BOOKS.

MR. GROTE'S PLATO.* IT is not surprising that the historian of Greece should have selected the writings of Plato as a subject for special treatment.

For, whether those writings be regarded as the work of perhaps the most original and commanding genius that ever Greece pro- duced,.or as a part of the result of the extraordinary influence exercised by Socrates upon his age and country, no subject could easily be more attractive. The present volumes, however, do not limit themselves to Plato. They contain, in addition to the fullest treatment of the works of Plato, a sketch—and there are not materials for anything more—of the history of Greek philosophy before Socrates. They treat also of Xenophon and other less known followers of Socrates, and the preface gives hope of a new work, of which Aristotle will be the principal character, to com- plete the history of Hellenic philosophy down to the end of the fourth century before Christ.

Nevertheless the work before us may be regarded as in some sense an elaboration of the chapter upon the life of Socrates in the History of Greece, as well as a justification of the views therein propounded.

Mr. Grote there put forward two opinions about Socrates, which differ considerably from those usually entertained. The first was that the Sophists have been very much misrepresented, and by no means deserve the ill name given them by Plato ; that they were not bad men and corruptors of morality, or adepts in what we call sophistical reasoning ; and that Socrates himself, as one who dealt with the very same kind of subjects as the professed Sophists, was to all intents and purposes a member of the class. We have indeed no means of forming a judgment of the Sophists except through the representations of their great enemy, Plato, and of the danger of judging any one by the statements of an opponent Mr. Grote gives a curious and instructive example in the first volume of his present work. Referring to a writer upein Plato who speaks of Schleiermacher as "a Sophist who delights in intentional un- truthfulness, who knows quite well how the case stands, but takes pains to make it appear in another light," he says :—

"We know well, from other and independent evidence, what &bleier- macher really was,—that hp was not only outs of the most accomplished scholars, but on of the ;twist liberal and estimable men of his age. But how different would be our appreciation if we had no other evidence to judge by except the diets of his opponents, and even distinguished opponents like Wermanst ! If there be any point clear in the history of philosophy,-it is the uncertainty of all judgments respecting writers and thinkers founded npoit ...the mere allegations of opponents. Yet the Athenian.Sephists, respe4ing Whom we have no independent evidence

• (except the .general -fact that they had a number of approvers and adniirers), are depicted confidently by the Platonic critics in the darkest colours, upon the evidence of their bitter opponent, Plato, and in colours darker than even his evidence warrants."

The argument urged by Mr. Grote in the History of Greece, and repeated here, that the Sophists enjoyed the confidence of the higher classes in Athens, and were eagerly sought after and liberally paid for their instructions, is undoubtedly valid against any extreme view of their character and influence ; but it would

be too much to infer that there was not a broad distinction between them and Socrates, or that Plato had no ground for his hostility. The Sophists were simply professional teachers of rhetoric, lecturers upon literature, philosophy, and politics, men who undertook to prepare youths for entrance upon public life, and who had quali- fied themselves for their duties by study and traveL It would be absurd to suppose that they announced their willingness to teach young men how to reason speciou.sly, and carry a bad cause against a good one ; nor did they even place this end before their own minds as that towards which their efforts were to be directed. But that conviction, not truth, is the end of oratory, may be admitted by every one without any immoral intention. This fact the Sophists would naturally make prominent in their instructions ; and independently of any evidence, it would be probable that their teaching tended to cultivate rhetorical readiness, argumentative dexterity, and other strong qualities, rather than profound thought and really just views of men and things. To say this is to bring no charge against the Sophists. It is merely to say that they undertook a certain kind of work not in itself

• Plato, and the other Companions of Socrates. By George Grote. London: John I Murray 180.

discreditable, and there can be no doubt that they perf4 to ably. But Socrates, and Plato after him, saw that the acquirs thus gained were merely superficial, and without any solid '4 in facts and things. They heard such words as "Truth," "Justice,' "The Holy," "The Honourable," bandied about from one speaker to another, and they doubted whether any speaker had any idea of the meaning of these words, except in their temporary and acci- dental relation to particular persons and conditions. If not Socrates, at all events Plato felt deeply persuaded that there is an absolute justice and an absolute truth distinct from the opinions of men, and to show this, we believe, was the whole tendency both of the Socratic and Platonic dialectic. In this respect therefore Plato had some just ground for his opposition to the Sophists, and his master stands apart from them as one having very different and much higher aims. It is true that Socrates was a teacher of youth, but he followed that calling not as a profession, but as a duty imposed upon him by divine authority. He made nothing by his instructions, gave no lectures, established, or at least sought to establish, no school. His position was always independent, he imparted instruction by talking, and talked whenever he could find a listener. The young men loved to exercise their wits in answering his questions ; the conservative middle-aged men dreaded the power of his logic ; some regarded him as half-buffoon, half-impostor ; a few treasured up the rare wisdom which fell from his lips. The position of the Sophists is paralleled everywhere—in this country partly by our University professors, partly by our public lecturers—but that of Socrates is perfectly unique. Even Greece, with its free mode of life, so much of it passed in the open air, supplied no similar case. That a citizen, not educated with any special view to the pursuit of philosophy, should have made it the business of life to impart and to seek wisdom by questioning, and that he should have pursued his system of cross-examination at all times, and in all places, and with all manner of persons ; that he should have done this with a high moral purpose, and in the strong conviction of a divine commission, and so effectually as to become a martyr to the truth, and leave behind him an everlasting fame—this is what gives to the life of Socrates its profound interest and its exceptional character.

