works as Republic, Protagoras, Gorgias, Symposion, Phædrus, Phædon, &c., without having before him many of these preparatory sketches. That some of these sketches should have been preserved is what we might naturally expect; and I believe Minos and Hipparchus to be among them. I do not wonder that they are of inferior merit. One point on which Boeckh (pp. 7, 8) contends that Hipparchus and Minos are unlike to Plato is, that the _collocutor_ with Sokrates is anonymous. But we find anonymous talkers in the Protagoras, Sophistês, Politikus, and Leges.]

I find elsewhere in Schleiermacher, another opinion, not less important, in reference to disallowance of dialogues, on purely internal grounds. Take the Gorgias and the Protagoras: both these two dialogues are among the most renowned of the catalogue: both have escaped all suspicion as to legitimacy, even from Ast and Socher, the two boldest of all disfranchising critics. In the Protagoras, Sokrates maintains an elaborate argument to prove, against the unwilling Protagoras, that the Good is identical with the Pleasurable, and the Evil identical with the Painful--in the Gorgias, Sokrates holds an argument equally elaborate, to show that Good is essentially different from Pleasurable, Evil from Painful. What the one affirms, the other denies. Moreover, Schleiermacher himself characterises the thesis vindicated by Sokrates in the Protagoras, as "entirely un-Sokratic and un-Platonic".[75] If internal grounds of repudiation are held to be available against the Thrasyllean canon, how can such grounds exist in greater force than those which are here admitted to bear against the Protagoras--That it exhibits Sokrates as contradicting the Sokrates of the Gorgias--That it exhibits him farther as advancing and proving, at great length, a thesis "entirely un-Sokratic and un-Platonic"? Since the critics all concur in disregarding these internal objections, as insufficient to raise even a suspicion against the Protagoras, I cannot concur with them when they urge the like objections as valid and irresistible against other dialogues.

[Footnote 75: Schleiermacher, Einl. zum Protag. vol. i. p. 232. "Jene ganz unsokratische und unplatonische Ansicht, dass das Gute nichts anderes ist als das Angenehme."

So also, in the Parmenides, we find a host of unsolved objections against the doctrine of Ideas; upon which in other dialogues Plato so emphatically insists. Accordingly, Socher, resting upon this discrepancy as an "internal ground," declares the Parmenides not to be the work of Plato. But the other critics refuse to go along with this inference. I think they are right in so refusing. But this only shows how little such internal grounds are to be trusted, as evidence to prove spuriousness.]

I may add, as farther illustrating this point, that there are few dialogues in the list against which stronger objections on internal grounds can be brought, than Leges and Menexenus. Yet both of them stand authenticated, beyond all reasonable dispute, as genuine works of Plato, not merely by the Canon of Thrasyllus, but also by the testimony of Aristotle.[76]

[Footnote 76: See Ast, Platon's Leben und Schriften, p. 384: and still more, Zeller, Plat. Studien, pp. 1-131, Tübingen, 1839. In that treatise, where Zeller has set forth powerfully the grounds for denying the genuineness of the Leges, he relied so much upon the strength of this negative case, as to discredit the direct testimony of Aristotle affirming the Leges to be genuine. In his Phil. d. Griech. Zeller altered this opinion, and admitted the Leges to be genuine. But Strümpell adheres to the earlier opinion given by Zeller, and maintains that the partial recantation is noway justified. (Gesch. d. Prakt. Phil. d. Griech. p. 457.)

Suckow mentions (Form der Plat. Schriften, 1855, p. 135) that Zeller has in a subsequent work reverted to his former opinion, denying the genuineness of the Leges. Suckow himself denies it also; relying not merely on the internal objections against it, but also on a passage of Isokrates (ad Philippum, p. 84), which he considers to sanction his opinion, but which (in my judgment) entirely fails to bear him out.

Suckow attempts to show (p. 55), and Ueberweg partly countenances the same opinion, that the two passages in which Aristotle alludes to the Menexenus (Rhet. i. 9, 30; iii. 14, 11) do not prove that he (Aristotle) considered it as a work of Plato, because he mentions the name of Sokrates only, and not that of Plato. But this is to require from a witness such precise specification as we cannot reasonably expect. Aristotle, alluding to the Menexenus, says, [Greek: Sôkra/tês e)n tô=| E)pitaphi/ô|]: just as, in alluding to the Gorgias in another place (Sophist. Elench. 12, p. 173), he says, [Greek: Kalliklê=s e)n tô=| Gorgi/a|]: and again, in alluding to the Phædon, [Greek: o( e)n Phai/dôni Sôkra/tês] (De Gen. et Corrupt. ii. 9, p. 335): not to mention his allusions in the Politica to the Platonic Republic, under the name of Sokrates. No instance can be produced in which Aristotle cites any Sokratic dialogue, composed by Antisthenes, Æschines, &c., or any other of the Sokratic companions except Plato. And when we read in Aristotle's Politica (ii. 3, 3) the striking compliment paid--[Greek: To\ me\n ou)=n peritto\n e)/chousi pa/ntes oi( tou= Sôkra/tous lo/goi, kai\ to\ kompso/n, kai\ to\ kaino/tomon, kai\ to\ zêtêtiko/n; kalô=s de\ pa/nta i)/sôs chalepo/n]--we cannot surely imagine that he intends to designate any other dialogues than those composed by Plato.]

[Side-note: Any true theory of Plato must recognise all his varieties, and must be based upon all the works in the Canon, not upon some to the exclusion of the rest.]

