Page:Dissertations and Discussions, Vol. 4 (1867).djvu/350

 And what he thus feels, πο one ever had a power superior to his of making felt by his readers. It is this element which coniplctes in him the character of a Great Teacher. Others can instruct, but Plato is of those who form great men, by the combination of moral enthusiasm and logical discipline. "Aristotle,” says Mr. Grotc, "in one of his lost dialogues, made honorable mention of a Corinthian cultivator, who in reading the Platonic Gergias, was smitten with such vehement admiration, that he abandoned his fields and his vincs, came to Athens ferthwith, and committed himself to the tuition of Plate.” It was not, we may be assured, by its arguments, that the Gorgias produced this striking manifestation of psychagogic efficacy; for they are nearly all of them fallacies, and could not have resisted the first touch of the eress-examining Elenchus, se unsparingly applied to their impugners. This great dialogue, full of just thoughts and fine observations on human nature, is, in mere argument, one of the weakest of Plate's works. It is not by its logic, but by its ἦθος, that it produces its effects; not by instructing the understanding, but by working on the feelings and imagination. Nor is this strange; for the disinterestcd love of virtuc is an affair of feeling. It is impossible to prove to any one Plate”s thesis, that justice is supreme happiness, unless he can be made to feel it as such. The external inducements which recommend it be may be taught to appreciate; the favorable regards and good offices of other people, and the 10wards of another life. These considerations, however, though Plato has recourse to them in other places, are