PLATO. 87 



either as a speaker, writer, or teacher, and says he is good in his art, 

 is mistaken." 



In criticising the philosophy of Plato, it is but just to advert to the General ex- 

 uncertain state of knowledge at the time when he wrote. If the plain H ato v!icw8 

 and sober sense of Socrates had struck out some sterling truths of on moral sub- 

 morality, and had straggled to catch at some general principles, and to Jec 

 lay a firm groundwork for human virtue, it is the merit of Plato to 

 have followed up the same track, and to have directed the great powers 

 of his understanding and of his imagination, and the prodigious acquire- 

 ments of long and varied research, to the illustration of the proper end 

 and aim of man. There is scarcely a dialogue of his, however differ- 

 ent its principal or professed object may be, in which something is 

 not adduced or insinuated in relation to this important subject. It is 

 this circumstance indeed beyond all others, which gives that apparent 

 uniformity and coherence and system to all the writings of Plato ; 

 they all, in a greater or less degree, tend to elucidate the problem, 

 what is the true happiness of man, and what are the best means of 

 attaining it, considering the constitution of human nature, and the cir- 

 cumstances in which man is placed ? His ultimate views on this sub- 

 ject are, perhaps, the most just that unassisted reason can arrive at. 

 His arguments and his conclusions have been adopted by Lord Shaftes- 

 bury in his ' Inquiry concerning Virtue and Merit,' the ablest and 

 most unexceptionable of his performances. They have been explained 

 and illustrated with more precision and perspicuity by Bishop Butler, 

 in his three admirable sermons ' On Human Nature ;' and that learned 

 writer has successfully combated the most ambiguous and noxious of 

 Hobbes's positions, by girding on the armoury of ancient lore, and 

 proving against all the cavils of the advocates for confusion, that man 

 is naturally a law to himself. The conclusions indeed of Plato and 

 other ancient writers, on the fundamental questions of morality, are so 

 clear and satisfactory, that whilst we feel the greatest admiration of 

 the reasoning process by which they arrived at such truths, yet we 

 should be almost inclined to say, that the primary distinctions of virtue 

 and vice, when once expounded, are in a manner self evident to human 

 reason, 1 if we did not see the characters of Polus and Euthydemus 

 revived in almost every age among mere speculative inquirers. 



Upon Plato's physical system, or the mysteries of his numbers, we His physical 

 have little to observe in addition to the remarks we have before inci- 

 dentally made. We frankly confess, that there is much in these parts 

 of his writings that we do not understand ; and, indeed, that his grand 

 periodical revolutions and calculations 8 which he has introduced, as 



1 "Nam neque tarn est acris acies in naturis hominum et ingeniis ut res tantas 

 quisquam nisi monstratas possit videre : neque tanta tamen in rebus obscuritas ut 

 eas non penitus acri vir ingenio cernat si modo aspexerit." Cicero. 



2 Schneider, however, is of a different opinion, and we have studied the expla- 

 nation which he attempts, hut without becoming converts. See Schneider's Com- 

 mentationes dua? de Numero Platonis. Wratislavise, 1821, quarto. 



