PLATO.

BIED B.C. 347.

B

JORN of a noble Athenian family, Plato underwent the usual educational course in being taught to repeat long passages from the poets, to understand harmony and rhythm, to exercise his mental powers with mathematics, to study the works of the old philosophers, and to develop his physique at the Isthmian games. In his early manhood he was probably a citizen-soldier; and, being the nephew of Critias, he avowed himself a partisan of the Thirty Tyrants, until their intolerance and cruelties induced him to withdraw from public life, and to become the pupil of Socrates. He also travelled in Egypt, as well as to Sicily, where he was introduced by the Pythagoreans to Dionysius, the Tyrant of Syracuse. On returning to Athens he commenced his celebrated lectures, to which, for twenty years, students from all parts of Greece were attracted. He was then persuaded to revisit Syracuse, as the adviser of the Tyrant's son and successor; but the jealousy of the Sicilian courtiers was aroused against him, and he resumed his classes at Athens. He now began writing his philosophical Dialogues, in order to convey a just idea of the Socratic method, and, by this form of teaching, to avoid the imputation of dogmatism. The bril liancy of these compositions earned for him the title of the 'Attic Bee;' and it was said that if Jove had spoken Greek, he would have spoken it like Plato. There is an anecdote, however, that, easily as his sentences seem to flow, as many

as thirteen different versions of one of them were found in his handwriting. He makes no pretence of following any rules or system, and, therefore, an epitome of his works must necessarily consist of a very fragmentary selection from the thoughts and ideas with which they abound.

Philosophy, he says, begins in wonder. The Greeks attributed every object and operation in the physical world to a deity. Poets embodied these myths in a system, and thus philosophy springs from poetry. Then came the sayings of the seven wise men, but little is known of their theories beyond their aphorisms. Others followed with their symbols of abstract ideas; and after them was Pythagoras, who maintained that number was the principle by which the world was regulated; whilst Democritus held that by some law countless atoms had moved together in the void of space, and produced a universe. Lastly, the Eleatics conceived the idea of one eternal and absolute Being who alone exists. This doctrine was set forth by Parmenides, of whom Plato speaks as more honoured than all the rest of the philosophers, and introduces him into one of his Dialogues as an old man, in company with Zeno, discussing with Socrates, a youth of twenty, the doctrine of Ideas, which was the key-stone of Plato's philosophy. It was thus he conceived another world of pure and perfect forms, each separate and everlasting, and answering to some visible object to which it imparts its essence, as the sun gives light to nature.

The Sophists are next introduced, as the professors of universal knowledge applied to the practical requirements of life. They taught rhetoric, and how to make the worse appear the better reason, holding that there was no fixed standard of morality, but that each might do what seemed good in his own eyes; doctrines which Plato unsparingly condemns.

The succeeding dialogue is supposed to take place between Socrates and Protagoras, who undertook to teach virtue generally, and the argument is, whether there is one virtue or many.

Another professor whom he introduces is Gorgias, whose theory is political freedom for all, and political power to

a few; against him Socrates maintains that it is better to suffer than to do a wrong, and that the unpunished wrongdoer is more miserable than he who suffers for his crimes.

A younger generation of Sophists are represented by Hippias, with whom Socrates raises the question, What is the beautiful? but after several definitions of what it is not, the argument is abandoned. The characters of the heroes in the Iliad and Odyssey are next discussed, Hippias maintaining that Achilles is nobler than Ulysses, to which Socrates objects by a paradox that they who do wrong wilfully are better than those who do it through ignorance.

The ensuing discussion with Euthydemus is a laughable satire on the use of palpable and transparent fallacies and extravagant assertions, in which Socrates mockingly professes to be overcome with such a display of the powers of reasoning.

The Dialogue called the Banquet, or Symposium, is a sketch of the philosopher in the company of his friends, when it is proposed that each of the guests shall make a speech in praise of love. Having listened to their ideas, Socrates tells them that love is a spirit which spans the gulf between earth and heaven; not the mere desire of beauty, but an instinct of immortality. Hence parents

wish for children to perpetuate their names, and poets and warriors for enduring fame. Then Alcibiades comes in and speaks, not of love, but of the fascination which Socrates exercised over him. Other guests arrive, and some leave, the wine-cup continues to circulate, whilst Socrates argues with Agathon and Aristophanes on tragedy and comedy, until they both fall asleep, and he departs for his morning bath.

