Plato

Bom in the 1st year of the 88th Olympiad; died In the let year of the 108th, aged 81 years.

Plato, who from the sublimity of his doctrine js nsually styled the Dwme, was bom at Athens in the 88th Olympiads His fiunily was one of the most illustrious in Athens. On the side of his father, whose name was Aristo, he was descended from Codros; and on that of his mother, Pericfion^, from Solon. His own name was originally Aristocles; but hi^ tall and muscular figure, his ample forehead, and broad shoulders, procured him, as he approached to manhood, the surname of Plato, by which he was afterwards known.

It is related of him, that, whilst yet in the cradle, bees shed honey on his lips, which was loolied on as a presage of that wonderful eloquence by which he afterwards rendered himself distinguished above aU the rest of his countrymen. Poetry was the favourite study of his youth. He composed some elegies, and two tragedies; but as soon as he resolved to devote himself to philosophy, he condemned them all to the flames. When he was twenty years of age, his father presented him te So* crates, in order that his mind might be formed on the precepts of that philosopher. The night prior to the young man's introduction, Socrates dreamed that he carried a young swan in his bosom, which, as soon as it had gained its plumes, spread its wings, and pouring forth all the while the sweetest notes, with intrepid flight gained the highest regions.

Socrates felt persuaded that this dream referred to Plato, and rjsgarded it as a presage of the unbounded fiEune which his pupil was one day destined to enjoy.

During the life-time of Socrates, Plato adhered implicitly to his doctrmes; but after his death he attached himself to Cratylus, who followed the opinions of Heraditus, and to Hermogenes, who adopted those of Parmenides.

At the age of twenty-eight, Plato went with the rest of the disciples of Socrates to Megara, to study under Eudid. He went from that city to Agrenk, where he studied mathematics under Tbeodorus. He afterwards proceeded Into Italy to hear Philolaus, Archytas of Tarentum, andEuritius— the three most famous Pythagoreans of that time. Not contented, however, with what he learned from these celebrated teadiers, he travelled into Egypt, to profit by the instructions of the priests and doctors of Uiat country; and he had even intended to go as for as India, but was prevented by the wars which raged at that time in Asia.

On his return to Athens, after all his wanderings, he took up his residence in a part of the city called the Academy, — an unhealthy situation, which he purposely chose as likely to corr^t the plethoric excess of vigour which he at that time possessed.

The result proved ^ he had expected. He soon after his arrival contracted the quartan ag:ue, which remained with him for a year and a half; but he treated the disorder so judiciously, by abstinence and proper regimen, that he not only surmounted it, but found his health afterwards much stronger and more settled than it had been before.

Plato served, at three several periods, in the army. The first time at Tanagra, the second at Corinth, and the third at Delos; m which last expedition his party came off idctorious. He was also three times in Sicily. Hie first time he went out of curiosity^ to see Mount iEtna and its volcanoes, that he might form his own opinion respecting them. He was at that period forty years of age. Dionysius the elder, tyrant of Sicily, expressed a great desire to see him, and he accordingly presented himself at the court of that prince: but the freedom with which he delivered his sentiments respecting tyranny gave such offence that they would probably have cost' him his life, had not Dion and Aristomenes interceded for hun. Dionysius, however, put him into the hands of Polides, the Lacedemonian ambassador, with orders that he should be sold for a slave. The ambassador accordingly took him to Egina, and there sold him.

Hie inhabitants of that island had made a law, whereby all Athenians were prohibited from entering it, on psdn of death. Under cover of this law one Cliarmauder demanded that Plato should be put to death; but it being alleged by some who heard him, that the law particularized men, and not philosophers, it was decreed that Plato should be allowed the benefit of the distinction, and they therefore contented themselves with his being sold as a slave. Happily for him, Annicaris of Cyren^ being then at Kgina, bought him for twenty minse, and sent him back to Athens, in order to restore him to his friends. Polides the Lacedaemonian, who had sold him in the first instance, was defeated by Chabrias, and afterwards perished at sea: it is pretended that a demon declaoiid to him, that this fate was allotted to him as a punishment for the sufferings he had caused the philosopher Plato.

Dionysius the elder, knowing that Plato had returned to Athens, and fearing that he might revenge himself by speaking against him, wrote to him with his own hand, and even condescended to ask his pardon. Plato answered him, that he might make himself perfectly easy on that head, for that he was too much engrossed in the study of philosophy to have any time to think about him. Some of his enemies taunting him after this with being forsaken by Dionysius; '' It is Plato," replied he, " who has forsaken Dionysius; not Dionysius who has forsaken Plato."