The other opinion with which Mr. Grote's name is identified is that the teaching of Socrates as almost entirely negative. This opinion proceeds upon a thorough acquaintance with the sources of information left to us, and cannot well be altogether erroneous.

What we differ from in Into is Mr. Grote's opinion as to the drift of

the negative teaching. There is negative teaching with a strongly positive drift, and negative teaching purely destructive. It was undoubtedly a part, and a very important part, of the task of Socrates to make men painfully conscious how little they

really understood the meaning of the words most frequently in their mouths,—to show them that they spoke of just men, just measures, and so forth, without knowing anything about

the real thing by which men and measures become just. And this process of convincing people that they were really ignorant of those things which they fancied they knew, even when it was followed for the time being by a purely negative result, was highly useful and necessary. It is difficult for us in this stage of thought to recall the time when abstract terms first became subjects of reflection and discussion. But we cannot do justice to Socrates and Plato without remember- ing that the subjects of the Platonic dialogues had never before been brought under any kind of analytical treatment, and had the service rendered by Socrates been merely the intellectual one of disengaging the abstract term from the particular cases to which it was applied in common speech, and exciting men's minds to look for definitions sufficiently general to embrace all single examples, it would still have been invaluable. We do not think, however, that the object of either Plato or Socrates was thus simply intellectual, much less that it was entirely negative. What says the great Athenian himself ?—

" Even if you Dikasts acquit me, I shall not alter my course. I shall continue, as long as I hold life and strength, to exhort and interrogate in my usual strain, telling every one whom I meet,—' You, a citizen of the great and intelligent Athens, are you not ashamed of busying yourself to procure wealth, reputation, and glory, in the greatest possible quan- tity, while you take neither thought nor pains about truth, or wisdom, or the fullest measure of goodness for your mind ?' If any one denies the Charge, and professes that he does take thought for those objects, I shall not let him off without questioning, cross-examining, and expos- ing him. And if he appears to me to affirm that he is virtuous without being no in reality, I shall reproach him for caring least about the greater matter, and most about the smaller."

Those are the grand, the almost sublime, words of the Apology as

Mr. Grote, and they are regarded by him as convey- ntically the sense of what was spoken by Socrates.

can be no question that Mr. Grote is quite right in regard- the Dialogues of Search as the true exponents, so far as late is concerned, of the Socratic dialectic. The cosmical specu- lations of the Timceus, the political theories of the Republic, must be set down as purely Platonic. So far as Plato has given us Socrates at all, we must look for his image in those compositions which discuss the ethical and personal, rather than the physical or political side of life. Even these dialogues cannot of course be accepted without qualification as furnishing a picture of the real Socrates. But we do not doubt that they exhibit pretty faithfully one phase (and that the most likely to give offence) of the man- ner of conversation which he followed. The question therefore, is important, whether those dialogues are purely negative in their tendency or not. Their main work is very far indeed from one of destruction, and even in the least satisfactory dialogues we find a positive aim underlying the destructive process. Take, for exam- ple, the Euthyphron or the Minos. The subject of the one is holiness, the subject of the other is law. Neither word is defined, but the objectin both dialogues is the same, namely, to separate the general idea from all connection with the finite and conditional, to show that that is not holiness which seems so to one man or another, nor that law which is enacted by the State, or which is so regarded at Athens or in Persia ; but that holiness and law are things real and eternal, and independent of the mutations of human opinion. Even in the Charmides, where temperance is the subject discussed, and where the result seems to be only confusion, there is still this positive principle maintained, that temperance is a good, and that whether it can be defined or not the man who has it is blessed. This indeed is the true conclusion of the argument, and it seems as though Socrates wished to ridicule the pretensions of the Sophists, and to teach that to possess a virtue is better than to discuss it. Is that a negative result? It should be remarked, however, that so far as these dialogues are Socratic, they probably exaggeratethe assump- tion of intellectual humility, while so far as they are Platonic they are preparatory to a farther development of the subject discussed. Mr. Grote indeed will not permit us to look forward from those merely suggestive compositions to the later dogmatic ones, nor does he recognize any connection between the two ; but here we cannot concur with him. Without denying that the German critics have run into extravagance in their attempts to find an entirely harmonious system of philosophy throughout the works of Plato, and to arrange the dialogues accordingly, rejecting as spurious such as refused to adapt themselves to their pre-con- - ceived ideas, we think Plato wrote from the first with a view to a positive system, though no doubt it was only in the course of time that that system was fully developed.

Thus much we have said merely to modify what we think ex- cessive in Mr. Grote's statements. In much of what he says we heartily concur. His criticisms on the dialogues are always valuable ; his analysis is exact, and sufficient to enable the reader to form his own opinion. In regard to the genuineness of the works commonly ascribed to Plato Mr. Grote is conservative, differing in this respect from the German critics. His arguments upon this point are copious and strong.

We have to thank Mr. Grote for a most valuable contribution to the study of Plato—valuable to the student, and full of interest, we think, for the general reader. It is to us surprising that works so famous, so abounding in eloquence and poetry, so lofty in their moral tone, so majestic in their march of thought, so varied and so vivid in their pictures of Grecian life, have not attracted more attention, in some English form, from readers unacquainted with the original. For our part, we feel no scholar's jealousy which would make us wish to see Plato closed from profane eyes. With this work of Mr. Grote's, and other aids which have recently been given to the world, we would rather look forward to a time, we hope not far distant, when it shall be thought as little pedantic to quote Plato as Shakespeare.