So that to see how far the censure of Dionysius, which can strictly refer only to the feet of the words, is grounded in truth, could be the privilege of Grecian ears alone, as it is evident that Plato's Theory upon this point, rests upon different grounds from that of Dionysius. To us, who do not inquire quite so much into this matter, the fulness of expression seems actually to reach only to the extremest limits of language unfettered by metre, and in this respect certainly Plato himself intended to be epideictic. In the second speech of Socrates, that famous Myth is, lastly, beyond doubt the most important part, for sake of which all other matter in this dialogue has been unfairly thrown into the back-ground. The consequence of this has been, that not even the Myth itself has been throughout rightly understood. For the Love has, for the most part, been taken in a far too abstract and limited sense, and much has been overlooked or childishly trifled away. Least of all has the fact been remarked, that it is the fundamental Myth from which all that succeed and enter into the whole system of the Platonic Philosophy are developed; so that the more the subject-matter of it, at advanced stages, passes from the mythic into the scientific, the remainder is ever shaped out with less pretension, and becomes more vividly mythical. So that Plato here seems most expressly to assume the privilege of interweaving Myths with the expositions of his Philosophy. Though all this cannot be here regularly proved, but must verify itself by the sequel. Now as to what relates to the particular subject of the Myth, but little definite can be adduced in illustration of the imaginative in it; and the cosmographical conceptions especially which are the basis of it, are the more difficult to explain, as the Myth rests quite on the boundary

between the Natural and Supernatural. More accurate solutions of it would certainly be more welcome than that discovery which Heyne some time since communicated, that the horses in this Myth were borrowed from Parmenides, which will hardly be discovered after a perusal of the fragment referred to. For the identity in a comparison, rests not so much upon the image, as upon a similar application of it to the object. Moreover, more would be implied in that assertion than that learned person probably intended, namely, that Plato borrowed his division of the Soul from Parmenides. In our confessed uncertainty as to particulars, it may however be said in general, that several of the conceptions in this Myth seem to be worked out from one another; and that, as several expressions are derived from the mysteries, a more perfect understanding of them would probably contribute most towards an explanation. On this account a still more accurate acquaintance with the Pythagorean Philosophemes may not be supposed to be the true key even to the mythology, still less to the doctrine of the human mind, as also the Platonic doctrine of renewed recollection is hardly to be explained from Pythagoras. Moreover the bulk of this Myth is evidently treated as a by-work to add to the pomp of the whole, and to harmonize the strictly allegorical parts of it. Wherefore we must beware of entering too much into details in the explanation, and rather be satisfied with only comprehending aright those philosophical indications, which Plato himself marks as such in the delivery. It might be adduced as a consequence, sufficiently immediate and but little attended to, that in every case a man's character is not originated during the course of his life, but exists in him from the first. What Tiedemann however has discovered in the notion

that the essentially existent is beheld, not in heaven, but in the region beyond heaven, can hardly be implied in it. But it might be most difficult to explain what is said very particularly of the various character of men according as they have been more or less penetrated by the Eternal. If therefore still greater faults do not lie concealed under the considerable varieties in the readings, the whole passage might perhaps belong to that class of decorations in which we are not to look for too much. And, generally, it is impossible to draw attention too much to the fact, how completely every thing in this dialogue is meant and applied rhetorically, so that even here, where untamed imagination has been so often discovered, like the wild horse as it were of the Platonic philosophy hurrying the wiser one along with it, Plato appears rather with all the judgment of a master. even supposing that in the detail this composition carried him near the borders of a province that did not belong to him, as Dionysius even compares one passage with a passage in Pindar, still the style is in the main prosaic throughout. For to sketch an image, as is here done, first with a few strokes in the outline, and then to work it out further step by step, as regularity required, could not be endured in a poem.

And

With regard to the second part of the dialogue, after all that has already been said in general, there is nothing further to remark, except that, although not fully applied to practice, it was the origin of that improved rhetoric which dates its commencement from Aristotle, who owes much to this work. The remarks will explain particular difficulties, and thus the reader will be detained no longer in the vestibule of this splendid and genial work.

K

II. LYSIS.

A sufficiently unauthenticated legend, inasmuch as Diogenes does not give us the name of its voucher, makes this dialogue one of the earliest, at least among those written before the death of Socrates. A greater degree of authority however might fairly attach to it than to the similar one respecting the Phædrus, as this latter rests only upon internal evidence, while the former is grounded upon the tradition of a fact, namely Socrates' exclamation of surprise when he saw himself in the representation given of him by Plato. Such a testimony, however, scarcely deserving as it is of the name, is not here the ground upon which its place is assigned to this dialogue; the connection decides sufficiently in favour of it, even though it were not supported by historical references. For in its subject-matter the Lysis is related to the Phædrus and the Symposium alone of all the dialogues of Plato, inasmuch as the question as to the nature and the grounds of friendship and love, which constitutes its whole content, is a secondary and subordinate object in point of form in the Phædrus, while in the Symposium it is, in form, primary and predominant. Clearly, however, it could hardly occur to ony one to place the Lysis after the Symposium, as in the latter the question is not only decided directly and finished to the very last stroke, but also considered in its most extensive and general relations. So that dialectical touches, like those of which the Lysis consists, could scarcely be intended to form an ornamental addition to that discussion, while to work it out as an independent whole subsequently to it, would

have been as little consistent with the rules of art as destitute of point, because every one already had before him in that dialogue the solution of every question started in this. And a mere dialectical exercise, especially one so trifling as this dialogue would then be, can hardly be attributed to the more finished master of a later period. It would therefore only remain to be investigated, in the next place, whether the Lysis is to be placed before or after the Phædrus. The latter does indeed likewise speak decisively upon the principal question, inasmuch as it. developes at length one source of love, and goes into an explanation of it; so that any one might fairly think, in reference to this circumstance, that, as in the case of the Symposium, it would be contrary to the principles assumed to place that dialogue before the Lysis, inasmuch as the Lysis only treats of the same subject sceptically. But the great distinction must of itself be evident to those who know the Symposium, while to others who do not, it may certainly be made apparent without taking an anticipative survey of that later dialogue. For the theory respecting the source of love is only brought forward in the Phædrus mythically; and to think of deciding in this manner a question which had been already at an earlier period taken within the province of logic, would be not only contrary to the most recognized analogy in the Platonic writings, and to every idea of the philosophy of their author, but even in itself a vicious and useless undertaking; because the reproduction upon a dialectic soil of those mythical elements among which the investigation began, must render the subject again complicated and uncertain. To this, moreover, the following argument may be added, one which with many will probably be more decisive. In the Pha