For

But this is just the point at which the insufficiency even of this view must strike every one. why should Plato have wished to confine himself by such a self-imposed law, and that too quite contrary to his own method? Or is it not usual with him to put into the mouth of his Interlocutors what they have never said, liable to the sole condition that it be like them and appropriate? And what therefore should have hindered him from composing a speech in any one's name, unless he found one at hand upon a subject for which he not only had a peculiar interest, but which also stood precisely in the closest connection with the immediate object of this dialogue. For that love is indeed a moral object, and that in the method in which it is here treated of, there lies at bottom something like an apology for Socrates who was accused of it in an unworthy sense, this would be perhaps sufficient cause for introducing it as one of those subordinate points of the second rank which we meet with not sparingly here in the introduction generally, in the transitions and in various allusions; but when anything stands in such relation to the whole as these speeches do, then it becomes incumbent upon us to discover a necessary connection between it and the main idea of the whole. Now if the main idea here were nothing but the correction of the notion of rhetoric, in that case love and beauty, which form the subject matter of these speeches, would be, as regards this point, purely accidental. But this is just Plato's method, and it is the triumph of his master-mind that in his great and rich-wrought forms nothing is without its use, and that he leaves nothing for chance or blind caprice to determine, but with him every thing is proportionate and

co-operative according to his subjects' range. And how should we miss this intelligence altogether in this place, above all others, where the principles which he adduces are pronounced in the clearest manner?

Thus, therefore, it is at once evident that this is not yet the correct view, and not taken from the point from which alone a survey may be had of the whole, and every particular appear in its proper form and position, but that we must seek out another, connecting every thing still more accurately. But there are yet other reasons at hand which would not allow us to stop here. For is it likely that it could have been a principal object with Plato to compose a treatise upon the technicals of rhetoric? and would this in any way agree with his other purposes as a writer? or is it not rather the case that nothing similar ever occurs again, and the Phædrus would then stand isolated in a manner in which a far less important work, in the case of this master, could scarcely be allowed to stand? Nay more, even in the second part, though it is from this that the standing point for this view is taken, still much remains inexplicable and strange on the supposition that it is the right one. For this second part not only expatiates greatly upon love and beauty as the subject of the first, but upon the form of that part and rhetoric generally. For all that is said of rhetoric is suddenly extended to poetry and politics as well, for these too are arts, and it can escape no one that, properly speaking, even rhetoric itself is set up and treated of only as an example, and the same even is said of it almost as of the speeches delivered, that, setting aside the higher laws which must be exhibited therein, its whole operation and business is nothing but child's-play. In such wise, therefore, we are driven from

H

an outer to an inner, and as this last does itself in turn soon become an outer, we push still onwards even unto the innermost soul of the whole work, which is no other than the inward spirit of those higher laws, the art, namely, of unshackled thought and informing communication, or, dialectics. For which all else in this dialogue is but preparation, in order to bring about the discovery of it in the Socratic method by the exhibition of its spirit in a well known particular, and that one in which an exclusively scientific form was in part generally recognized, and in part easy to exhibit. Now not only does Plato intend to celebrate this art as the root of every other ramification to which that name can apply, but, while in all other arts we are indeed to recognise it, it is itself to appear to every one as something much higher and perfectly divine, which is to be learnt and practised, by no means for their sake, but for its own and for that of a divine existence. Now the original object of dialectics is found in ideas, which he therefore here describes with all the ardour of first love, and thus it is philosophy that Plato here extols, independently and wholly, as the highest of all objects, and as the foundation of every thing estimable and beautiful, and for whom he may triumphantly demand that her claims to these titles be universally recognised. And it is just because philosophy fully appears here not only as an inward state, but, in accordance with its nature, as extending and communicating itself, that it is necessary to bring to consciousness and to exhibit the impulse which forces it outwards from within, and which is nothing but that genuine and divine love which raises itself above every other, originating in and proceeding upon any notion of advantage, as philosophy does by its nature excel

their subordinate arts which are content to play either with pleasure or profit. For however much the attainment of the object of that impulse must be the effect of art and of the judgment that arranges its details, still the impulse itself appears as something originally existing and ever at work in the mind of the finished and perfect man, seeking its object from without, consequently as passion and divine inspiration. Hence, therefore, all problems are solved, and this approves itself to be the real unity of the work-bringing out every thing, vivifying and connecting all.

This object then, considered in connection with the manner in which it is brought forward, irrevocably secures to the Phædrus the first place among the works of Plato, To this conclusion we are moreover at once led, when we observe that in this exposition of philosophy the consciousness of the philosophical impulse and method is far more intimate and powerful than that of the philosophical matter, which therefore only appears mythically, as if, on the one hand, it were still unripe for logical exposition, and, on the other, repressed to a certain degree by that predominant consciousness. Now this was very naturally the first state into which a worthily reflecting scholar of Socrates, and one already possessed with the art, must have been transported by the mode of teaching pursued by that philosopher. For these two, impulse and method, were in all his conversations the constant and ever unchanging elements, with which therefore the mind would be most possessed, which, as to the matter, he used but to moot particular questions in particular detail, without selection or connected purpose. In later times, however, Plato, in proportion as the objects of philosophy had revealed

themselves to him more clearly, and he had practised the method more fully through all his productions and brought it to honour, would have abstained from making it the core of a composition of such extent in the manner in which he has here done. Moreover, the excessive, and almost boisterous and triumphant exultation, which at once and of itself points clearly enough to the acquisition of a newly gained good, relates only to the discovery of the first principles, and the Phædrus exhibits, less than any other dialogue, a great and already acquired readiness in the application of this method. Moreover it points in a variety of ways to the poetic essays of Plato which preceded his philosophising. For any one who holds Plato in proper estimation, will not be willing to believe that he composed poetry only in the thoughtlessness of youth, but rather that he took it up seriously, and contemplated in very early times, and upon grounds of art, all effects produced upon the mind of man. Thus the power which Socrates possessed of convincing and influencing the mind with all the apparent artlessness of his arguments, must still have appeared to Plato as a master-art never surpassed, and have filled him with admiration and love. This then, under such circumstances and in such a mind, inclined by nature to favour the notion of the unity of the two, naturally exhibited itself in a reference of philosophy to art, the process of which at the same time contained an explanation and defence of his transition from the latter to the former. And, next, his immediate choice of rhetoric, which was not his own art, is conceivable upon the grounds that, more than poetry, it aims at conviction, and because he could not compare what Socrates effected in it by the science