Schediasmata Critica, Part I [pp. 349-354]

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eminence. It is in relation to this argument that
Quintilian remarks with some bitterness, that
those who have written against Rhetoric have
required the aid of rhetoric to do 80so.
The date of the piece is supposed by Stallbaum to have been shortly after A. C. 413, though
this opinion has not been universally assented to.
It is evidendtly written with the same intention
which impelled Aristophanes to the composition
of his Nubes, and which instigated the production of some of the Orations of Isocrates.
Socrates, or Plato under his mask, observes
the deplorable state of the Athenians, flowing
from the Peloponnesian War, and the depraved
morals introduced, as he asserts, during the supremnacy of Pericles:-he notices further the injurious tendency of the doctrines of the Sophists
and Rhetoricians, both of which classes he very
properly regards as identical:-he perceives how
greedily their doctrines are swallowed, what admiration they excite, and how eagerly those who
are destined to be the rulers of the State flock
to their fashionable schools. He remarks further
that the arts of the demagogue are rapidly becoming the sole pathway to political.ascendancy;-that rhetorical ability and reckless sophistry are, from the growing corruption of the populace, acquiring such distinction as to furnish
the principal instruments of political warfare;
and he endeavors to check the spreading of the
ulcer by undermining the authority of the rhetoricians. With this view, he successively engages Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles, and entangles
them in the web of falsehoods and contradictions
which he makes them weave for-themselves.
He shows that the arts of rhetoric and sophistry,
as then practised and understood, were founded
upon erroneous and debasing views of society,
of virtue, and of justice: that they were calculated to mislead the multitude to their own destruction, for the sake of giving a temporary elevation to their treacherous guides; and that, so
fir from conserving the State, or improving the
character of the citizens, all notions of right and
wrong, of justice and injustice, would only be
rendered unsettled and confused, till the people
would in the end come to act unscrupulously on
the sophistical doctrines advocated by Polus, to
the utter ruin and the everlasting degradation of
the Athenian Republic. The future condition
of Athens under her rhetorical demagogues, Antiphon, Andocides, Pheax, Alcibiades, Therameues,./Eschiues, Demades, Dinarchus, &c.,
manifests the eorrectness of Plato's apprehensions, and the justice of his attack on the SophisticaRhetorie of the day. It may be worthy of remark that Plato, throughout this Dialogue, is evidently combating his rampant radicalism of the Atheaiau Demus; atnd, by-denying
that might makes right, is endeavoring to subvert the dangerous dogma that all power rightfully belongs to the majority, and maybe legitimately exercised or resumed by them at pleasure.
It is in this Dialogue that Plato makes that
comparison of Rhetoric to cookery which offends
Lord Bacon so much. [De Augm. Sci. lib. vi.)
We must remember, however, the evident scope
of the piece-that Plato is not so much writing
against eloquence in general, as against the form
which Rhetoric had assumed at Athens in his
day. And we may regard this forced analogy
as merely a specimen of the itpotia —the quiet,
but pointed jesting of Socrates.
The Gorgias is; characterized by a grave and
earnest spirit. There is little of that playfulness
which runs through most of the Dialogues of
Plato. A point is to be proved, and every thing
is rendered subservient to that object, though
it must be confessed the chain of the argument
fiequently escapes our notice. There is no disquisition,-none of that luxuriant grace proceeding from an exuberance of fancy. The style is
condensed, urgent, and often sarcastic-it is of
a more resolute and indignant tone than is usual
with Plato.
It may be divided into two parts: the first the
colloquial and eristic, in which Plato oppugns
the notions of the Sophists and Rhetoricians
with equal sophistry and greater ingenuity. The
second part from C. LXI, to the end, contains an
exposition of the views of Plato, set down in a
connected discourse, and ends after the manner
of the Phsedon, with a beautiful allegory on the
future condition of the righteous and the wicked.
4.
WHEWELL'S HISTORY OF THE INDUCTIVE SCIENCES. This is a work of a very different stamp
and orderof genius from what might have beenexpected from the high representation and ample opt
portunities of the author. It remindsme forcibly of
Rahel's observation in regard to Schleiermacher:
he strikes at the highest, but is not the highest."
The work is very well executed and, so far as it
goes, is worthy of all praise: but it neither assumes that high and commanding position which
should be occupied by any modern intellect approaching such a subject, nor does it answer
either the promises of its name, or the requisitions of the motto which Prof. Whewell has
culled for it from Bacon. You feel, as you peruse the beautifully printed volumes, that there
is none of that giant mastery and full apprecia.
tion-I would say, absorption of the whole subject and all its bearings, at one glance of an eagle
eye, which is manifested by the great sage of
Verulam when he enters upon a kindred top.
The author starts with a few elements i a
I'M.],
Schediaindt(i -Criticcti' No., L
351-'