Dialogues

said, thus offering the third libation to the saviour Zeus. Protarchus How? Socrates Philebus affirmed that pleasure was always and absolutely the good. Protarchus I understand; this third libation, Socrates, of which you spoke, meant a recapitulation. Socrates Yes, but listen to the sequel; convinced of what I have just been saying, and feeling indignant at the doctrine, which is maintained, not by Philebus only, but by thousands of others, I affirmed that mind was far better and far more excellent, as an element of human life, than pleasure. Protarchus True. Socrates But, suspecting that there were other things which were also better, I went on to say that if there was anything better than either, then I would claim the second place for mind over pleasure, and pleasure would lose the second place as well as the first. Protarchus You did. Socrates Nothing could be more satisfactorily shown than the unsatisfactory nature of both of them. Protarchus Very true. Socrates The claims both of pleasure and mind to be the absolute good have been entirely disproven in this argument, because they are both wanting in self-sufficiency and also in adequacy and perfection. Protarchus Most true. Socrates But, though they must both resign in favour of another, mind is ten thousand times nearer and more akin to the nature of the conqueror than pleasure. Protarchus Certainly. Socrates And, according to the judgment which has now been given, pleasure will rank fifth. Protarchus True. Socrates But not first; no, not even if all the oxen and horses and animals in the world by their pursuit of enjoyment proclaim her to be so;⁠—although the many trusting in them, as diviners trust in birds, determine that pleasures make up the good of life, and deem the lusts of animals to be better witnesses than the inspirations of divine philosophy. Protarchus And now, Socrates, we tell you that the truth of what you have been saying is approved by the judgment of all of us. Socrates And will you let me go? Protarchus There is a little which yet remains, and I will remind you of it, for I am sure that you will not be the first to go away from an argument.

Laws

Introduction and Analysis

The genuineness of the Laws is sufficiently proved (1) by more than twenty citations of them in the writings of Aristotle, who was residing at Athens during the last twenty years of the life of Plato, and who, having left it after his death (BC 347), returned thither twelve years later (BC 335); (2) by the allusion of Isocrates361⁠—writing 346 BC, a year after the death of Plato, and probably not more than three or four years after the composition of the Laws⁠—who speaks of the Laws and Republics written by philosophers (ὑπὸ τῶν σοφιστῶν); (3) by the reference (Athenaeus 226 A) of the comic poet Alexis, a younger contemporary of Plato (fl. BC 356⁠–⁠306), to the enactment about prices, which occurs in Laws XI 917 B following, viz. that the same goods should not be offered at two prices on the same day;362 (4) by the unanimous voice of later antiquity and the absence of any suspicion among ancient writers worth speaking of to the contrary; for it is not said of Philippus of Opus that he composed any part of the Laws, but only that he copied them out of the waxen tablets, and was thought by some to have written the “Epinomis” (Diog. Laert. III 25) That the longest and one of the best writings bearing the name of Plato should be a forgery, even if its genuineness were unsupported by external testimony, would be a singular phenomenon in ancient literature; and although the critical worth of the consensus of late writers is generally not to be compared with the express testimony of contemporaries, yet a somewhat greater value may be attributed to their consent in the present instance, because the admission of the Laws is combined with doubts about the “Epinomis,” a spurious writing, which is a kind of epilogue to the larger work probably of a much later date. This shows that the reception of the Laws was not altogether undiscriminating.

The suspicion which has attached to the Laws of Plato in the judgment of some modern writers appears to rest partly (1) on differences in the style and form of the work, and (2) on differences of thought and opinion which they observe in them. Their suspicion is increased by the fact that these differences are accompanied by resemblances as striking to passages in other Platonic writings. They are sensible of a want of point in the dialogue and a general inferiority in the ideas, plan, manners, and style. They miss the poetical flow, the dramatic verisimilitude, the life and variety of the characters, the dialectic subtlety, the Attic purity, the luminous order, the exquisite urbanity; instead of which they find tautology, obscurity, self-sufficiency, sermonizing, rhetorical declamation, pedantry, egotism, uncouth forms of sentences, and peculiarities in the use of words and idioms. They are unable to discover any unity in the patched, irregular structure. The speculative element both in government and education is superseded by a narrow economical or religious vein. The grace and cheerfulness of Athenian life have disappeared; and a spirit of moroseness and religious intolerance has taken their place. The charm of youth is no longer there; the mannerism of age makes itself unpleasantly felt. The connection is often imperfect; and there is a want of arrangement, exhibited especially in the enumeration of the laws towards the end of the work. The Laws are full of flaws and repetitions. The Greek is in places very ungrammatical and intractable. A cynical levity is displayed in some passages, and a tone of disappointment and lamentation over human things in others. The critics seem also to observe in them bad imitations of thoughts which are better expressed in Plato’s other