Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/408

Rh 396 PLATO. vinced himself that he was able to meet that defi- ciency up to a certain point, to communicate to the Bouls of the readers with science discourses which, being capable of representing their own meaning and of standing in the place of the person who thus im- planted them, should show themselves fruitful {ib. p. 276, &c. ; comp. Protag. p. 329, a. 347, c). The understanding of many of the dialogues of Plato, however, is rendered difficult by this circumstance, that a single dialogue often contains different in- vestigations, side by side, which appear to be only loosely connected, and are even obscured by one another ; and these investigations, moreover, often seem to lead to no conclusion, or even to issue in contradictions. We cannot possibly look upon this peculiarity as destitute of purpose, or the result of want of skill. If, however, it was in- tended, the only purpose which can have been at the bottom of it must have been to compel the reader, through his spontaneous participation in the investigations proposed, to discover their central point, to supply intermediate members that are wanting, and in that way himself to discover the intended solution of the apparent contradic- tions. If the reader did not succeed in quite under- standing the individual dialogue by itself, it was intended that he should seek the further carrying out of the investigations in other dialogues, and notice how what appeared the end of one is at the same time to be regarded as the beginning and foundation of another. Nevertheless, according to the differences in the investigation and in the susceptibility and maturity for it to be presup- posed in the reader, the mode of conducting it and the composition of the dialogue devoted to it would require to be different. Schleiermacher distin- guishes tiiree series and classes of dialogues. In the first he considers that the germs of dialectic and of the doctrine of ideas begin to unfold them- selves in all the freshness of the first youthful inspiration, with the fulness of an imaginative, dramatically mimetic representation ; in the se- cond those germs develop themselves further by means of dialectic investigations respecting the difference between common and philosophical acquaintance with things, respecting notion and knowledge (5d|o and en-to-TTJ/irj) ; in the third they receive their completion by means of an ob- jectively scientific working out, with the separa- tion of ethics and physics ( Schleiermacher 's Plato, i. 1, Einleitung, p. 45, &c. ; comp. ii. 2, p. 142). To suppose that Plato, when he composed the first of his dialogues, already had clearly before his eyes in distinct outlines the whole series of the rest, with all their internal references and connecting links ; and farther, that from the beginning to the end he never varied, but needed only to keep on spinning the thread he had once begun, without any where taking it up afresh, — such a supposi- tion would indeed be preposterous, as Hermann remarks against Schleiermacher {I. c. p. 354. 56). But the assumption above referred to respecting the composition and succession of the dialogues of Plato by no means depends upon any such supposition. It is enough to believe that the fundamental germs of his system early made their appearance in the mind of Plato in a definite form, and attained to their development in a natural manner through the power that resided in them. We need suppose in the case of Plato only what may be demonstrated ill the case of other great thinkers of more PLATO. modern times, as Des Cartes, Spinoza, Fichte, Schelling. Nay, we are not even compelled to assume (what indeed is very improbable) that the succession of the dialogues according to their internal references must coincide with the chrono- logical order in which they were composed. Why should not Plato, while he had already commenced works of the third class, have found occasion now and then to return to the completion of the dia- logues of the second, or even of the first class ? As regards, however, the arrangements in detail, we will not deny that Schleiermacher, in the en- deavour to assign its place to every dialogue ac- cording to the presupposed connection with all the rest running through the series, has now and then suffered himself to be misled by insecure traces, and has been induced partly to regard some lead- ing dialogues from an incorrect or doubtful point of view, partly to supply references by means of artificial combinations. On the other hand, we believe, after a careful examination of the objec- tions against it that have been made good, that we may adopt the principle of the arrangement and the most important points of it. The first series embraces, according to Schleier- macher, the larger dialogues, Phaedrus, Protagoras, and Parmenides, to which the smaller ones. Lysis, Laches, Charmides, and Euthyphron are to be added as supplements. When others, on the contrary, declare themselves for a much later composition of the Phaedrus, and Hermann in particular {I. c. pp. 356, 373, &c.) regards it as the entrance-pro- gramme (p. 544) written by Plato for the opening of his school, we will indeed admit that the account which makes that dialogue Plato's first youthful composition (Diog. L. iii. 38 ; Olympiod. Vita Flat. p. 78) can pass for nothing more than a conclusion come to by learned philosophers or grammarians (though the judgments of Euphorion, Panaetius, and Dicaearchus brought forward in favour of the opinion deserve regard) ; but that the compass of knowledge said to be found in the dialogue, and the fulness and maturity of the thoughts, its simi- larity to the Symposium and Menexenus, the ac- quaintance with Egyptian mythology and Pytha- gorean philosophy, bear indubitable testimony to a later composition, we cannot admit ; but we must rather appeal to the fact that the youthful Plato, even before he had visited Egypt and Magna Graecia, might easily have acquired such an amount of knowledge in Athens, the centre of all tlie philosophical life of that age ; and further, that what is brought forward as evidence of the com- pass and maturity of the thoughts is rather the youthful, lively expression of the first conception of great ideas (comp. Van Heusde, Iniiia Docir. Plat. i. p. 197). With the Phaedrus the Lysis stands connected as a dialectic essay upon love. But as the Phaedrus contains the outlines of the peculiar leading doctnnes of Plato partly still as forebodings expressed in a mythical form, so the Protagoras is distinctly to be regarded as the Socratic method in opposition to the sophistic, in discussions which we might term the Propylaea of the doctrine of morals. The early composition of this dialogue is assumed even by the antagonists of Schleiermacher, they only dispute on insufficient grounds either the genuineness of the smaller dia- logues Charmides, Laches and Euthyphron (see on this point Hermann, p. 443, &c.), or their connec- tion with the Protagoras, which manifests itself in