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of Aristophanes, although they proceed upon the same comparison, are more intelligible, at least in so far as that he is not for subjecting the whole mass of writings to this frolic of fancy, and constructs a trilogy only in cases in which Plato has himself, with sufficient clearness, projected a combination; or when such is implied by some external circumstance, leaving all the rest subordinate to that arrangement. Meanwhile both attempts may only serve to show how soon the true arrangement of the Platonic works was lost, excepting very few traces of it, and how ill suited that kind of criticism which the Alexandrian Philologists knew how to apply, was to discover the principles of a correct arrangement of Philosophical works. Less external, indeed, but otherwise

not much better are the well known dialectic divisions of the dialogues which Diogenes likewise has prepared for us without indicating the author of them, and according to which moreover the editions usually mark every dialogue in the title. At first sight, indeed, this attempt does not seem deserving of any notice in this place, as its tendency is more to separate than connect, and it relates to matters which do not profess to indicate the exponent of the natural order. But the great division into the investigative and instructive might certainly, if properly understood, be a guide for marking the progress of the Platonic dialogues, at least in the main, since the former can only be preparatory to the latter as explanatory of positive theories. Provided only that the further subdivision were not made in the most utterly illogical manner, in the one according to the form alone of the investigation, in the other according to the subject, while the latter of the two methods again quite unplatonically arranges the works

according to the different Philosophical sciences, so that even what Plato had himself expressly combined is split asunder, as the Sophist and the Politicus, the Timæus and the Critias, not to mention other most strange exhibitions of criticism in the details. The same unplatonic principle is followed also in the Syzygies of Serranus, which are therefore perfectly useless for the arrangement of Plato, and at the most can only serve as a register to any one wishing to inform himself of the opinion of Plato upon particular subjects, where he has to look for the decisive passages, although even this, considering the character of the Platonic writings, is ever very uncertain, and can only be productive of very deficient results. Besides these attempts at arrangement there is scarcely any other to mention, unless it be that of Jacob Geddes the Scotchman, and our own countryman Eberhard, in his treatise upon the Myths of Plato and the object of his Philosophy. The first would not indeed deserve to be mentioned, had not great merit been attributed to him in a variety of places, and even demands made that any future translator should arrange the works of Plato according to his plan. It is however impossible that these should be complied with, supposing even the best disposition to do so. For the man's whole discovery amounts but to this, that certain dialogues of Plato reciprocally illustrate each other, and upon this principle he takes occasion to write a few at the most very meagre lines about each of them, shewing nothing so clearly as that there is scarce a single instance in which he has traced out Plato's object with any thing like ordinary understanding. But even supposing all this to be better than it is, and that the greatest proofs of ignorance, as well as misapprehension

of particular passages were not to be found, how can an argument be undertaken upon a principle of reciprocal illustration? For which of the dialogues thus reciprocal is to be the first, and according to what law? And as regards Eberhard's attempt, he sets himself to prove a reference in all Plato's works to a common object in his Philosophy, which, independent of the Philosophy itself, lies in the formation of the Athenian youths of rank to be virtuous citizens. Now in this, notwithstanding the very clear manner in which the position is enunciated, it is difficult to determine whether this object was to have been at the same time the basis for the discovery of all the higher speculations of Plato, which, I suppose, it would be somewhat overhazardous to maintain, and even disregarding the circle in which it is involved, as Philosophy must certainly determine what is the virtue of a citizen, it is far too subordinate a ground to rest the Philosophy itself upon. But if the opinion is to mean, that Plato invented his Philosophy independent of that particular object, and that this, the Philosophy, must be supposed, while the writings are to tend to that object of education, and were worked out in the manner in which, under the circumstances of that time, such an object might demand, this would be the strongest position ever taken up in favour of their exoteric character. Meanwhile, according to that view, the philosophical writings of Plato could only constitute a pædagogic, or rather a polemic series, in which, from its reference to external circumstances and events, all must be accidental, and thus it would be like enough to a string of pearls, only a capricious concatenation of productions, which, torn out of their organic place, would be, considering further the

total failure in the object in view, a useless piece of ornamental finery. Equally worthless is the view maintained by others, that Plato published sometimes one part of his knowledge, sometimes another, either from mere vanity, or in opposition to that of other Philosophers. In all these endeavours, therefore, the restoration of the natural order of these writings, in reference to the progressive developement of the philosophy, is out of the question. Quite different, however, from all that has hitherto been done is the character of the attempt made in Tennemann's system of the Platonic Philosophy; the first, at all events, with any pretensions to completeness, to discover the chronological order of the Platonic dialogues from various historical traces impressed upon them; for this is certainly critical in its principle, and a work worthy in every way of an historical investigator like the author of that treatise. In this undertaking, indeed, his view is directed less to discover, by the method he adopts, the real and essential relation of the works of Plato to one another, than to discover in general the dates of their composition, in order to avoid confounding early and imperfect attempts with an exposition of the Philosophy of the mature and perfect Plato. And to that undertaking, generally, the present is a necessary counterpart; and thus, on the other hand, that method, resting as it does entirely upon outward signs, provided it could only be universally applied, and definitely assign to any Platonic dialogue its place between any two others, would be the natural test of our own method, which goes entirely upon what is internal. It may not indeed be necessary on that ac count that the results of the two should perfectly coincide, for the reason that the external production of a work

is subjected to other external and accidental conditions than its internal development, which follows only such as are inward and necessary, whence slight variations might easily arise, so that what was internally in existence sooner than something else, does not yet appear externally until a later period. But with due regard to these effects of accident, which would hardly escape an attentive eye, if we had the two series complete, and they could be accurately compared, they could not fail by a pervading coincidence mutually to confirm, in the most decisive manner, their respective correctness. We discover, however, in proceeding upon this method, but few definite points; and for the great majority of the dialogues only somewhat indefinite limits between which they must fall, and often an extreme limit only on one side is given. For in strictness the historical traces should not extend beyond the life of Socrates, within which indeed all the dialogues come, with the exception of the Laws, and the few which Plato makes others narrate, and in which, consequently, he had a later date at command; an advantage, however, which he has not always employed SO as to leave a more accurate trace for us. Now the anachronisms which he occasionally allows himself, do indeed excite a hope of some little further historical evidence, so that one might wish that Plato had oftener been guilty of this fault; but even this slight advantage is made very ambiguous by the consideration that many of these facts may have been introduced on a subsequent recasting of the works in which Plato had naturally ceased to transport himself so vividly into the actual time of the dialogue, and might be more easily seduced to transgress its limits, unrestrained by fact. There might, perhaps, be yet another expedient hitherto unused with

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