While adhering therefore to the Canon of Thrasyllus, I do not think myself obliged to make out that Plato is either like to himself, or equal to himself, or consistent with himself, throughout all the dialogues included therein, and throughout the period of fifty years during which these dialogues were composed. Plato is to be found in all and each of the dialogues, not in an imaginary type abstracted from some to the exclusion of the rest. The critics reverence so much this type of their own creation, that they insist on bringing out a result consistent with it, either by interpretation specially contrived, or by repudiating what will not harmonise. Such sacrifice of the inherent diversity, and separate individuality, of the dialogues, to the maintenance of a supposed unity of type, style, or purpose, appears to me an error. In fact,[77] there exists, for us, no personal Plato any more than there is a personal Shakespeare. Plato (except in the Epistolæ) never appears before us, nor gives us any opinion as his own: he is the unseen prompter of different characters who converse aloud in a number of distinct dramas--each drama a separate work, manifesting its own point of view, affirmative or negative, consistent or inconsistent with the others, as the case may be. In so far as I venture to present a general view of one who keeps constantly in the dark--who delights to dive, and hide himself, not less difficult to catch than the supposed Sophist in his own dialogue called Sophistês--I shall consider it as subordinate to the dialogues, each and all: and above all, it must be such as to include and acknowledge not merely diversities, but also inconsistencies and contradictions.[78]

[Footnote 77: The only manifestation of the personal Plato is in the Epistolæ. I have already said that I accept these as genuine, though most critics do not. I consider them valuable illustrations of his character, as far as they go. They are all written after he was more than sixty years of age. And most of them relate to his relations with Dionysius the younger, with Dion, and with Sicilian affairs generally. This was a peculiar and outlying phase of Plato's life, during which (through the instigation of Dion, and at the sacrifice of his own peace of mind) he became involved in the world of political action: he had to deal with real persons, passions, and interests--with the feeble character, literary velleities, and jealous apprehensions of Dionysius--the reforming vehemence and unpopular harshness of Dion--the courtiers, the soldiers, and the people of Syracuse, all moved by different passions of which he had had no practical experience. It could not be expected that, amidst such turbulent elements, Plato as an adviser could effect much: yet I do not think that he turned his chances, doubtful as they were, to the best account. I have endeavoured to show this in the tenth volume of my History of Greece, c. 84. But at all events, these operations lay apart from Plato's true world--the speculation, dialectic, and lectures of the Academy at Athens. The Epistolæ, however, present some instructive points, bearing upon Plato's opinions about writing as a medium of philosophical communication and instruction to learners, which I shall notice in the suitable place.]

[Footnote 78: I transcribe from the instructive work of M. Ernest Renan, _Averroès et l'Averroïsme_, a passage in which he deprecates the proceeding of critics who presume uniform consistency throughout the works of Aristotle, and make out their theory partly by forcible exegesis, partly by setting aside as spurious all those compositions which oppose them. The remark applies more forcibly to the dialogues or Plato, who is much less systematic than Aristotle:--

"On a combattu l'interprétation d'Ibn-Rosehd (Averroès), et soutenu que l'intellect actif n'est pour Aristote qu'une faculté de l'ame. L'intellect passif n'est alors que la faculté de recevoir les [Greek: phanta/smata]: l'intellect actif n'est que l'induction s'exerçant sur les [Greek: phanta/smata] et en tirant les idées générales. Ainsi l'on fait concorder la théorie exposée dans le troisième livre du Traité de l'Ame, avec celle des Seconds Analytiques, où Aristote semble réduire le rôle de la raison à l'induction généralisant les faits de la sensation. Certes, je ne me dissimule pas qu'Aristote paraît souvent envisager le [Greek: nou=s] comme personnel à l'homme. Son attention constante à repéter que l'intellect est identique à l'intelligible, que l'intellect passe à l'acte quand il devient l'objet qu'il pense, est difficile à concilier avec l'hypothèse d'un intellect séparé de l'homme. Mais il est dangereux de faire ainsi coincider de force les différents aperçus des anciens. Les anciens philosophaient souvent sans se limiter dans un système, traitant le même sujet selon les points de vue qui s'offraient à eux, ou qui leur étaient offerts par les écoles antérieures, sans s'inquiéter des dissonances qui pouvaient exister entre ces divers tronçons de théorie. Il est puéril de chercher à les mettre d'accord avec eux-mêmes, quand eux-mêmes s'en sont peu souciés. Autant vaudrait, comme certains critiques Allemands, déclarer interpolés tous les passages que l'on ne peut concilier avec les autres. Ainsi, la théorie des Seconds Analytiques et celles du troisième livre de l'Ame, sans se contredire expressément, représentent deux aperçus profondément distincts et d'origine différente, sur le fait de l'intelligence." (Averroès et l'Averroïsme, p. 96-98, Paris, 1852.)

There is also in Strümpell (Gesch. der Prakt. Phil. der Griech. vor Aristot. p. 200) a good passage to the same purpose as the above from M. Renan: disapproving this presumption,--that the doctrines of every ancient philosopher must of course be systematic and coherent with each other--as "a phantom of modern times": and pointing out that both Plato and Aristotle founded their philosophy, not upon any one governing [Greek: a)rchê\] alone, from which exclusively consequences are deduced, but upon several distinct, co-ordinate, independent, points of view: each of which is by turns followed out, not always consistently with the others.]