*r 



! I. VT.l. 



Those element* which we find in individual bodies receive their being 

 from the clement* which we find in the universe, and thin little body 

 of mm owe* it* nourishment and all that it ha* received or poMMM 

 to the gnat bod; of the world. Now these bodice of oura are ani- 

 mated bv *oul* ; and whtnoe should they derive their souls, if the 

 great body of the universe, which has all the same element* with 

 them, only in far greater purity and perfection, did not possess a 

 soul a* our bodies do 1 Since then we admit in all bodies four sort* 

 of being the infinite, the limit, the compound of these, and the 

 cause ; and since we find in the part of the universe to which we 

 belong that there are causes which create souls, produce health of the 

 body, and effect core* for diseases of the body ; and causes which put 

 together other composition* and amend them when impaired all of 

 these cantos having names which betoken some kiud of wisdom or 

 skill ; this being the case, we cannot but think that the whole heaven, 

 possessing the same four forts of beings, but possessing them pure 

 sod undepraved, has for its cause the nature of those things which are 

 most beautiful and noble, a cause which may most justly be called 

 wisdom and mind ; and as wisdom and mind cannot be without soul, 

 it follows that the world has a soul and mind from the power of the 

 cause, and that mind is of the nature of the cause of all things.'. 



It should be remarked that Plato distinguished, both in the ' Timocus ' 

 and in the ' Philebus,' between the air in, or Si' 8 (the inducement or 

 moving cause for the creation), and the alnov, or !xf>' ou (the efficient 

 cause of the creation). " The nature of that which effects (rb TTOIOW) 

 differs only in name from the moving cause (?) air/a), and we should 



brought into being ; its moving cause, the goodness of the creator. 

 The mind, which thus operates as a cause iu setting bounds to the 

 infinite, and 10 combining the infinite with the limit, was not the deity 

 himself, but was taken by the deity and placed in the world as its 

 soul. It was a function of the soul which the deity infused into the 

 world, and was akin to the soul existing in each individual man. The 

 great difference between the individual man, and the world out of 

 which he was formed, consisted in the need of organs by the former, 

 whose soul is thus necessarily connected with the faculty of perception 

 (ofoftfffit). So far as the soul of man is connected with perception, it 

 is mortal ; it dies with the body of the percipient.' But, as the 

 individual body after death unites itself with the great body of the 

 universe from which it sprung, so also the soul, so far as it is not 

 represented by the bodily perceptions, returns to the great soul of the 

 world, of which it is an emanation, and remains undestroyed and 

 indestructible. In this part of the subject, the views on the immor- 

 tality of the soul, developed in the ' 1'haxio ' (pp. 78-80), come to the 

 aid of the physiological investigations in the ' Timseus.' It was a 

 necessary consequence of thin way of considering the origin of things, 

 that Plato should maintain the reality of time in opposition to 

 Parmenidesi ('Timaras,' p. 37, C, 89, E.) As the multiplicity of 

 things (the voAAi) presumes the universal (the Sv), and as the bound 

 points to the infinite, so, conversely, there must be time as the image 

 and product the limitation or bound of eternity. Thus much may 

 suffice for a general view of Plato's physical theory, for it would not 

 be possible within our narrow limit* to enter upon a discussion of his 

 speculations in astronomy and natural history, and of bis notions with 

 regard to the origin of evil in general (' Kpist,' il, p. 313, A), and of 

 diseases in particular ('Tim.,' pp. 81-86); and from this the reader 

 will easily see that the method which Plato followed in this depart- 

 ment was uniformly consistent with that which ho adopted in other 

 fields of inquiry. His object in this, as in everything else, was to 

 discern the one in the many, and, while he demonstrated the existence 

 of the former sgainst the Herscleiteans, to assert the reality of the 

 latter against the Kleatics. This, we have seen, was from first to last 

 Plato's groat general object : this idea was the foundation of his 

 dialectic system ; it was the guiding-post which directed him to the 

 right end in his moral and physical speculation* ; it was the clue by 

 which he fought, and seldom sought in Tain, for the truths which had 

 eluded the search of all his predecessors. 



From this general review of Plato's philosophy, necessarily an 

 imperfect one, the reader has, we hope, formed some estimate of the 

 Catholic npirit of this great writer, and the grand and original concep- 

 tions by which he endeavoured to unite in one great system all that 

 was true in the result* of previous investigations. Plato was the 

 greatest of all philosophers, because he was the first who adopted a 

 true method, and followed it out in all its bearings and applications. 

 It would not be easy to overrate the influence which Plato's works 

 have exercised upon the speculations of all subsequent inquirer*. 

 Although his name has not been so much bandied about for good or 

 for ill as that of hi* scholar Aristotle, hi* intellectual empire ha* been 

 neither leas extensive nor less durable. Coleridge has said that all 

 men are born dUciplcs of either Aristotle or Plato (' Table-Talk, 

 p. 05) ; a saying which, ss far as it goes, 1* perfectly true. It means 

 that the doctrines which Plato was the first to proclaim to the world, 

 will always be adopted by those who come to the hearing of them, i! 

 their minds are akin to his; otherwise, they will have recourse to the 



PLATON. 8- 



modification of those doctrines which was propounded by Aristotle, 

 whose mind was no lees repugnant than their own to the spirit of 

 ? la ton ism. There is one field in which the immediate influence of 

 Plato's philosophy has always been most especially active, namely, in 

 Christian theology. Many of the opinions which are stigmatised as 

 leretical may be traced to the Platonism of the early fathers of the 

 Church, and this is particularly the case with regard to the doctrine 

 of the Trinity. That Plato himself entertained none of the opinions 

 which have been attributed to him on this subject, has been most 

 satisfactorily proved in an able ' Investigation of the Trinity of Plato 

 and of Philo Judicus, and of the Effects which an Attachment to their 

 Writings hod upon the Principles and Reasonings of the Fathers of the 

 Christian Church,' by Dr. Caesar Morgan (London, 1795). 



