The reasoning part is far inferior, sometimes weak, sometimes false, too obscure, too abstracted, to convince us of any thing; yet with a mixture of good sense and with many fine observations. The fabulous account of a future state is too particular and too fantastic an invention for Socrates to dwell upon at such a time, and has less decorum and propriety in it than the other parts of the dialogue.

Socrates attempts in this dialogue to prove that true philosophy is but a continual preparation for death; its daily study and practice being to wean and separate the body from the soul, whose pursuit of truth is perpetually stopped and impeded by the numerous avocations, the little pleasures, pains, and necessities of its companion. That, as death is but a transition from its opposite, life, (in the same manner as heat is from cold, weakness from strength, and all things, both in the natural and in the moral world, from their contraries,) so life is only a transition from death; whence he would infer the probability of a metempsychosis. That, such propositions, as every one assents to at first, being self-evident, and no one giving any account how such parts of knowledge, on which the rest are founded, were originally conveyed to our mind, there must have been a pre-existent state, in which the soul was acquainted with these truths, which she recollects and assents to on their recurring to her in this life. That, as truth is eternal and immutable, and not visible to our senses, but to the soul alone; and as the empire, which she exercises over the body, bears a resemblance to the power of the Divinity, it is probable that she, like her object, is everlasting and unchangeable, and, like the office she bears, something divine. That, it cannot be, as some have thought, merely a harmony resulting from a disposition of parts in the body, since it directs, commands, and restrains the functions of that very body. That, the soul, being the cause of life to the body, can never itself be susceptible of death; and that, there will be a state of rewards and punishments, the scene of which he takes pains in describing, though he concludes, that no man can tell exactly where or what it shall be.

Dacier's superstition and folly are so great in his notes on the Phædo, that they are not worth dwelling upon.

THE RIVALS.

THE scene lies in the school of Dionysius the grammarian, who was Plato's own master. The design is to show, that philosophy consists not in ostentation, nor in that insight (which the sophists affected) into a variety of the inferior parts of science, but in the knowledge of one's self, and in a sagacity in discovering the characters and dispositions of mankind, and of correcting and of modelling their minds to their own advantage.

The dialogue is excellent, but too short for such a subject. The interlocutors are not named, nor is there any mark of the time when it happened.

NOTE ON THE GREEK TEXT.

P. 135. The price of a slave skilled in carpenter's work, was five or six minæ, about £19 7s. 6d. ; of an architect, 10,000 drachmæ, i. e. above £322 17s.

THE

LACHES.

persons in this dialogue are men of distinguished rank and figure in the state of Athens.

1. Lysimachus, son to the famous Aristides, surnamed The Just. 2. Melesias, son to that Thucydides who was the great rival of Pericles in the administration.

3. Nicias, so often the general in the Peloponnesian war, celebrated for his goodness, for his conduct, and for his success, till the fatal expedition to Syracuse, in which he perished.

4. Laches, son of Melanopus of the district Axone, and tribe Cecropis, commander of the fleet sent to the assistance of the Leontines in Sicily, Ol. 88, 2, in which expedition he defeated the Locrians, reduced Messene, Mylæ, and other places, and after his recall seems to have been prosecuted by Cleon for corruption in

this very year; whence it appears, that he was in the battle of Delium.

}

Two youths under twenty years of age.

5. Thucydides, son to Melesias.
6. Aristides, son to Lysimachus.
7. Socrates, then in his forty-seventh year.

The two first of these persons, being then very ancient, and probably about seventy years of age, and sensible of that defect in their own education, which had caused them to lead their lives in an obscurity unworthy the sons of such renowned fathers, were the more solicitous on account of their own sons, who were now almost of an age to enter into the world. They therefore invite Nicias and Laches, men of distinguished abilities and bravery, but some years younger than themselves, to a conference on that subject; and after having been spectators together of the feats of arms exhibited by Stesilaus, a professed master in the exercise of all weapons, they enter into conversation. Socrates, who happened to be present, is introduced by Laches to Lysimachus, as a person worthy to bear a part in their consultation. The first question is occasioned by the spectacle which they had just beheld, namely, "whether the management of arms be an exercise fit to be learned by young men of quality?" Nicias is desired first to deliver his opinion, which is, that it may give grace and agility to their persons, and courage and confidence to their minds; that it may make them more terrible to their enemies in battle, and more useful to their friends; and at the same time may inspire them with a laudable ambition to attain the higher and more noble parts of military knowledge. Laches has a direct contrary opinion of it: he argues from his own experience, that he never knew a man, who valued himself upon this art, that had distinguished himself in the war; that the Lacedæmonians, who valued and cultivated military discipline beyond all others, gave no encouragement to these masters of defence; that, to excel in it, only served to make a coward more assuming and impudent, and to expose a brave man to envy and calumny, by making any little failing or oversight more conspicuous in him.

