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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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his powers of argument , said , 'I consider myself not to be in other respects a bad man , and least of all an envious one . I have already said to many persons that I admire you above all whom I have met , especially above those of your own age ; and I should not be surprised if you became one of those who are celebrated for their wisdom . We will pursue the discussion which you suggest another time ; but
nowother business calls me away / And thus the conversation terminated . It is the object of these papers riot to explain or criticise Plato , but to allow him to speak for himself . It will riot * therefore , be attempted to suggest to the reader any judgment concerning the truth or value of any of the opinions vvhich are thrdvvri out in the * abdVe dialogue . Some of them are so far from being Plato ' s own opinions * that the tendency of his mind seems to be decidedly adverse to them . For instance , the principle of utility , —the doctrine that all things are good or evil , by virtue solely of the pleasure or the pain which they produce , —is as
broadly stated , and as emphatically maintained against Protagoras by Socrates , in the dialogue , as it ever was by Epicurus or Bentham . And yet , the general tone of Plato ' s speculations seems rather to be favourable to the opinion that certain qualities of mind are good or evil in themselves , independently of all considerations of pleasure or pain . That such was the predominant tendency of his mind is , however , all that can be affirmed ; it is doubtful whether he had adopted , on the subject of the original foundation of virtue , any fixed creed .
But we have already remarked , that when the subject-matter of the discussion is the nature and properties of khowledge iri the abstract , the opinions of Plato seem never to vary , but to proceed from a mind completely made up . And ot this the above dialogue is an exemplification . For , whatever are the particular arguments used as media of proof , there appears throughout the dialogue , as there docs in the other works of Plato , a distinct aim towards this one point , the inseparableness , or rather absolute identity , of knowledge and virtue : an attempt to establish , that no evil is ever done ( as he expresses it both in this dialogue and elsewhere ) voluntarily ; but always involuntarily , from
want of knowledge , from ignorance of good and evil ; that scientific instruction is the source of all that is most desirable for man ; that whoever had knowledge to see what was good , would certainly do it ; that morals are but a branch of intelligence . It may with some certainty be affirmed that this was Plato ' s deliberate and serious creed .
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Beautiful Things of Old ! wh y are ye gone for ever Out of the earth ? Oh ! why ? Dryad and Oread , and ye , Nereids blue ! Whos « presence woods and hills and sen-rocks knew—Ye ' ve pass'd from Faith's dim eye , And , save by poet ' s lip , your names are honour ed never .
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NYMPHS .
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Nymphs . £ 11
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1834, page 211, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2631/page/55/
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