The scene of the next conversation is beside the stream of the Ilissus, amidst summer foliage and blossoms, whither young Phadrus has led the philosopher, that they may read together an essay of Lysias, a famous rhetorician. Socrates ridicules the composition, and insists that truth and accurate definition are the first requirements of oratory, that writing is inferior to speaking, and that letters, like paintings, have not a word to say for themselves; whereas spoken words can be sown in a congenial soil, and will bear fruit in other natures, making the possessors supremely happy.

The philosopher had many friends, but his irony, and

disdain of the customary conventionalities, created a strong antipathy against him in others; and Plato relates more fully than Xenophon his trial and defence, as well as his demeanour in prison, and when about to die.

Being told that the day of his execution was at hand, and implored to attempt an escape, he asked how could he, who had always inculcated obedience to the law, by so doing stultify his precepts, and turn his back on the city like a miserable slave?

'Besides,' he said, 'I am persuaded that I am going to gods who are good and wise, and also to departed men who are better than those I leave behind.' He also expressed his belief that there was a different fate for the good than for the wicked, and that death was a happy release of the soul from the body. The dead,' he said, do not sleep on for ever, but our souls are born again; and this being so, what manner of persons ought we to be, knowing that there is no release from evil except in the attainment of virtue and wisdom?' Such were his convictions of a future life; and, comparing himself to the swan, which sings most joyously on the day of its death, he rejoiced at the thought of his speedy departure from this world, and looked confidently beyond the grave. Then we are told that he had his last interview with his wife and child, and, the jailer having handed him the cup of poison, he conversed cheerfully with his sorrowing friends whilst it was talking effect, until he gradually lost sensation, when he lay down, and in a few minutes all was over.

Another division of the Dialogues consists of those on Search, which are specially adapted to the comprehension of youth. In that entitled Laches the subject discussed is. Courage, the instinct of a child, and the habit of a man, which Socrates shows is not limited to bravery in battle, but includes endurance of pain, or reproach, and that the virtue is in factan unknown or indefinable quantity.

In the next, Charmides, Temperance is the question, but here again no definition is arrived at; and in Lysis the philosopher is unable to give any precise explanation of what is friendship, and who is a friend, or the reasons for liking a person.

Discussing with Meno, who inquires whether virtue can. be taught, Socrates alludes to the doctrine of Reminiscence, an important principle in Plato's philosophy, involving that of the soul passing from one body to another, and reviving knowledge acquired in a previous state of existence.

Another unsolved question is that raised by Euthyphro, namely, What is Piety, and does it consist in a man prosecuting his father for murder?

The dialogue with Cratylus turns entirely on etymology, Socrates contending that things have names by nature, and that only he who adopts this theory will be able to express ideal forms in words. All the old heroic names, he points out, are characteristic of those who bore them; and, speaking of the derivation of words, he says that most of the letters have each a distinct meaning; but he admits that language will only convey a faint impression of some ideas.

In Theætetus he compares himself to a midwife who assists youths in bringing forth their ideas and conceptions, suffering those that seem true and noble to see the light, and stifling such as do not at their birth. Proceeding to discuss knowledge, he uses the metaphor that our souls are like waxen tablets, some broad and deep, on which the impressions made are clear and indelible, and others so cramped and narrow that the impressions are confused and soon effaced. Again, thoughts are like birds in an aviary, and whilst they are flying about you may mistake one for another; so, too, you may put forth your hand, intending to grasp knowledge, but may catch ignorance. Other definitions are proposed, but the dialogue, like so many of those preceding it, ends without any solution of the question debated.

The grandest of all Plato's works is his Republic,' in which, after reviewing the various systems of the earlier philosophers, he sketches an ideal state or constitution, blending, from the resources of morality, politics, and art, the materials for a picture which might become a reality, if only a king could be endued with the wisdom of a sage.

He still adopts the conversational form of composition, and Socrates agrees to show how justice is a blessing, and injustice a curse to the possessor. He begins, however, by describing how a city springs from the natural needs of men,