The Qreek text of Plato's works was first established on a careful 

 examination of all the manuscript* by Immanuel Bekker (Berlin, 1816- 

 23). H is edition was followed by the very elaborate one of Frederic Ast, 

 the first volume of which appeared in 1819, and the ninth in 1827 : two 

 volumes of notes have since been added. Godfrey Stallbaum, who pub- 

 lished a critical edition in 1821-26, has also edited an elaborate, criti- 

 cal, and explanatory edition of all Plato's works, 1S27, Ac. A complete 

 French translation of Plato bos been published by Victor Cousin. 

 Schleiermacher's German translation is unfortunately incomplete. We 

 have no good English version of Plato's whole works ; that by Taylor 

 is far from satisfying the critical reader ; Floyer Sydenham's trans- 

 lations are admirable, as far as they go, but this unfortunate scholar 

 was unable to complete more than a very small portion of his design 

 of presenting Plato in an English form ; there arc also translations of 

 considerable merit of some of Plato's chief works in Holm's 'Classical 

 Library.' The books which have been written on Plato's philosophical 

 system are very numerous. There is a voluminous work by Tenne- 

 mann expressly on this subject ; it is written too much with a refer- 

 ence to the Kantian philosophy, and, though very learned, appears to 

 us rather heavy and unsatisfactory. Nor con we much recommend 

 Van Hcusde's 'Initia Philosophic 1'latonicae,' Traject., 1827, 1831. A 

 good deal may be learned from Ast s ' Platous Leben und Schriftcn,' 

 Leipz., 1816, though the author has advanced some inadmissible 

 paradoxes with regard to the genuineness of a number of works 

 unquestionably written by Plato. There is also much valuable matter 

 in the four books of ' Prolegomena ' to Stallbaum's edition of the 

 'Parmenides' (Lips., 1839, pp. 4-343.) But Plato is above all others 

 a writer who must be studied in his own works ; no exposition can 

 give an adequate idea of the beauty of his style, or the clearness and 

 cogency of his arguments, and he would escape many of the misrepre- 

 sentations by which his literary character has been assailed if his 

 readers were more numerous, and if there were fewer persons to 

 pronounce sentence upon him without having read a syllable of his 

 writings. 



PLATON, the celebrated Archbishop of Moscow, whose family namo 

 was Levshin, was born June 24th, 1737. He was the son of a village 

 priest near Moscow, in tho university of which capital he received his 

 education, and, besides studying the classical tongues, made consider- 

 able proficiency iu the sciences. His talents soon caused him to be 

 noticed, for while yet a student in theology, he was appointed, in 

 1767, teacher of poetry at the Moscow academy, and in the following 

 year teacher of rhetoric at the seminary of the St. Sergius Lavra, or 

 convent. He shortly afterwards entered tho church, became succes- 

 sively hiero-monach, prefect of the seminary, and, in 1762, rector and 

 professor of theology. That same year was marked by an event in his 

 life that greatly contributed to his advancement, for on the visit of 

 Catharine II. to the St. Sergius Lavra, after her coronation, he addressed 

 tho empress in an eloquent discourse, and on another occasion preached 

 before her. So favourable was the impression ho made, that he was 

 forthwith appointed court preacher and preceptor in matters of 

 religion to the Grand-Duke (afterwards the Emperor Paul), for whose 

 instruction he drew up his ' Orthodox Faith, or Outlines of Christian 

 Theology,' which is esteemed one of his best and most useful pro- 

 ductions. 



During the four years of his residence at Petersburg he frequently 

 preached before the court, and also delivered on various occasions 

 many of the discourses and orations which are among his printed 

 works. After being created member of the synod at Moscow, by an 

 imperial order, he was made archbishop of Tver in 1770. His atten- 

 tion to the duties of his new office was assiduous and exemplary ; for 

 he not only set about improving the course of study pursued in the 

 various seminaries throughout his diocese, but established a IP. 

 of minor schools for religious instruction, and drew up two separate 

 treatise*, one for the use of the teachers, and the other for their 

 pupils. He wss also entrusted with the charge of instructing the 

 prinoess of \Vuitemberg-Stuttgard, Maria Pheodorovna, the grand- 

 duke's consort, in the tenets and doctrines of the Greco-Kunsian 

 Church. At the beginning of 1775 he received the empress at Tver, 

 and proceeded with her and the grand-duke to Moscow, where he was 

 advanced to that see, with permission to retain the archimandriteship 

 of the Sergiu* Lavra. With tho exception of some intervals occa- 

 sioned by his being summoned to St. Petersburg, where he preached 

 before the court, it was in that convent that he chiefly resided, until 

 he erected another in its vicinity at his own expense, in 1785, called 

 the Bethanio. Two yeara afterwards he was made metropolitan of 



