584 



PLATOFF. 



He landed in F.I is. where he found Dion, who formed 

 a plan for punishing the tyrant ; but Plato was un- 

 willing to accede to it. It cannot surprise us tluit 

 a man of so elevated a character was calumniated, 

 and accused of avarice, intemperance, vanity, and 

 even flagitious crimes. These charges are refuted 

 by the high esteem in which Plato was held, by his 

 life and actions. He died in the first year of the 

 108th Olympiad (348 B. C.), on his eighty-second 

 birth-day, a hale old man, breathing out his life in 

 soft slumber among friends, at a wedding banquet. 

 An inscription in the Ceramicus, where he was 

 buried, proclaimed his merit, and the love of his con- 

 temporaries. 



In order to understand the whole of Plato's philo- 

 sophy, and seize its true spirit, it is necessary to ac- 

 quaint one's self with the gradual unfolding of the 

 Greek philosophy, and the different modes in which 

 it was cultivated in the various schools, and, at the 

 same time, to be acquainted with the spirit of Orien- 

 tal metaphysics. The conceptions of a mind like 

 Plato's, inspired with the most lofty and glowing 

 desire to show the connexion of the human soul with 

 the original fountain of light and perfection, and its 

 aspirations for a reunion with it (which can be ex- 

 pressed only in feeble comparisons and imperfect 

 images) ; of a mind to which .the greatest earthly 

 good appeared to be the union of kindred souls in 

 the love and zealous search for truth (the Platonic 

 love) ; of a mind which conceived the human soul 

 to contain, in its present state of lost perfection, all 

 the germs of regeneration and restoration to the 

 kingdom of truth the works of such a lofty, pure 

 and gifted spirit require to be studied with peculiar 

 attention, and with a spirit superior to the tempta- 

 tion to ridicule images and comparisons that attempt 

 to convey thoughts for which language is insuffi- 

 cient, and which remind us of St Augustine's ex- 

 pression, that we are placed too high for our own 

 understanding. We must expect, indeed, to meet 

 some strange mistakes, when a spirit like Plato's 

 enters into the details of particular subjects, as, for 

 instance, in his Republic ; but this very treatise 

 affords most insight into the mind of the philosopher, 

 although it discloses but a part of his whole system 

 or doctrine. Of such a system of philosophy, how- 

 ever, it would be impossible, within our limits, to 

 give a view that would convey any satisfactory idea. 

 No scholar of late has done so much for the just ap- 

 preciation of this great mind as professor Schleier- 

 macher, by his arrangement of the various writings 

 of Plato, accompanied by profound and learned com- 

 mentaries, and by a translation of them into German. 

 Professor Schleiermacher first arranged the dialogues 

 according to the connexion of their subjects, and 

 thus formed three groups: 1. the elementary dia- 

 logues, in which are contained the first indications 

 of that which is the foundation of all the following : 

 of dialectics, as the technical part of philosophy, of 

 ideas, as the proper subject of it, therefore of the 

 possibility and the conditions of knowledge, in which, 

 however, the theoretical is separated from the prac- 

 tical. In this class he places the Phaedrus, Lysis, 

 Protagoras, Laches, Charmides, Eutyphron, Parme- 

 nides, likewise the apology of Socrates, Criton, Ion, 

 the Lesser Hippias, Hipparchus, Minos, Alcibiades 

 II. 2. Those dialogues which treat of the applica- 

 tion of these principles, of the difference between 

 philosophical and common knowledge in their appli- 

 cation to the two great sciences, ethics and physics. 

 These are the Gorgias, Theaetetos, Menon, Euthyde- 

 mus, Cratylus, the Sophist, the Politician, the Ban- 

 quet, Phaedon, Philebus, &c. 3. Those in which the 

 theoretical and practical become one and the same. 

