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the subtlety of his language, as to be absolutely unintelligible, except to a mind long versed in the refinements of metaphysics. Such theories as those in the Phædo could never have convinced any one of the soul's immortality, unless he had been previously prepared to believe it; nor coming, as they are supposed to have done, from the lips of Socrates in his dying hour, could they have

k As a specimen of unmeaning subtlety, it may be sufficient to point out that exquisite verbal trifling towards the end of the treatise, respecting the archetype of even and odd, and its application to the question of the soul's immortality, σxótei dè tegì tñs tfiádos, p. 99. The reader is absolutely bewildered for some time, till at length he is conducted to the conclusion-that as the essence of even does not partake of the contrary essence odd, so the soul which brings life cannot partake of the contrary essence death, and must consequently be immortal. If we had not known the treatise to be a serious inquiry upon a serious occasion, we might have been tempted to think, from the winding up of the dialogue, that the writer intended to ridicule such absurdities; Τί οὖν ; τὸ μὴ δεχόμενον τὴν τοῦ ἀρτίου ἰδέαν τί νῦν δὴ ὠνομάζομεν ; ̓Ανάρτιον, ἔφη. Τὸ δὲ δίκαιον μὴ δεχόμενον καὶ ὃ ἂν μουσικὸν μὴ δέχηται; Αμουσον, ἔφη, τὸ δὲ ἄδικον. Εἶεν· ὃ δ ̓ ἂν θάνατον μὴ δέχηται, τί καλοῦ- μεν ; ̓Αθάνατον, ἔφη. Οὐκοῦν ἡ ψυχὴ οὐ δέχεται θάνατον ; Οὔ. ̓Αθάνατον ἄρα ἡ ψυχή. ̓Αθάνατον. Εἶεν, ἔφη· τοῦτο μὲν δὴ ΑΠΟΔΕΔΕΙΧΘΑΙ φῶμεν ; p. 103. Vide the whole argument, from p. 90-105.

been his only consolation. If the argument, grounded upon the compound nature of man', and the immateriality of the soul, be brought forward in opposition to such a view of the subject, it may be asked, was the philosopher so well acquainted, or are we ourselves, with all our additional knowledge, so well acquainted with the laws and properties of matter, as to be able to pronounce that the Being who (" even according to Plato's creed) made the universe out of nothing, is limited in power, and that he could not, if he would, impart thought and intelligence to a material substance? Or have we so clear a notion of spirit, or so perfect an insight into the essential qualities of spirit, as to be satisfied, that leaving the revealed will of the Deity out of the consideration, it is in itself incapable of annihilation?

Yet, however unsatisfactory such arguments may be, (as arguments of natural rea

1 The soul is divine, immortal, intelligent, uncompounded, indissoluble: the body human, mortal, without intelligence, concrete, dissoluble. Plato, Phædo, p. 50.

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Appendix, note B.

son on the subject ever must be ",) shall we assent at once to the opinion of bishop Warburton, that neither Plato nor any one of the philosophers (Socrates alone excepted) who

inculcated the notion of a future state themselves believed in it? By what process are we to separate his real belief from his constant and positive assertions? Those declarations of his on which so much stress has been laid, that it was lawful to deceive for the public good, were evidently intended to be

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n Warburton's Divine Legation, book iii. sect. 2. vol. ii. edit. 1788. p. 11. 26. The observations of Warburton respecting the doctrines of the ancient philosophers, varying with the subject matter which they embraced, whether legislation or philosophy, are refined and ingenious; but they are neither universally true, nor are the conclusions he would deduce from them to be trusted. "I have ob"served," says he, "that those sects which joined legis"lation to philosophy, as the Pythagoreans, Platonists, Peripatetics, and Stoics, always professed the belief of "a future state of rewards and punishments; while those "who simply philosophized, as the Cyrenaic, the Cynic, "&c. publicly professed the contrary." Aristotle was full as much a legislative philosopher as Plato, and far more practical; and yet there is no one passage in the whole of his works in which he directly proposes the recompense of a future state as the motive of morality; on the contrary, among the voluminous writings of Plato, there is scarcely a single treatise in which it is omitted.

understood in a limited sense only, and not as the basis of a philosophy, which above all others professed to have truth for its one and only object. It is not merely in his more plain and practical works that we find his recorded opinions respecting the existence of a future state; they are to be found in all his writings, whether moral, political, or physical: they intermingle with the most subtle discussions in works which never could have been intended for popular instruction: and it is difficult to understand by what application of the wellknown division of ancient philosophy into exoteric and esoteric, or by what theory of

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Appendix, note C.

P Vide Plato, edit. Bekker.

Phædo, pars ii. vol. iii. p. 106.
Apologia, pars i. vol. ii. p. 138.
Crito, pars i. vol. ii. p. 167.
Epist. 7. pars iii. vol. iii. p. 448.
Epist. 2. pars iii. vol. iii. p. 400.
Timæus, pars iii. vol. ii. p. 45.
Republic, pars iii. vol. i. pp. 502-516.
Gorgias, pars ii. vol. i. pp. 163. 164. 165.
De Legibus, pars iii. vol. iii. p. 219.
Epinomis, pars iii. vol. iii. p. 374.
9. Appendix, note D.

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a double sense, devised after Plato's own time, the same treatise, and the same portion of a treatise, could be adapted at once to instruct the philosopher and to delude the vulgar. If there were certain unwritten doctrines, which were a key to his real sentiments, they have not come down to us, and we have no means of estimating their value; and it is evident that we cannot decide against the actual import of what we know, on the supposed testimony of what is altogether unknown. But it will be said, the notion of a future state' is

Vid Brucker, vol. i. p. 660. Tennemann's Geschichte der Philosophie von Wendt. art. Plato, p. 98.

Warburton, acute as he is acknowledged to be, seems to write at times as if he confounded the three distinct ideas of esoteric treatises, unwritten doctrines, and a double sense to what is written.

s Warburton, book iii. sect. 3. Whately's Essays on the Peculiarities of Christianity, p. 30. Lancaster's Harmony of the Law and Gospel, p. 126. 141.

The doctrine of the absorption of the human soul is frequently imputed to Plato; but it does not appear from his own writings that he entertained the notion, nor indeed that of the Anima Mundi in the sense generally understood. He never confounds the soul of the universe with the one first Cause, Creator, and Father of all things, Plato's names for the supreme Deity are, ó Anusoupyòs, ó

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