CHAPTER IV.

PLATO; HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES pages 171-213

I. New meaning given to systems of philosophy by the method of evolution, 171—Extravagances of which Plato’s philosophy seems to be made up, 172—The high reputation which it, nevertheless, continues to enjoy, 174—Distinction between speculative tendencies and the systematic form under which they are transmitted, 174—Genuineness of the Platonic Dialogues, 175—Their chronological order, 177—They embody the substance of Plato’s philosophical teaching, 177.

II. Wider application given to the dialectic method by Plato, 179—He goes back to the initial doubt of Socrates, 180—To what extent he shared in the religious reaction of his time, 181—He places demonstrative reasoning above divine inspiration, 182—His criticism of the Socratic ethics, 183—Exceptional character of the _Crito_ accounted for, 184—Traces of Sophistic influence, 185—General relation of Plato to the Sophists, 186—Egoistic hedonism of the _Protagoras_, 188.

III. Plato as an individual: his high descent, personal beauty, and artistic endowment, 189—His style is neither poetry nor eloquence nor conversation, but the expression of spontaneous thought, 190—The Platonic Socrates, 191—Plato carries the spirit of the Athenian aristocracy into philosophy, 192—Severity with which great reformers habitually view their own age, 192—Plato’s scornful opinion of the many, 194—His loss of faith in his own order, 195—Horror of despotism inspired by his intercourse with Dionysius, 195—His dissatisfaction with the constitution of Sparta, 196—His theory of political degeneration verified by the history of the Roman republic, 196—His exclusively Hellenic and aristocratic sympathies, 197—Invectives against the corrupting influence of the multitude and of their flatterers, 198—Denunciation of the popular law-courts, 199—Character of the successful pleader, 200—Importance to which he had risen in Plato’s time, 200—The professional teacher of rhetoric, 201.

IV. Value and comprehensiveness of Plato’s philosophy, 202—Combination of Sicilian and Italiote with Attic modes of thought, 203—Transition from the _Protagoras_ to the _Theaetêtus_, 205—‘Man is the measure of all things’: opinion and sensation, 206—Extension of the dialectic method to all existence, 207—The Heracleitean system true of phenomena, 208—Heracleitus and Parmenides in the _Cratylus_, 209—Tendency to fix on Identity and Difference as the ultimate elements of knowledge, 210—Combination of the mathematical method with the dialectic of Socrates, 210—Doctrine of _à priori_ cognition, 211—The idea of Sameness derived from introspection, 212—Tendency towards monism, 213.