In the reign of Dionysius the younger, Plato went a second time to Sicily, in the hope of being able to persuade that tyrant to restore liberty to his feUow-citizens, or at any rate to rule over them with gentleness; but finding, after a stay of four months, that the tyrant, so far from profiting by his lessons, had banished Dion, and was walking in the same path of despotism that his father had trodden before him, he returned to Athens, notwithstanding the earnest entreaties of Dionysius, who had much regard for him, and did every thing in his power to induce him to prolong his stay.

A third time Plato was tempted to visit Sicily, in order to intercede with the tyrant for the return of Dion, and to intreat him to relinquish the sovereign power. Dionysius promised to accede to lus request, but broke his word; and Plato reproached him so warmly with it, that his own life might have been forfeited to his sincerity, had not Architas of 'iVirentum sent out an ambassador with a vessel, expressly to require his return; to which Dionysius not only acceded, but furnished the vessel with all the stores necessary for the voyage.

Plato now withdrew himself entirely to Athens, resolved never more to leave it. He was received there with extraordinary marks of respect, but though strongly pressed to take a part in the government, he refused, from a conviction that no salutary measures coidd be carried into effect amid the genera] depravity of manners which at that time prevaUed. Nothing, however, can more strongly mark the high esteem in which he was held throughout Greece, than what happened to him at the Olympic games. He was received as a god descended from the skies, and all the different nations of Greece, notwithstanding their avidity for spectacle, and notwithstanding the magnificence of the Olympic games, which had attracted them from every quarter, left the chariot-races and the combats of the Athlets, solely engrossed by the pleasure of listening to a man of wliom they had heard so n^any astonishing reports.

Plato passed his life in celibacy, and rigidly ob« served the rules of continence and decorum. Even in his youth, such was his. command over himself, that he was never seen to laugh immoderately; and he always retained so complete a mastery over his passions, that he was never known to be angry. A young man who had been educated by him, returning home afterwards to his parents, was so greatly surprised one day at seeing his farther in a fit of rage, that he could not help telling him he had never witnessed any thing of the kind in the house of Plato. The only time that Plato ever found himself irritated, was against a slave who had been guilty of a very serious fault; and on that occaskiU he ordered that another person should correct him; ''for I," S£dd he, ''am not fit to do it myself; bdng somewhat angry." Though naturally of a serious and contemplative turn of mind, as Aristotle informs us, he yet possessed great mildness, and even cheerfulness^ and was fond of indulging in innocent railleries. He would sometimes advise Xenocrates and Dion,, whose dispositions he thought too austere, to «acri/ice to the Graces, in order to render their manners more conciliating.

He had many disciples; among wbom the most renowned were Spensippus, his nephew, by Potona his sister, who had married Eurimedon; Xenocrates of Chalcedon, and the celebrated Aristotle. Theophrastus has also been reckoned among his auditors. Demosthenes, likewise, is said to have always acknowledged Plato as his master: when he had taken sanctuary from Antipater^ Archian being sent by that governor to seize him, promised him his life if he would quit his place of refuge. ** Heaven forbid," replied Demosthenes, ** that after hearing Plato and Xenocrates discourse on the immortality of the soul, I should ever prefer an ignominious life to an honourable death!"

Two women have liltewise been mentioned as disciples of Plato. One of them was Lasthema of Mantinea, and the other was Axiothea of Phlysia; both of whom uned to wear the habit of males, as being more suitable to the character of philosophers, which they professed themselves to be.

So highly did Plato estimate geometry, and so necessary did he deem it in philosophy, that he had this inscription written over the vestibule of the academy — " Let no one enter here, who is not skilled in geometry." All the works of Plato, excepting his letters, of which only twelve remain to us, are composed in the form of dialogues, lliese dialogues may be divided into three kinds: in the first he refutes the Sophists, in the second he chiefly aims at the instruction of youth, and in the third he addresses himself to those of mature age. There is yet another distinction in these dialogues. — All that Plato remarks in his own character, in his letters, his books concerning laws, and in his Epinomis, he utters as his own peculiar and real opinions; but all that he delivers in his other dialogues, under assumed names, as those of Socrates, Thnsus, Parmenides, or Zeno, he gives only aa probable, without expressly warranting it as truth. The sentiments which are put into the mouth of Socrates, however, in these dialogues, though exactly in the style and method which he followed in his disputations, are not to be invariably regarded as the real sentiments of that philosopher; for he himself, on reading the dialogue entitled^ ** Lysis" — On Friendship, could not refrun from charging Plato with misrepresentation in it, by exclaiming, ** Immortal godis! this young man puts things into my mouth which never so much as entered my head."

