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the case here why should Plato have wished forcibly to introduce it? Especially as it is extremely probable that he wished to hasten as much as possible the publication of this speech, and perhaps considered it not advisable to commit himself at that time to a public opinion as to the result of the case, which, if he had involved the speech in a dialogue it would not have been easy to avoid, or this form would have been utterly empty and unmeaning.

As to the Athenian judicial process in similar cases, we may certainly suppose all that has been contributed from various quarters for the understanding of this piece to be generally known; moreover, the speech itself explains most of what is necessary.

II. CRITO.

I HAVE already observed in the introduction to the preceding "Apology," that the Crito appears to be similarly circumstanced with that piece. For it is possible that this dialogue may not be a work regularly framed by Plato; but one which did actually take place as is here described, which Plato received from the interlocutor with Socrates as accurately as the former could give it, while he himself hardly did more than embellish and reinstate it in the well-known language of Socrates, ornamenting the beginning and the end, and perhaps filling up here and there when necessary. This view rests upon exactly similar grounds with those which have been already explained in considering the

Apology. For in this dialogue also there is the same entire absence of any philosophical object, and although the immediate occasion invited to the most important investigations into the nature of right, law, and compact, which certainly engaged Plato's attention at all times, these subjects are treated of so exclusively and solely with reference to the existing circumstances, that we easily see that the minds of the interlocutors, if the dialogue was really held, were exclusively filled with these; and if it is to be considered as a work of Plato's, in the composition of which facts had no influence, then we must attribute to it the character of a perfectly occasional piece. It is indeed expressly shewn that philosophizing has no place in it, as the particular principles are only laid down as granted without any investigation, and with reference indeed to old dialogues, but by no means such as could be sought for in other writings of Plato, a process which, in those works of Plato which have a philosophical meaning is perfectly unheard of. And what may be thought to have been the occasion of such an accidental piece, if we regard it as a work exclusively Plato's own? For in point of meaning, nothing is here given which was not already contained in the Apology. Or, if we are to believe that Plato intended to make known the fact that the friends of Socrates wished to assist Socrates to escape, but that he would not allow them to do so, and that all the rest with the exception of this historical foundation is his own invention, in that case, on closer consideration, only about the first half of the dialogue would be intelligible, the latter half not. For, on the one hand, there is nothing remarkable in this circumstance, but the manner in which it

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takes place; inasmuch as the result might be at once foreseen from the defence, and therefore the friends of Socrates were justified even by that, supposing them not to have undertaken anything of the kind. And on the other hand the dialogue itself is constituted exactly one that actually took place, subject to a certain degree to chance circumstances as one of that description always is, must be constituted, but not at all like one composed with an object, or into which art in any way enters. For dialogues of the former class may easily start away from a thought after barely alluding to it, or even proceed to confirm by frequent repetition what might have been said at once definitely and expressly; while those of the latter can neither return to the same point, without addition and advancement, nor excite expectations which they do not satisfy. Now the Crito is clearly framed upon the former plan, and although the idea is in the main worked out beautifully and clearly, still in the details the connected parts are often loosely joined, uselessly interrupted, and again negligently taken up, exactly as we might suppose, generally, that none of the deficiencies as peculiar to a dialogue actually held and only told again, would be altogether wanting.

In this manner, therefore, I still hold it possible that Plato may have composed this dialogue, and think that so immediately after the death of Socrates, he may have had the same conscientious purpose in the publication of it, as in that of the "Apology". Not before a remote period, that into which, according to my views, the Phædon falls, could Plato even in what relates to the death of Socrates, pass from literal accuracy to a greater latitude in treating of those subjects, and inter

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weave them with an independent work of art, designed for philosophical exposition. I at all events, will still endeavour, by means of this view, to reserve this dialogue for Plato, until a somewhat more able criticism than has hitherto appeared completely disproves its claims to be considered so. Two reasons in particular incline me to this opinion, first, the language, against which Ast brings no important objection, and which quite as clearly as that in the Apology" unites all the peculiarities of the first period of the Platonic writings. And, secondly, the very strictness with which the composer confines himself to the particular circumstance which is the subject of the dialogue, and here abstains from all admixture of investigation into the first principles, an act of abstinence which was certainly not possible to small philosophers like the other Socraticians, but only to so distinguished a man, -an act by which he does at the same time expressly remove this piece out of the list of the others. Hence also the strong emphasis with which the announcement is made, that to those who do not start from the same moral principles, all deliberation in common is impossible, an emphasis to be ascribed rather to Plato, in order to explain the style and method of the dialogue, than to Socrates, who would hardly have needed it toward his friend Crito, who could only differ from him in consequences, and not in first principles.

Little value is to be put upon the story of Diogenes that Eschines was actually the interlocutor, and that Plato from dislike to him intruded Crito in that character. It is, however, very possible, that Plato allows himself in this particular to deviate from fact, and has chosen Crito because he was best secured by his age and condition against unpleasant consequences, probably,

also, died soon after the death of Socrates. We see at all events an endeavour to avoid injuring any Athenian friend of Socrates in the fact, that Plato only mentions by name foreigners as having any share in the plot of abduction. So that the circumstance is probably founded in fact, and only the cause of it, by whom who can tell? fictitiously superadded.

III. ION."

SOCRATES proves two things to the Athenian rhapsodist: First, that if his business of interpretation and criticism is a science or an art, it must not confine itself to one poet, but extend over all, because the objects are the same in all, and the whole art of poetry one and indivisible. Secondly, that it does not belong to the rhapsodist generally to judge of the poet, but that this can only be done in reference to every particular passage by one who is acquainted, as an artist and adept, with what is in every instance described in those passages Now it will be at once manifest to every reader that it cannot have been Plato's ultimate object to put a rhapsodist to shame in such a manner. For even they who can never discover any purpose in Plato's writings except, in a far too limited sense, that which is directed towards common life and the improvement of it, cannot overlook the circumstance that those rhapsodists, a somewhat subordinate class of artists, who were for the most part concerned only with the lower ranks of the people, enjoyed no such influence upon the morals and

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