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absurdities of others , pointing out the proper course for inquiry , and the spirit in which it should be conducted , and throwing out a variety of ideaa of his own , of the value of which lie was not quite certain , and wliich he left to the appreciation of any subsequent inquirer competent to sit in judgment upon them . With respect to many of his most interesting speculations , that inquirer is yet to come ; so far have the penetration and sagacity of the man of genius outstripped the slow and halting march of positive science .
Of a writer of this character it is , of course , impossible to convey any notion by an enumeration of his tenets or a compendium of his philosophy , since he has nothing which can be called , with any assurance , tenets or a philosophy . Unhappily , the only complete translation which exists in our own language is lull of faults , and often with difficulty understood even by those who can read the original . * In the absence of the only tolerable substitute for a knowledge of the author
himself , some conception , however distant and imperfect , of what he is , may , perhaps , be derived from a very full abstract of some of the more interesting of his dialogues . It is in this hope that the following notes , made originally for the . writer ' s personal satisfaction in the course of his private studies , shown , after the lapse of years , to one or two friends who were unacquainted with the writings of Plato , and unexpectedly found to be interesting to them , are now laid before a wider circle of readers . In the execution they have no pretension to any other merit
than that of fidelity . Of the dramatic excellencies of the dialogues ( which the finest specimens of the higher comedy have hardly equalled , and certainly not surpassed ) little could be preserved in these sketches compatibly with any degree of abridgement . But the more important and interesting of the argumentative portions of each dialogue are very little curtailed , and in other respects approach as near to literal translations as the writer , consistently with producing such English as could be expected to be understood , knew how to make them .
The dialogue with which it is proposed to commence is the Protagoras ; supposed to be one of the earlier productions of the author . There is no > work of Plato which more obviously appears to have been intended rather as an exercise in the art of investigating truth , than to inculcate any particular set of philosophical opinions . Many ingenious
and some profound thoughts are , indeed , thrown out in the course of the discussion . But even if we had to form our judgment of this dialogue without the light thrown upon it by the other works of Plato , we should be compelled to draw one of two conclusions ; either that the author had not yet made up liis opinions on the topics treated in the dialogue * or that he did not think this a proper place for unfolding them .
Protagoras , who along with Socrates is the chief interlocutor in the dialogue , was one of the people called Sopliists ; and seems to have been the first who avowedly took the title . Many of Plato ' s writings are directly aimed against the Sophists ; and those writings have been the chief cause why , in modern times , a designation , which originally meant i a teacher of wisdom , ' has become significative of quibbling and
* The admirable translation by M . Coubiu will , when completed , answer the purpose fot all to whom the French language is sufficiently familiar . The reader , however , must be mindful to judge of Plato by M . Couwu ' a translations of the dialogue ? , * nd not by M . Coutia ' e preface * to them .
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Plato ' s Dialogues ; the Protagoras . 91
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1834, page 91, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2630/page/3/
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