The style of Plato, according to the testimony of his disciple Aristotle, preserved a proper medium between the elevation of poetry and the simplicity of prose. To Cicero it seemed so noble, that he makes no scruple of declaring, that were Jupiter to converse in the language of mortals, he would use ho other phraseology than that of Plato. Panoetius used to style him the Homer of philosophers, agreeing in so doing with the judgment passed upon him afterwards by Quintilian, who, speaking of his eloquence, terms it Homeric and divine.

From the opinions of three other philosophers, Plato formed a system of doctrine for himself. In physics and sensible objects he followed Heraditus; in metaphysics and subjects of a purely intellectual nature, he suffered himself to be guided by Pythagoras; in politics and morals, he regarded Socrates as superior to all others, and took him for his exclusive model. According to the account given by Plutarch, in the third chapter of his first book <' On the Opinions of the Philosophers," Plato acknowledged three first principles, — God, Matter, Idea. God, as the Universal Intelligence: Matter, as the source or foundation of generation and corruption;

wid Idea, as aa incorporeal substance resident in the Divine mind. He acknowledged the world, indeed, to be the work of a God, or Creator; but he did not, by the term creation, mean what is generally understood by the word. He supposed that God had only formed, or built, if we may so express it, the world out of matter which had existed from all eternity; so that he was in fact the Creator of the world, only so far as he had broken up a chaotic mass, and given form to what was before dead inactive matter; as architects and masons raise edifices by cutting and arranging stones which before lay in shapeless masses.

It has been generally supposed that Plato had some knowledge of the true God; either from the light of his own reason, or from the instruction he might have derived from the writings of the Hebrews. But it must at the same time be allowed that he was among those of whom St. Paul speaks, when he says,

" Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened."— Rom. c. i. v. 21.

Plato in fiact established, in his '* Epinomis," three ranks or classes of gods; superior, inferior, and intermediate. According to him, the superior gods dwell in the heavens, and are so far elevated above the human race, both by the excellence of their nature, and by the place they inhabit, that mankind can only have intercourse with them through the intervention of the intermediate gods, whose habitations are in the air, and whom he styles demons. These demons act as ministers betweeif the superior gods and the human race; oonyeying the commands of the gods to man, and the prayers and offerings of man to the gods. Each has his peculiar department allotted to him in the government of the world. They likewise preside over oracles and divinations, and by their agency all miracles are performed, and all prodigies happen. Plato's notions respecting the secondary, or intermediate gods, were in all likelihood borrowed from the accounts of angels in Holy Writ, of which it is probable he had some knowledge. Besides these, he admits a third class of gods. Inferior to the second, and whom he places in rivers; contenting himself with qualifying them as demi-gods, and giving them the power of influencing dreams, and performing wonders, in the same way as the intermediate gods. He even maintained that the elements, and every portion of the universe, are full of these demi-gods, who, according to him, sometimes made themselves visible to human beings, and then again vanished from sight. Here, then, we probably have the original storehouse whence all the sylphs, salamanders, spirits, and gnomes of the Cabala, have since issued.

Plato moreover taught the doctrine of Metempsychosis, which he had adopted from Pythagoras, and remodelled afterwards according to his own view of the subject; as may be seen in his dialogues entitled " PhaBdrus," " Pliaedon," " Timeas," &c. — Notwithstanding the excellence of Plato's Dialogue on the Immortality of the Soul, he has nevertheless fallen into great errors on the subject^ both with respect to the nature of the soul, which he believed to be composed of two parts, one spiritual, the other corporeal, and with respect to its origin J teaching that souls were pre-existent, and that they were derived from heaven to animate di£ferent bodies in succession; and that after a limited period they would return to the source whence they came, and whence they would again emanate, in order again to inform and direct different bodies: thus presenting a continual rotation of defilement and purification, and returns to heaven from earth, and to earth from heaven. Plato ^further believed that these souls did not entirely forget what they had experienced in the difierent bodies vi^ich they had animated; he, therefore, imagined that the Icnowledge they acquire is rather reminiscence of what they had learned, than any knowledge new in itself; and on this pretended reminiscence he founded his dogma of the preexlstent state of souls.

Without, however, entering into a more minute examination of the opinions of this philosopher, which, even according to his own explanation of them, are sufficiently obscure, it may suffice to observe that his doctrines on many points evinced so much novelty and sublimity, that during his lifetime they gained him the epithet of Divine, and caused him to be regarded almost as a god afler his death; an event which toolc place on the same day as his birth, in the 1st year of the 108th Olympiady in the eighty-first year of his age.

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