"Earth in her bosom Plato's body hides:
His soul amongst the deathless gods resides.
Aristo's son, whose fame to strangers spread,
Made them admire the sacred life he led."
Plutarch tells that Solon began the story of the Atlantides, which
he had learned of the priests of Sais, but gave it over on account of
his old age and the largeness of the work. He adds that "Plato, taking
the same argument as a waste piece of fertile ground fallen to him by
hereditary right, manured, refined, and inclosed it with large walls,
porches, and galleries, such as never any fable had before; but he
too, undertaking it late, died before completing it. 'The more things
written delight us, the more they disappoint us,' he remarks, 'when
not finished.' For as the Athenian city left the temple of Jupiter,
so Plato's wisdom, amongst many writings, left the Atlantides alone
imperfect."
The order in which his dialogues were written is yet a question of
dispute with scholars. It is conceded, however, that the "Republic" and
the "Laws" were completed, if not wholly written, in his old age. Nor
is the number of his dialogues accurately determined. Some attributed
to him are supposed to be spurious, as are some of the letters. All are
contained in Bohn's edition of the works of Plato, and accessible in
scholarly translations to the English reader.[18]
[Footnote 18: Among the works deserving of a wider circulation is
Thomas Stanley's "History of Philosophy." It well repays perusal,
compiled as it was by an enthusiastic student of ancient thought, from
reliable sources, and embodying, in an attractive style, "the Lives,
Opinions, Actions, and Discourses of the Philosophers of every Sect,
illustrated with Portraits of many of them. Third edition. Folio, pp.
750. London, 1701." The preceding notes are mostly extracted from this
history.]
Of the great minds of antiquity, Plato stands preeminent in breadth and
beauty of speculation. His books are the most suggestive, sensible,
the friendliest, and, one may say, most modern of books. And it almost
atones for any poverty of thought in our time, this admission to a
mind thus opulent in the grandeur and graces of intelligence, giving
one a sense of his debt to genius and letters. His works are a cosmos,
as Pythagoras named the world. And one rises from their perusal as if
returned from a circumnavigation of the globe of knowledge, human and
divine. So capacious was his genius, so comprehensive, so inclusive,
so subtile, and so versatile, withal, that he readily absorbed the
learning of his time, moulding this into a body of beauty and harmony
compact; working out, with the skill and completeness of a creator, the
perfect whole we see. His erudition was commensurate with his genius,
and he the sole master of his tools; since in him we have an example,
as successful as it was daring, of an endeavor to animate and give
individuality to his age in the persons whose ideas gave birth to the
age itself. And fortunate it was for him, as for his readers, that he
had before him a living illustration of his time in the person of the
chief character in his dialogues, Socrates himself.
Of these dialogues, the "Republic" is the most celebrated, embodying
his ripest knowledge. It fables a city planted in the divine ideas of
truth and justice as these are symbolized in human forms and natural
things. And one reads with emotions of surprise at finding so much
of sense and wisdom embodied in a form so fair, and of such wide
application, as if it were suited to all peoples and times. Where
in philosophic literature is found a structure of thought so firmly
fixed on natural foundations, and placing beyond cavil or question the
supremacy of mind over matter, portraying so vividly the passage of
ideas through the world, and thus delivering down a divine order of
society to mankind?[19]
[Footnote 19: If his "Republic" and "Laws" hardly justify him against
those who accused him of having written a form of government which he
could persuade none to practise, it may be said, in his favor, that
he gave laws to the Syracusians and Cretans, refusing the like to the
Ayreneans and Thebans, saying, "It was difficult to prescribe laws to
men in prosperity."]
In reading his works, one must have the secret of his method. Written,
as these are, in the simplest style of composition, his reader may
sometimes weary of the slow progress of the argument, and lose
himself in the devious windings of the dialogue. But this is the sole
subtraction from the pleasure of perusal,--the voluminous sacrifices
thus made to method: so much given to compliment, to dulness, in the
interlinked threads of the golden colloquy. Yet Plato rewards as none
other; his regal text is everywhere charged with lively sense, flashing
in every line, every epithet, episode, with the rubies and pearls of
universal wisdom. And the reading is a coronation.[20]
[Footnote 20: "The philosophy of the fourth century, B. C.," says
Grote, "is peculiarly valuable and interesting, not merely from its
intrinsic speculative worth,--from the originality and grandeur of its
two principal heroes, Plato and Aristotle,--from its coincidence with
the full display of dramatic, rhetorical, artistic genius, but also
from a fourth reason not unimportant because it is purely Hellenic;
preceding the development of Alexandrian and the amalgamation of
Oriental veins of thought, with the inspirations of the Academy and
the Lyceum. The Orentes and the Jordan had not yet begun to flow
westward, and to impart their own color to the waters of Attica and
Latium. Not merely the real, but also the ideal, world present to the
minds of Plato and Aristotle, were purely Hellenic. Even during the
century immediately following, this had ceased to be fully true in
respect to the philosophers of Athens; and it became less and less
true with each succeeding century. New foreign centres of rhetoric
and literature, Asiatic and Alexandrian Hellenism, were fostered
into importance by regal enactments. Plato and Aristotle are thus
the special representatives of genuine Hellenic philosophy. The
remarkable intellectual ascendancy acquired by them in their day
and maintained over succeeding centuries, was one main reason why
the Hellenic vein was enabled so long to maintain itself, though in
impoverished condition, against adverse influences from the East,
ever increasing in force. Plato and Aristotle outlasted all their
pagan successors,--successors at once less purely Hellenic and less
gifted. And when St. Jerome, near seven hundred and fifty years
after the decease of Plato, commemorated with triumph the victory of
unlettered Christians over the accomplishments and genius of paganism,
he illustrated the magnitude of the victory by singling out Plato and
Aristotle as the representatives of vanquished philosophy."--_Grote's
Preface to Life of Plato._]
Plato's views of social life are instructive. His idea of woman, of her
place and function, should interest women of our time. They might find
much to admire, and less to criticise than they imagine. His opinions
were greatly in advance of the practice of his own time, and, in some
important particulars, of ours, and which, if carried into legislation,
would favorably affect social purity. His proposition to inflict a
fine on bachelors, and deny them political privileges, is a compliment
to marriage, showing in what estimate he held that relation. So his
provision for educating the children, and giving women a place in the
government of the republic, after they had given citizens to it,
are hints of our modern infant schools and woman's rights movements.
His teachings on social reform generally are the best of studies, in
some respects more modern than the views of our time,--anticipating
the future legislation of communities. On the matter of race and
temperament he thought profoundly, comprehending as have few of our
naturalists the law of descent, complexions, physiognomical features
and characteristics.