A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

PLATO. PLATO. 399
any evidence (comp. Hermann, i. pp. 544, 744, note to become like the Eternal. This impulse is the
755), the verbal lectures of Plato certainly did love which generates in Truth, and the developcontain an extension and partial alteration of the ment of it is termed Dialectics. The hints redoctrines discussed in the dialogues, with an ap- specting the constitution of the soul, as independent
proach to the number-theory of the Pythagoreans; of the body; respecting its higher and lower nafor to this we should probably refer the " unwritten ture; respecting the mode of apprehension of the
assumptions" (&ypapa So'yya'ra), and perhaps also former, and its objects, the eternal and the selfthe divisions (LaLpetE-sL), which Aristotle mentions existent; respecting its corporisation, and its
(Phlys. iv. 2, ib. Simpl. f. 127, de Generat. et Cor- longing by purification to raise itself again to
irupt. ii. 3; ib. Joh. Philop. f. 50; Diog. Laert. its higher existence: these hints, clothed in the
iii. 80). His lectures on the doctrine of the good, form of mythus (Phlaedr. p. 245, c.), are followed
Aristotle, Heracleides Ponticus, and Hestiaeus, up in the Phledrus by panegyrics on the love of
had noted down, and from the notes of Aristotle beauty, and discussions on dialectics (pp. 251some valuable fragments have come down to us 255), here understood more immediately as the
(Arist. (de Animna, i. 2; ib. Simpl. et Joh. Philop.; art of discoursing (pp. 265, d. 266, b. 269, c.).
Aristox. fltirz'onica, ii. p. 30; comp. Brandis, de Out of the philosophical impulse which is developed
Plerditis Aristotelis Libris, p. 3, &c.; and Trende- by Dialectics not only correct knowledge, but also
lenburg, Platoazis de Ideis et Numaeris Doctrina). correct action springs forth. Socrates' doctrine reThe Aristotelic monography on ideas was also at specting the unity of virtue, and that it consists in
least in part drawn from lectures of Plato, or con- true, vigorous, and practical knowledge; that this
versations with him. (Aristot. MIetlapi. i. 9. p. knowledge, however, lying beyond sensuous per990, b. 11, &c.; ib. Alex. Aphrod. in Sclhol. in ception and experience, is rooted in self-consciousArist. p. 564, b. 14, &c.; Brandis, 1. c. p. 14, &c.) ness and has perfect happiness (as the inward harIII. THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLATO. mony of the soul) for its inevitable consequence:this doctrine is intended to be set forth in a preThe attempt to combine poetry and philosophy liminary manner in the Protagoras and the smaller
(the two fundamental tendencies of the Greek dialogues attached to it. They are designed, theremind), gives to the Platonic dialogues a charm, fore, to introduce a foundation for ethics, by the
which irresistibly attracts us, though we may have refutation of the common views that were enterbut a deficient comprehension of their subject- tained of morals and of virtue. For although not
matter. Even the greatest of the Grecian poets even the words ethics and physics occur in Plato
are censured by Plato, not without some degree of (to say nothing of any independent delineation of
passion and partiality, for their want of clear ideas, the one or the other of these sciences), and even diaand of true insight (de Rep. iii. p. 387, a., ii. p. 377, lectics are not treated of as a distinct and separate
x. pp. 597, c., 605, a., 608, a.,v. p. 476, b., 479, province, yet he must rightly be regarded as the
472, d., vi. p. 507, a., de Leg. iv. p. 719, c., Gorg. originator of the threefold division of philosophy
p. 501, b.). Art is to be regarded as the capacity (Aristocles, ap. Euseb. Praep. Ev. xi. 33; comp.
of creating a whole that is inspired by an invisible Aristot. Top. i. 14, Anal. Post. i. 33), inasmuch as
order (Phileb. pp. 64, 67, Phaedr. p. 264, d.); its he had before him the decided object to develop
aim, to guide the human soul (Phaedr. pp. 261, a. the Socratic method into a scientific system of dia277, c. 278, a., de Rep. x. p. 605, c.). The living, lectics, that should supply the grounds of our
unconsciously-creative impulse of the poet, when knowledge as well as of our moral action (physics
purified by science, should, on its part, b:ing this to and ethics), and therefore separates the general
a full development. Carrying the Socratic dialogue investigations on knowledge and understanding,
to greater perfection, Plato endeavours to draw his at least relatively, from those which refer to
hearers, by means of a dramatic intuition, into the physics and ethics. Accordingly, the Theaetetus,
circle of the investigation; to bring them, by the Sophistes, Parmenides, and Cratylus, are principally
spur of irony, to a consciousness either of know-. dialectical; the Protagoras, Gorgias, Politicus, Philedge or of ignorance; by means of myths, partly lebus, and tile Politics, principally ethical; while
to waken up the spirit of scientific inquiry, partly the Timaeus is exclusively physical. Plato's diato express hopes and anticipations which science lectics and ethics, however, have been more successis not yet able to confirm. (See Alb. Jahn, Disser- ful than his phyvsics.
tatio PlaItonica qula turn de Causa et Natura Alytho- The question, " What is knowledge," had been
rums Plato2icor'Umt disp/utatur, tuan Alytihus deAmoris brought forw\ard more and more definitely, in proOrtza Sorte et Indole explicatur. Berllae, 1839.) portion as the development of philosophy generally
Plato, like Socrates, was penetrated with the advanced. Each of the three main branches of the
idea that wisdom is the attribute of the Godhead, ancient philosophy, when at their culminating point,
that philosophy, springing from the impulse to had made a trial at the solution of that question, and
knosw, is the necessity of the intellectual man, and considered themselves bound to penetrate beneatl
the greatest of the goods in which he participates the phenomenal surfaice of the affections and per(PhZaedr. p. 278, d., Lysis, p. 218, a., Apolog. p. 23, ceptions. IIeracleitus, for example, in order to
T/leaet. p. 15.i5, d., Synpos. p. 204, a., Tims. p. 47, a.). gain a sufficient ground for the comtnlon (Wvore),
When once we strive after Wisdom with the in- or, as we should say, for the universally admitted,
tensity of a lover, she becomes the true consecra- though in contradiction to his fundamental printion and purification of the soul (Phaedr. p. 60, e., ciple of an eternal generation, postulates a worldSyrup. p. 218, b.), adapted to lead us from the night- consciousness; Parmeenides believed that he had
like to the true day (de Rep. vii. p. 521,d. vi. p. 485, discovered knowledge in the identity of simple,
b.). An approach to wisdom, however, presupposes unchangeable Being, and thought; Philolaus, and
an original communion with Being, truly so called; with him the flower of the Pythagoreans generally,
and this communion again presupposes the divine in the consciousness we have of the unchangeable
nature or inmlortality of the soul, and the impulse relations of number and measure. When, however,