Socrates is then prevailed upon to decide the difference, who artfully turns the question of much greater importance for a young man of spirit to know, namely, "what is valour, and how it is distinguished from a brutal and unmeaning fierceness." By interrogating Laches and Nicias, he shows, that such as had the highest reputation for courage in practice, were often very deficient in the theory; and yet none can communicate a virtue he possesses, without he has himself a clear idea of it. He proves, that valour must have good sense for its basis; that it consists in the knowledge of what is and what is not to be feared; and that, consequently, we must first distinguish between real good and evil, and that it is closely connected with the other virtues, namely,

justice, temperance, and piety, nor can it ever subsist without them. The scope of this fine dialogue is to show, that philosophy is the school of true bravery.

The time of this dialogue is not long after the defeat of the Athenians at Delium, Ol. 89, 1, in which action Socrates had behaved with great spirit, and thence recommended himself to the friendship of Laches.

HIPPARCHUS.

THE intention of the dialogue is to show, that all mankind in their actions equally tend to some imagined good, but are commonly mistaken in the nature of it; and that nothing can properly be called gain which, when attained, is not a real good. The time of the dialogue is no where marked.

PHILEBUS.

THIS dialogue is too remarkable to be passed over slightly: we shall therefore annex the principal heads of it. The question is, "What is the supreme good of mankind?" and, "whether pleasure or wisdom have the better pretension to it?"

The persons are, Protarchus, the son of Callias, who supports the cause of pleasure, and Socrates, who opposes it: Philebus, who had begun the dispute, but was grown weary of it, and many others of the Athenian youth, are present at the conversation. The time of it is no where marked. The end of the dialogue is supposed to be lost.

P. 12. The name of pleasure, variously applied, to the joys of intemperance and folly, and to the satisfaction arising from wisdom, and from the command of our passions.

Though of unlike, and even of opposite natures, they agree so far, as they are all pleasures alike; as black and white, though contrary the one to the other, are comprehended under the general head of colours.

Though included under one name, if some are contrary and of opposite natures to others, they cannot both be good alike.

P. 14. Vulgar inquiry, how it is possible for many to be one, and one many, laid aside by consent as childish. Obscure question on our abstracted idea of unity.

P. 15. The vanity and disputatious humours of a young man, who has newly tasted of philosophy and has got hold of a puzzling question, are well described.

Every subject of our conversation has in it a mixture of the infinite and of the finite.

P. 16. The true logician will, as the ancients prescribed, first discover some single and general idea, and then proceed to two or three subordinate to it, which he will again subdivide into their several classes, which will form, as it were, a medium beneath finite and infinite.

Example in the alphabet. The human voice is one idea, but susceptible of a variety of modulations, and to be diversified even to infinity: to know that it is one, and to know that it is infinite, are neither of them knowledge; but there can be no knowledge without them.

When we first attain to the unity of things, we must descend from number to infinity, if we would know any thing: and when we first perceive their infinity, we must ascend through number to unity. Thus the first inventor of letters remarking the endless variety of sounds, discovered a certain number of vowels, distinguished others of a different power, called consonants, some of which were mutes, and others liquids, and to the whole combination of elements he gave the form and name of an alphabet.

P. 20. The good, which constitutes happiness, must be in itself sufficient and perfect, the aim and end of all human crea

tures.

A life of mere pleasure considered by itself, which, if pleasure only be that good, must need no mixture nor addition.

If we had no memory nor reflection, we could have no enjoyment of past pleasure, nor hope of future, and scarcely any perception of the present, which would be much like the life of an oyster: on the other hand, a life of thought and reflection, without any sense of pleasure or of pain, seems no desirable state. Neither contemplation therefore nor pleasure are the good we seek after, but probably a life composed of both.

P. 22. Whether the happiness of this mixed state is the result of pleasure, or rather of wisdom, and which contributes most to it?

P. 23. Division of all existence into the infinite, the limited,'

Or rather, that which limits and gives bounds, such as figure, which gives bounds to extension; as time, which limits duration, &c.