and diversified.

Under these two points of view, I trust that the copious analysis and commentary bestowed upon them in the present work will not be considered as unnecessarily lengthened. I maintain, full and undiminished, the catalogue of Plato’s works as it was inherited from antiquity and recognised by all critics before the commencement of the present century. Yet since several subsequent critics have contested the canon, and set aside as spurious many of the dialogues contained in it, — I have devoted a chapter to this question, and to the vindication of the views on which I have proceeded.

The title of these volumes will sufficiently indicate that I intend to describe, as far as evidence permits, the condition of Hellenic philosophy at Athens during the half century immediately following the death of Sokrates in 399 B.C. My first two chapters do indeed furnish a brief sketch of Pre-Sokratic philosophy: but I profess to take my departure from Sokrates himself, and these chapters are inserted mainly in order that the theories by which he found himself surrounded may not be altogether unknown. Both here, and in the sixty-ninth chapter of my History, I have done my best to throw light on the impressive and eccentric personality of Sokrates: a character original and unique, to whose peculiar mode of working on other minds I scarcely know a parallel in history. He was the generator, indirectly and through others, of a new and abundant crop of compositions — the “Sokratic dialogues”: composed by many different authors, among whom Plato stands out as unquestionable coryphæus, yet amidst other names well deserving respectful mention as seconds, companions, or opponents.

It is these Sokratic dialogues, and the various companions of Sokrates from whom they proceeded, that the present work is intended to exhibit. They form the dramatic manifestation of Hellenic philosophy — as contrasted with the formal and systematising, afterwards prominent in Aristotle.

But the dialogue is a process containing commonly a large intermixture, often a preponderance, of the negative vein: which was more abundant and powerful in Sokrates than in any one. In discussing the Platonic dialogues, I have brought this negative vein into the foreground. It reposes upon a view of the function and value of philosophy which is less dwelt upon than it ought to be, and for which I here briefly prepare the reader.

Philosophy is, or aims at becoming, reasoned truth: an aggregate of matters believed or disbelieved after conscious process of examination gone through by the mind, and capable of being explained to others: the beliefs being either primary, knowingly assumed as self-evident — or conclusions resting upon them, after comparison of all relevant reasons favourable and unfavourable. “Philosophia” (in the words of Cicero), “ex rationum collatione consistit.” This is not the form in which beliefs or disbeliefs exist with ordinary minds: there has been no conscious examination — there is no capacity of explaining to others — there is no distinct setting out of primary truths assumed — nor have any pains been taken to look out for the relevant reasons on both sides, and weigh them impartially. Yet the beliefs nevertheless exist as established facts generated by traditional or other authority. They are sincere and often earnest, governing men’s declarations and conduct. They represent a cause in which sentence has been pronounced, or a rule made absolute, without having previously heard the pleadings.1