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The Laws, the longest of Plato’s works, seems to have been composed
by him in the latest years of his long life, and was probably not published
till after his death. It bears traces of its later origin in the less artful
juncture of its parts, in the absence of humour, in the greater overloading
of details, in the less graphic and appropriate characterisation of the
speakers. These speakers are three—an Athenian, a Cretan, and a Spartan. A
new colony is to be led forth from Crete, and the Cretan takes advice of the
others as to the ordering of the new commonwealth. We are no longer, as in
The Republic, in an ideal world, a city coming down from, or set in,
the heavens. There is no longer a perfect community; nor are philosophers to
be its kings. Laws more or less similar to those of Sparta fill about half
the book. But the old spirit of obedience and self-sacrifice and community
is not forgotten; and on all men and women, noble and humble alike, the duty
is cast, to bear in common the common burden of life.
Thus, somewhat in sadness and decay, yet with a dignity and moral grandeur
not unworthy of his life’s high argument, the great procession of the Ideal
Philosopher’s dialogues closes.
If we attempt now, by way of appendix to this very inadequate summary of the
dialogues, to give in brief review some account of the main doctrines of
Plato, as they may be gathered from a general view of them, we are at once
met by difficulties many and serious. In the case of a genius such as
Plato’s, at once ironical, dramatic, and allegorical, we cannot be
absolutely certain that in any given passage Plato is expressing, at all
events adequately and completely, his own personal views, even at the
particular stage of his own mental development then represented. And when we
add to this that in a long life of unceasing intellectual development, Plato
inevitably grew out of much that once satisfied him, and attained not
infrequently to new points of view even of doctrines or conceptions which
remained essentially unchanged, a Platonic dogma in the strict sense must
clearly not be expected. One may, however, attempt in rough outline to
summarise the main tendencies of his thought, without professing to
represent its settled and authenticated results.
A History of Greek Philosophy /
PLATO
