Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 02.djvu/10

2 ''All the works of Plato have been preserved, and they include, besides those here printed, the "Republic," "Symposium," "Phaedrus," "Protagoras," "Theaetetus," "Gorgias," and many others. They take the form of dialogues, in which Plato himself appears, if at all, only as a listener, and in which the chief speaker is Socrates. As Plato developed the philosophy of Socrates, especially on speculative lines, far beyond the point reached by Socrates himself, it is impossible to judge with any exactness precisely how much of the teaching is the master's, how much the pupil's.''

''The philosophy of these dialogues has remained for over two thousand years one of the great intellectual influences of the civilised world; and they are as admirable from the point of view of literature as of philosophy. The style is not only beautiful in itself, but is adapted with great dramatic skill to the large variety of speakers; and the suggestion of situation and the drawing of character are the work of a great artist. The three dialogues here given are at once favorable examples of the literary skill of Plato and intimate pictures of the personality of his master.''