of Philosophy, and the whole discussion respecting the poem of Simonides, moreover that even such matter as is more closely connected with those questions does not advance but is continually beginning again from the first in a manner almost far-fetched and certainly singular: : nay, to express it in a word, how could the main point of the whole be involved in an investigation, of which it is said at the end of it, ironically indeed on the one hand, but very truly on the other, that as far as bringing it to a decision was concerned, it had been pursued poorly and confusedly enough.

Now whoever attends not only to this or that point, in this dialogue, but to every thing, to the frequently interspersed and cursory hints which in Plato least of any writer admit of being overlooked, to the change of the form in the different sections, to what is continually recurring in and between these sections, notwithstanding all the multiplicity of subjects-whoever does this will recognize, in this very dispute respecting the form and method, the main purpose of the whole; the purpose, namely, to praise and ennoble the dialogistic form of Socrates, and to proclaim it as the proper form of all genuine philosophical communication, in opposition to all sophistical forms, all of which therefore make their appearance, not even the method of commentating upon passages of poets excepted. If we place ourselves in this true centre point of the work, we see first, in the most decided manner, how very closely this dialogue connects itself by manifold ramifications with the Phædrus. For as there the inward spirit of the philosophizing process was exhibited, so the outward form is here discovered, and what results, as such, is criticised. Further, as in that dialogue the investigation respecting

the method was interwoven also with the exposition of the communicative impulse, and that not the common one whose object it is, from a feeling of vanity, to spread a falsely so-called and really empty knowledge, but an impulse which is to form the mind by means of ideas, so that every thing else is grounded upon the ethical as the base of the Socratic philosophy; so also here, the question regarding the possibility of satisfying that impulse is the subject on which the different forms are to display themselves, and submit to comparison, and that in such a manner that in this dialogue also the argument exclusively treats of the communication of the ethical, which is the very point that constitutes the meaning of the question as to the communicability of virtue. Nay, even in what concerns the outward conformation of the whole, a striking connection between the two manifests itself, inasmuch as in this dialogue also the form of a pitched contest arises agreeably to the then condition of things; only still more vividly set forth, as at that time the sophists were connected with the philosophers more nearly than the orators were, so that even the polemical turn of the Phædrus appears to be here continued and advanced. Moreover from this point the arrangement of the whole and of every particular in its place intelligibly manifests itself, and that movement which from almost every other point seems only circular, now assumes, on the contrary, the appearance of a beautiful and regular progression. For while by the comparison of the forms the deficiency of the sophistical methods is made all the more evident the further this dialogue advances, and exposes itself still more in examples; of how easily epideictic discourse. lends itself to seduce the hearers from the true point in

question, and how much even that is beautiful in appearance several persons together may throw off without ever understanding one another, and how on the contrary, the dialogistic form brings the true meaning of every one to light, traces out the point of distinction, and, provided only that it is not met on one side by total absence of all meaning, discovers the original error; co-ordinately with all this, by means of the continually renewed expositions of the subject from all sides, the causes are always and continually developing themselves, which must prevent the sophists from attaining a better method, and which made them well content to frame a worse. And these causes are the absence of the genuine philosophical impulse and the base enterprises and purposes for sake of which they chiefly exercised their art. And this harmony which must work its effect, like all that is beautiful in art, even though it is not recognised upon its own grounds, is certainly for the most part the source of the extreme delight which most readers take in this perfect work. Thus the first speech of Protagoras at once discovers his self-conceit and avarice_thus in the very first piece of dialogue, where he is content to oppose the reverse of discretion to knowledge also, it becomes evident, when virtue is to be divided, and consequently the distinction between the theoretical and practical eminently obtains, that he is totally destitute of all perception of it. If however this was a piece of dulness wantonly attributed by Plato to this man, it would in that case be sufficiently devoid of art. But it refers undoubtedly to something which Plato and his contemporaries had before their eyes, it matters not whether relatively to Protagoras or some one else. For that philosopher is here less himself than the representative

of his sect. In like manner the sequel further discovers that it fares no better with Protagoras in regard of the distinction between the pleasant and the good. And if, at the conclusion, when Socrates exposes to him the great contradiction in which he is involved, we learn that he has not reflected even in the slightest degree upon the conditions necessary for the instruction of others, or upon the notion of virtue in which he would instruct them; we have been meanwhile convinced how far removed he must continue from that method, the grand principle of which consists in bringing the nursling of philosophy to self-consciousness, and compelling him to independent thought. Such a method, then, has the dialogistic proved itself meanwhile to be; it is a method which brings all this to view, and applies those testing points, offering them for recognition or rejection, by overlooking which, Protagoras discovers himself to be a person who has never recognised moral truth, and consequently has never endeavoured to attain moral objects as the end of his philosophy. And it is the projection of these points and the trial whether the right can in any way be found which is the aim of the manifold artificial and dialectic turns which Socrates makes, which can only be falsely accounted as technicalities and sophisms in him, by one totally unacquainted with the Platonic method. On the contrary, if we compare them with the execution of the Phædrus, they are the very points which at once constitute a clear proof of Plato's advancement as a philosophical artist. For in the Phædrus we do indeed find that indirect process which forms as it were the essential character of all Plato's dialogues, particularly those not immediately constructive, we find it, I say, sufficiently predom

inant in the whole of the composition, but only very sparingly applied in the details; but in this we have it pursued no less in the details than in the whole generally, so that the Protagoras is upon the whole a more perfect attempt to imitate in writing the living and inspired language of the wise man. As also the dialectic maxims of deception and undeception delivered in the Phadrus, are put into practice with that laborious industry with which able pupils in an art, who have already made considerable progress, or rising masters in the same, seek every tolerable opportunity in their exercises for exhibiting any of the secrets they have discovered before the eyes of the skilful adept. But it is not only the practical dialectics, and the commendatory recognition of the genuine form of philosophical art which appears here further advanced than in the Phædrus, but also the scientific bearing is improved. The proposition indeed that virtue is the knowledge of what is to be done or chosen, and, consequently, that vice is only error, this proposition, however serious Plato may have been in making it, is not here put into a definite form and brought forward directly as his opinion, but, left as it is indefinite, it belongs rather to the web in which he entangles those who have not yet possessed themselves of the true idea of the good; which results in part from the evidently ironical treatment of the whole proposition, partly from the connection into which it is so easily placed with that utterly un-Socratic and un-Platonic view that the good is nothing but the pleasant, partly also from the resulting application of what in virtue might be knowledge and science to the arts of measuring and arithmetic. But at all events we here find some indirect notices tending towards what certainly must precede the