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NOTES ON SOME OF THE MORE POPULAR DIALOGUES OF PLATO.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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No . I . —The Protagoras .
Consideking the almost boundless reputation of the writings of Plato , not only among scholars , but ( upon their authority ) among nearly all who have any tincture of letters , it is a remarkable fact , that of the great writers of antiquity , there is scarcely one who , in this country at least , is not merely so little understood , but so little read . Our two great * seats of learning , ' of which no real lover of learning can ever speak but in terms of indignant disgust , bestow attention upon the
various branches of classical acquirement in exactly the reverse order to that which would be observed by persons who valued the ancient authors for what is valuable in them : namely , upon the mere niceties of the language ^ rsJ ; next , upon a few of the poets ; next , ( but at a great distance , ) some of the historians ; next , ( but at a still greater interval , ) the
orators ; last of all , and just above nothing , the philosophers . An English bookseller , by the aid of a German scholar , recently produced an excellent edition of Plato ; the want of sale for which , by the way , is said to have been one of the causes of his insolvency . But , with the exception of the two dialogues edited by Dr . Routh , we are aware of nothing to facilitate the study of the most gifted of Greek writers , which has
ever emanated from either of the impostor-universities of England ; and of the young men who have obtained university honours during the last ten years , we are much misinformed if there be six who had even looked into his writings . If such be the neglect of the best parts of classical learning among those whose special vocation and whose positive duty it is to cultivate them , what can be expected from others ? Among those who are engaged in the incessant struggle which , in this country , constitutes more and more the business of active life—every man ' s time and thoughts being wholly absorbed in the endeavour to rise , or in the endeavour not
to fall , in running after riches , or in running away from bankruptcy—the tranquil pursuit not only of classical , but of any literature deserving the name , is almost at an end . The consequence is , that there are , probably , in this kingdom , not so many as a hundred persons who ever have read Plato , and not so many as twenty who ever do . Among those , again , who , in the present or in former ages , have been more or less acquainted with the productions of the master-mind of antiquity , extremely conflicting and extremely vague notions have been
entertained concerning the nature of his opinions , and the scope or purpose of Ins works . It is , in truth , extremely difficult to ascertain what were , and were not , Plato ' s own opinions . We have all heard of Platonists , and the Platonic philosophy ; but though , out of detached passages of his writings , philosophic systems have been subsequently manufactured , it is to this day a problem whether Plato had a philosophy : if he had , it certainly was
not the philosophy of those who have called themselves Platonists . This uncertainty arises from a variety of causes . In the first place , the author never speaks in his own person , but affects to be the mere narrator of conversations staled to have taken place between other and known individuals . When , too , the dialogue is of a controversial kind , as is almost always the case , the interlocutor to whom the victory is invariably
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No . 86 . H
Notes On Some Of The More Popular Dialogues Of Plato.
NOTES ON SOME OF THE MORE POPULAR DIALOGUES OF PLATO .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1834, page 89, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2630/page/1/
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