 These are Timaeus, Critias, the Republic, the Laws, 



In addition to Schleiermacher, we would 

 mention Tiedemann's Dialog. Plat. Argumenta ex- 

 posita et illustrata (Bipont, 1786), and Tennemann's 

 System ol the Platonic Philosophy (Leipsic, 1192 95, 

 4 vols.) ; further, Ileusde's lititia Philosophic Pla- 

 tonica: (Utrecht, 1827). 



The effect which a mind so vast was calculated to 

 produce was very great. The school of Plato was 

 called the academy, and has been generally divided 

 into the old, middle and new. Among the philoso- 

 phers of the first division are Speusippus, Xeno- 

 crates, Polemo, Crates, Crantor, the immediate fol- 

 lowers of Plato. The founder of the middle aca- 

 demy is Arcesilaus, whose successors were Lacydes, 

 Evander. Hegesinus and Carneades, the last of whom 

 was the founder of the new academy : his successor 

 was Clitomachus. His pupils, Philo and Charmi- 

 des, again deviated from the doctrines of the new 

 academy, and approached more to those of Plato 

 himself. Some others adopt a fourth division, whose 

 founder was Philo, who again took the dogmatic 

 direction. Cicero (Qu. Acad. i. 43, et seq.) only 

 adopts the division of old and new. Aristotle, Plato's 

 pupil for many years, became the founder of the 

 peripatetic school. (See that article, and Aristotle.) 

 The difference between these great men is striking-. 

 Goethe calls Aristotle " a man of an architectural 

 genius, who seeks for a solid basis for his building, 

 but looks no farther, who describes an immense cir- 

 cuit for its foundations, collects materials from all 

 sides, arranges them, lays one above the other, and 

 thus ascends in regular form pyramidally, while 

 Plato, like an obelisk, nay, a flame, seeks the hea- 

 vens." Aristotle was critical, scrutinizing whatever 

 came within the range of his comprehensive mind, 

 while Plato brings every thing into connexion with 

 his elevated view of the human soul ; and we may 

 be allowed to mention the beautiful conception of 

 the difference of these powerful minds, in Raphael's 

 School of Athens one of the grandest pictures ever 

 produced, of which they form the two chief person- 

 ages Aristotle, with a look of deep reflection, and 

 eyes directed forward, while Plato lifts up his right 

 arm, as if testifying of the worlds above, like a pro- 

 phet. Plato was considered, when Christianity be- 

 gan to spread, as the firmest prop of heathenism ; 

 but the followers of the new faith attempted to re- 

 concile his doctrines with the Christian. The chief 

 supporters of his doctrine at this time were the New 

 Platonists (q. v.), also called Alexandrian philoso- 

 phers, and eclectics. Aristotle had the decided pre- 

 dominance until the fourteenth century, when Pla- 

 tonism revived, and the greatest struggles ensued 

 between the Platonists and the Aristotelians. Ge- 

 mesthius Pletho inspired Cosmo de' Medici with a 

 love for Plato, so that the duke established a Plato- 

 nic academy, took the son of his physician, the trans- 

 lator of Plato, Marsilius Ficinus, into his house, and 

 gave him a villa near to his own of Careggi. The 

 best editions of Plato are, besides the Aldine, that of 

 Henry Stephens (1578, 3 vols., folio ; the Frankfort 

 edition, 1602, folio, and the Bipont edition, 1781 

 86, 13 vols.) The latest are by Bekker, Stallbaum 

 and Ast. Pr. Cousin has translated Plato's Works 

 into French CEuvres completes de Platan (Paris, 

 1827, 7 vols.) 



PLATOFF, OR PLATOW, hetman of the Cos- 

 sacks, was born in the southern part of Russia, about 

 1763. He entered young into the military service, 

 and in 1806 and 1807, he had the rank of lieutenant- 

 general in the Russian army sent to the assistance of 

 Prussia. He was afterwards employed against the 

 Turks in Moldavia, and was made a general of 

 cavalry. When the French invaded Russia, in 1812, 

 Platoff was again called into actual service, and, 



